Kenya Power Adopts IBM Real Time Data Solutions to help improve its business performance
In a move aimed at trying to bring down the cost of electricity in Kenya and also enhance the cost of doing business, Kenya Power has partnered with IBM to enable the power distribution company implement its strategic expansions plans.
In this new partnership, Kenya Power will now be using IBM’s automated system to provide a real time status for all business processes.
This new system will consolidate data from ten key operational sources to provide a single view of enterprise data. It will use advanced IBM analytics to enable Kenya Power to study and compare real time and historical data to better monitor business operations and trends, and also anticipate future electrical needs.
Kenya Power teams can now access data on demand on one dashboard compared to 10 different dashboards.
The real-time analytics can be accessed through cloud computing, allowing executives working remotely to use mobile devices to view data pooled from all corners of the company. This will in the end provide unparalleled insight into the electricity company’s operations, and allow instant decision making to help improve business performance.
Speaking during this announcement, Ben Chumo, Chief Executive Officer of Kenya Power said this new analytics solution will give Kenya Power the ability to rapidly perform complex queries on data.
“For example, we can better understand the varying needs of our customers across different regions in Kenya based on customer buying behavior or manage the power grids more efficiently in specific areas during certain times of the day.” He said
Nik Nesbitt, General Manager, IBM East Africa said Efficient energy distribution is a key component to the continued growth of Kenyas’ economy. He said that Technology has the unique ability to help companies like Kenya Power leverage big data to gain deeper insights of their customers and power grids.
“IBM is continuously extending its capabilities to enable businesses in this region and across Africa, with tools to intelligently instrument and innovate their processes in order to help them work smarter.” He added.
The IBM solution provides a central repository for various data sources and the analytic capabilities reconcile, correct, and quality-assess the information to provide a consolidated view of Kenya Power’s customers and IBM says the Kenya Power will now be able to improve the call center experience, better identify customer needs and match new services to meet these needs.
Together with its Business Partner the Symphony Group, IBM has developed a complete solution for Kenya Power that includes: hardware (System z BC-12 server, DS8870 storage, PureData for Analytics), software (zOS, DB2, Tivoli, Cognos, InfoSphere and SPSS) as well as IBM services and training.
