Archives posted in: Energy & Utilities

Adventures in Technology for Utilities: Metering Billing CRM/CIS Americas

By Tim J. Smith, PhD May 14, 2003

At the Spintelligent Metering, Billing, CRM/CIS Americas conference held in Chicago, IL during May 2003, over 450 registered attendees were treated to…

New Markets for Data Capture and Management Created in Green Buildings

By Tim J. Smith, PhD May 14, 2003

Building energy efficient buildings has been a pursuit of many ecology minded activist and architects, but economics has driven the market towards…

Automated Meter Reading with Manual Intervention Creates Value

By Tim J. Smith, PhD May 14, 2003

The electric meter is the cash register of a power utility company. For the consumer of electricity, it is also the source…

Why Is Adoption of AMR and Modern CIS Going So Slowly?

By Tim J. Smith, PhD May 14, 2003

The business case for AMR, automated meter reading is solid. Though expensive to install, AMR systems lower operational costs of utilities and…

Is It Time for Prepaid Gas and Electricity in the States?

By Tim J. Smith, PhD May 14, 2003

Pre-paid metering and billing for gas and electricity is common in developing nations. South Africa boasts that it is the pre-paid capital…

Are CIS Vendors Missing a Market?

By Tim J. Smith, PhD May 14, 2003

CIS, the customer information systems of utilities, merge meter reads, rates, customer data, accounting information, and service levels to produce bills. The…

Best Practices: SmartSynch’s Partnership

By Tim J. Smith, PhD March 19, 2003

There are many go-to-market strategies for new technologies. Firms can build their own sales and marketing team and go-direct, take a licensing…

SmartSynch’s Partnership Process

By Tim J. Smith, PhD March 19, 2003

While partnerships may be economically efficient, many small technology-driven companies have difficulties establishing them. SmartSynch, with 18 major utility clients, is much…

Expanding Markets: Mathew Miller of OSIsoft

By Tim J. Smith, PhD July 25, 2002

There are four basic growth strategies for firms to increase their revenues. These are penetration, geographic, horizontal, and vertical. Each growth strategy…

Channel Conflict of Interest

By Tim J. Smith, PhD July 17, 2002

Getting new ideas to market proves a challenge for any enterprise. Determining the correct target, value proposition, and story to tell customers…