Echelon Corporation (NASDAQ:ELON) and Convergys Corporation (NYSE:CVG), a global leader in relationship management, today announced a collaboration to develop integrated smart grid solutions based on Convergys' highly scalable Smart CIS Solution and Echelon's Networked Energy Services (NES) System, a leading advanced metering infrastructure solution. The software will be used to support next generation utility billing and customer energy management applications.
Convergys and Echelon are joining to provide an integrated metering, rating, billing, and customer care system that enables customers to easily harvest data from the Echelon NES platform and pass that data in real time to the Convergys Smart CIS solution, creating an ecosystem that turns data into real-time actionable intelligence, through which utilities can improve customer control and interaction.
By joining Convergys' real-time, smart grid billing and customer care solution (CIS) with Echelon's NES System, the partners plan to evolve standard "meter-to-cash" solutions to a "customer-to-cash" solution, enabling utilities to proactively apply the data generated from billions of meter reads per month to customer interactions to drive an improved customer experience and strong customer adoption.
"Convergys is dedicated to helping our clients make smarter decisions, enhance their relationships with their customers, and improve their business performance," said Bob Lento, president, Information Management, Convergys Corporation. "We believe that by collaborating with Echelon through its NES System, we can help improve the relationship between utilities and their customers by providing real-time energy usage information and a more integrated customer experience."
"Today, utilities and customers are unable to fully leverage the real-time, two-way digital capabilities enabled by the smart grid," said Michael Anderson, Echelon's senior vice president of NES sales and market development. "With this seamless customer-to-cash solution built for real time interaction, customers will have more control over their energy usage, enabling them to save money and be more environmentally conscious."
Convergys Corporation provides innovative next generation billing and customer care solutions to support the rapid advancement of smart grid technology. Combined with over 30 years of experience and expertise in helping multi-national corporations through transformative network changes, Convergys Smart CIS Solutions minimize risk while delivering market-leading innovation.
About Echelon's NES System
The NES advanced metering infrastructure consists of a family of highly integrated, advanced electronic electricity meters accessed via a Web services based network operating system over an IP networking infrastructure. Much more than a simple AMI system focused on billing related services, the NES System provides utilities with a wealth of information about the status, operation and health of the grid that helps them to reduce operating costs while increasing service quality.
For more information regarding Echelon's NES System visit www.echelon.com/nes.
About Convergys
Convergys Corporation (NYSE:CVG) is a global leader in relationship management. We provide solutions that drive more value from the relationships our clients have with their customers. Convergys turns these everyday interactions into a source of profit and strategic advantage for our clients.
For more than 30 years, our unique combination of domain expertise, operational excellence, and innovative technologies has delivered process improvement and actionable business insight to marquee clients all over the world.
Convergys has approximately 70,000 employees in 74 customer contact centers and other facilities in the United States, Canada, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, and our global headquarters in Cincinnati, Ohio. For more information, visit www.convergys.com.
About Echelon Corporation
Echelon Corporation (NASDAQ:ELON) is leading the worldwide transformation of the electricity grid into a smart, communicating energy network, connecting utilities to their customers, enabling networking of everyday devices, and providing customers with energy aware homes and businesses that react to conditions on the grid.
Echelon's NES System – the backbone for the smart grid – is used by utilities to replace existing stand-alone electricity meters with a network infrastructure that is open, inexpensive, reliable, and proven. The NES System helps utilities compete more effectively, reduce operating costs, provide expanded services and help energy users manage and reduce overall energy use. Echelon's LonWorks® Infrastructure products extend the smart grid, powering tens of millions of energy aware, everyday devices made by thousands of companies – connecting them to each other, to the electricity grid and to the Internet. LonWorks based products work together to monitor and save energy; lower costs; improve productivity; and enhance service, quality, safety, and convenience in utility, municipal, building, industrial, transportation, and home area networks.
More information about Echelon can be found at http://www.echelon.com.
Echelon and the Echelon logo are registered trademarks of Echelon Corporation registered in the United States and other countries. Other product or service names mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners.
Convergys and the Convergys logo are registered trademarks of Convergys Corporation.
This press release may contain statements relating to future plans, events or performance. Such statements may involve risks and uncertainties, including risks associated with uncertainties pertaining to the timing and level of customer orders, demand for products and services, and development of markets for Echelon's NES System; risks associated with market acceptance of the NES System; risks associated with the ability of the NES System and NES meters to perform as designed; and other risks identified in Echelon's SEC filings. Actual results, events and performance may differ materially. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof. Echelon undertakes no obligation to release publicly the result of any revisions to these forward-looking statements that may be made to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.
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Contacts:
Echelon Corporation
Julia O'Shaughnessy, 408-938-5357
julia@echelon.com
or
Atomic
Public Relations
Allyson Stinchfield, 415-402-0230
allyson@atomicpr.com
or
Convergys
John
Pratt, 513-723-3333
john.pratt@convergys.com
