SSE, a leading electricity and gas company operating mainly in the UK and Ireland, has selected Accenture (NYSE: ACN) to help it with two significant projects to improve its customer offer and field force effectiveness.

SSE's Retail Transformation Program focuses on improving the company's retail business and meeting a government mandate to roll out more than nine million smart meters by 2019. Under this program, Accenture was awarded multi-year, multi-million dollar contracts to work with the energy company to implement an Oracle-based customer campaign management solution for its Domestic Customer project (DC), and an Oracle-based field force productivity solution for its Metering Transformation Project (MTP).

On the DC project, using Accenture Energy Consumer Services, Accenture will be implementing Oracle's Siebel, OBIEE and Fusion applications, which are intended to help SSE's sales and marketing team through targeted campaigns, more effective customer segmentation, and more accurate measurement.

On the MTP project, through Accenture Smart Grid Services, Accenture will help SSE equip its field force with an Oracle Mobile Workforce Management scheduling and mobility solution that will provide meter readers and meter operatives with access to real-time information, as well as the ability to electronically send meter data.

One of the primary benefits of implementing smart metering technology is the large increase in data volume relative to traditional metering. In response to SSE's need to manage this data and convert it into actionable business intelligence, Accenture has already successfully rolled out a meter data management system (MDMS), which will provide the company with a solution for storing, validating, aggregating and processing large volumes of data to support billing, settlements and other reporting and reconciliation obligations.

"SSE is committed to providing effective, tailored solutions for its customers, and the smart meter rollout, in particular, presents a new and unique opportunity to do that," said Colin Sempill, director of Strategy and Transformation at SSE. "We look forward to working with Accenture to drive improvements across our retail business."

"Accenture is helping SSE deliver to all of its stakeholders a bolder, broader and smarter energy company," said Oscar van den Berg, managing director in Accenture's Utilities industry group. "Ensuring that SSE meets the government's smart meter mandate is a top priority for Accenture."

About Accenture

Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, with approximately 261,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries. Combining unparalleled experience, comprehensive capabilities across all industries and business functions, and extensive research on the world's most successful companies, Accenture collaborates with clients to help them become high-performance businesses and governments. The company generated net revenues of US$27.9 billion for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2012. Its home page is www.accenture.com.

About Accenture Energy Consumer Services

Accenture Energy Consumer Services provides customer care solutions for competitive and regulated energy providers globally. We help our clients to develop and implement full value-chain solutions that achieve three key business imperatives: cost effectiveness, revenue assurance and customer satisfaction. Through new energy customer transformation, next generation customer solutions, transformational outsourcing and asset-powered services, we bring world-class industry-specific management consulting, technology and business process customer- care capabilities to our electricity, gas and water clients.

About Accenture Smart Grid Services

Accenture Smart Grid Services focuses on delivering innovative business solutions supporting the modernization of electric, gas and water network infrastructures to improve capital efficiency and effectiveness, increase crew safety and productivity, optimize the operations of the grid and achieve the full value from AMI data and capabilities. It includes four offering areas which cover consulting, technology and managed solutions: Work, Field Resource Management; Transmission & Distribution Asset Management; Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI), and Grid Operations.

About SSE plc

SSE plc is one of the UK's leading energy companies, involved in the generation, distribution and supply of electricity and in the extraction, storage, distribution and supply of gas. Its core purpose is to provide the energy people need in a reliable and sustainable way. It supplies energy to around 9 million energy and home services customers throughout Great Britain and Ireland, is frequently ranked number one for customer service by uSwitch and is the UK's leading generator of electricity from renewable sources.

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