Scottish Power uses Informatica for major migration

SOX, Six Sigma and service all key drivers

Scottish Power has chosen software from Informatica to help it with a major migration aimed at better serving its industrial and commercial customers.

The utility is using Informatica PowerCenter Advanced Edition as it moves from six mainframe-based billing systems to a single platform, based on technology from Hansen Technologies.

Derek Johnston, IT director for the UK division at Scottish Power, told silicon.com: "At the moment, to some extent, what we have is fragmented but [the migration] will allow us to transform sales, servicing and billing."

Scottish Power supplies electricity and gas, in the US as well as the UK, and Johnston said some of the currently mixed environment is because of growth by acquisition.

The company seeks to run its systems in line with Six Sigma quality management methodology and because of a listing on the New York Stock Exchange, compliance with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) is also important.

Johnston added: "In the past we used custom hand-coding for migrations but now, especially because of SOX, we need greater transparency and this is another reason for going down the product route."

Dave Berry, Informatica senior VP EMEA, said in a statement: "Our partnership will help Scottish Power to achieve better visibility of customer data at the heart of its business."

Scottish Power's main provider of IT services is SAIC, with whom it has an outsourcing relationship and consulted for its current migration.

No value for the deal has been disclosed. The migration has about one more year to run.