The California drought has made the apps especially valuable for water companies looking to give customers information about emergency regulations and conservation incentives, she said.
Calls to a utility call center can cost a company as much as $8 or $9 each, and handling in-person bill payments can cost as much as $14 per customer, she said. Spencer said letting customers access information and make payments over the apps can quickly save utilities money. "You don't want to look at yourself as a customer, or a utility connecting to your customer, with 10 different apps or 10 different platforms." "I don't want them to have 10 different platforms to connect with each other," said Garg. Having common app designs helps keep the apps cost-effective and streamlined, he said. Some of SUS's customers include the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, Glendale Water and Power, Pacific Gas and Electric and Southern California Edison, Garg said. is the same."Ī third SUS platform, called Smart IQ, delivers real-time analytics capabilities to utilities, letting them track usage and potentially detect leaks and other waste in real time. "To us, giving that platform to any other utility out there is easy," he said, arguing the challenge is comparable to expanding other cloud offerings, like social networks, across markets.
#SMART UTILITY SYSTEMS IRVINE SOFTWARE#
"Our core team, our DNA, is made of people who come from utilities," said SUS marketing director Lisbeth Spencer.Īnd software tools like SUS's Smart Mobile Workforce app, which lets utility workers digitally access work orders, communicate with coworkers and fill out timesheets and other forms, and its Smart Customer Mobile, which lets customers pay their bills, track outrages and service requests and monitor their usage, can be easily adapted to work for different utilities' requirements and for electric, gas or water service, Garg said. Many of the company's top executives come from the utility sector, meaning they have a sense of what new app features would be most valuable to help clients communicate with their own customers and with workers in the field.
SUS opened a new 35,000-square-foot office in Irvine, Calif., last month, launched a Water and Energy Resource Innovation Center in Silicon Valley last fall and maintains an office in India outside New Delhi. It already has more than 300 employees, a number that roughly tripled during 2015, Garg said. SUS, which builds cloud-connected Web and smartphone apps for water, gas and electric utilities, has more than 100 utilities as customers.
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