Berkshire, England September 19, 2001 International energy and water company Nuon has chosen Blue Martini external customer relationship management (eCRM) applications to power their new e-business and portal initiatives. The initiatives are aimed at enabling business and residential energy and water consumers to choose and manage their suppliers online.
Nuon will deploy Blue Martini eCRM applications to set up portals that will enable residential and business customers to communicate and transact over the Web. This will lower Nuon's total cost of operations and service, ultimately enabling them to deliver lower energy and water costs as well as more choice and more flexibility for customers. Nuon will also use Blue Martini applications to help analyze and better understand customer and market needs, in order to ensure the company drives new customer-acquisition and customer-retention initiatives.
"We have selected Blue Martini Software as the enterprise-wide eCRM platform with which we intend to improve customer service, increase market share, boost profitability, enter new markets and consolidate our position as one of the largest utility companies in Europe," said Hans von Burg, CEO Nuon Valley (e-Business Unit of Nuon). "In a liberalizing energy market, Nuon needs to target, acquire and retain business, consumer and government customers. Blue Martini Software is a demonstrable leader in enabling companies to drive the rich, personalized, on-line relationships that are required for this initiative to be successful."
"As the international utilities markets become deregulated it is clear that suppliers can only establish a strong competitive advantage, improve customer services, increase revenues and reduce operating costs with an effective e-business strategy," said Monte Zweben, president and CEO of Blue Martini Software.
The first phase of the portal is already operational with functionality that enables business customers to reduce their energy costs. Customers can analyze their energy usage in real time, compare their energy costs with their industry averages and make informed decisions to cut energy costs. To achieve this, Blue Martini Software is integrated with Nuon's SAP ERP systems to make real-time energy consumption data available to the customer. Planned developments will enable Nuon to increase customer loyalty and to win new customers. These include online transactions, multichannel marketing campaigns, e-procurement systems integration and the cross-selling of additional products and services.
