IBM Contract: IBM Signs $29 Million Contract To Streamline Finance, Supply Chain And Work Management Operations For Major Energy Provider

IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced that it has signed a 2.5-year, $29 million consulting contract to streamline Southern Company's financial, supply chain, and work management operations. This enterprise solution will provide Southern Company with on-demand data and information to enhance service to their customers, by improving operations, enabling proactive maintenance, and contributing to fewer and shorter outages. To deliver these benefits to their customer base, Southern Company has engaged IBM to deploy Oracle Financials and Maximo Work Management and Supply Chain solutions from MRO Software, an IBM company.

For the deployment, IBM has tapped its wide range of energy industry business consultants and technology experts to provide overall project management, business process management, change management and system integration services. IBM Global Business Services will partner with Southern Company to implement standardized business processes and software across all of Southern Company's business units, which will enable the energy provider to monitor the activity and status of assets more effectively, schedule their workforce for repairs more efficiently and, as a result, respond to customer calls more quickly.

"Through this project, Southern Company will be able to manage our operating companies and business units with a single, shared technology platform," said Becky Blalock, Southern Company senior vice president and chief information officer. "IBM has conceived an innovative yet practical solution for the integration of the software which will streamline our procure-to-pay process. We look forward to working with IBM, especially since the company's acquisition of MRO Software offers us even deeper expertise in the area of enterprise asset management."

The project will include a combination of Maximo modules -- including Sourcing, Contracts, Materials Accounting, Warehousing, Inventory Management, and Work Order Management -- and will work in parallel with the implementation of Oracle Financials which will streamline financial controls and reporting. This comprehensive effort has been tailored by IBM to insure a seamless system is in place from work and supply chain management through to asset tracking, order fulfillment and financial reporting.

"IBM has seen a growing convergence of business and IT assets amongst energy companies," said Bob Vallee, IBM Global Business Services leader for the Americas Energy & Utilities Industry. "This is part of the movement toward an Intelligent Utility Network, where utilities are able to view and respond to the health and status of their entire network, in real-time. We're thrilled to be working with Southern Company on this initiative, which will help them optimize and transform their business."

The technology will be implemented across Southern Company's subsidiaries including Alabama Power, Georgia Power, Gulf Power, Mississippi Power, Southern Power and Southern Nuclear.

For more information about IBM, please visit www.ibm.com/energyandutilities