Richmond, B.C., July 30, 2003 - MDSI Mobile Data Solutions Inc. has signed a contract with Yorkshire Water of the United Kingdom, one of the 10 largest water utilities in the world, to upgrade their MDSI workforce management solution to the latest Advantex r7 solution.
The upgrade to Advantex r7 will ensure that Yorkshire Water continues to deliver significant business benefits though the efficient workforce management of approximately 500 mobile workers engaged in clean and waste water management throughout the Yorkshire area.
The contract comes approximately a month after Yorkshire Water won the Gartner Group's 2003 CRM Excellence Award in Europe, Middle East and Africa. Gartner's award recognizes the company that most clearly demonstrated excellence in its CRM initiatives. Yorkshire Water's award-winning solution is comprised of MDSI's Advantex r5 mobile workforce management solution integrated with customer care and work management systems.
During the 1990s, Yorkshire Water was facing tough price reviews, the threat of imminent competition, increasing customer expectations and to make matters worse, a UK-wide drought in 1995 that drove customer perception of the company to an all-time low. Consequently, Yorkshire Water committed themselves to turn the situation around to become known as the best water company in the United Kingdom. Clearly the plan is working.
According to Paul Wilson, of Yorkshire Water's IT Department, "We get two million calls from customers every year, and that translates into one million work orders. We needed an integrated solution that could record all that data, allow us to make firm customer commitments, track progress to make sure we keep the commitments, log all the details of the work we complete, then allow us to close the loop with the customer. Our three key objectives were to enhance customer service delivery, improve our operational performance and meet all of our stringent compliance requirements. Without any hesitation, I can say that we have succeeded."
Today, Yorkshire Water meets 98 percent of their customer appointments within a two-hour time band, and 85 percent of their emergency jobs are attended to within the same time frame. The company has also seen call volumes diminish, fewer repeat customer calls, and more calls being successfully closed the first time.
With Advantex, Yorkshire Water will optimally schedule and wirelessly dispatch field work to mobile crews, so that each job is completed by the right person at the right time and field workers and dispatchers always have the latest information. Yorkshire Water's implementation will operate over a GSM network with Panasonic Toughbooks, and will integrate with a variety of enterprise systems, including those supplied by SAP and Clarify.
About MDSI
MDSI is a provider of mobile workforce management software. MDSI's software improves customer service and relationships and reduces operating costs by allowing companies to manage field resources more effectively. Headquartered in Richmond, BC, Canada, MDSI was founded in 1993 and has approximately 350 employees. The company has operations and support offices in the United States, Canada, Europe and Australia. MDSI services approximately 100 customers and has licensed more than 80,000 field service users around the world. MDSI is a public company traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange (MMD) and on NASDAQ (MDSI). www.mdsi-advantex.com.
