BC Hydro

Electric Power Giant Cuts Paper Costs and Makes Conservation Efforts More Accessible with Single Sign-On Solution from Sun

One of the largest electric utilities in Canada, BC Hydro serves more than 1.7 million customers in British Columbia, an area twice the size of California. As a provincial Crown corporation, BC Hydro is owned by the government and reports to the Minister of Energy and Mines.

Customer Challenges

Make it easier and simpler to navigate Web site for customers, increasing utilization of customer-facing applications
Reduce cost of paper with single sign-on for billing transactions
Ease cost burden on call center with Web self-service applications
Make energy conservation efforts more effective

Solution

BC Hydro streamlined its Web site and made it easier for customers to navigate from application to application by using a single sign-on solution consisting of access management and enterprise directory software from Sun. The Sun solution is scalable and fail-proof, and has increased Web site utilization rates and reduced process costs.

Business Results

30% increase over past two years in utilization of Web-based applications by enabling customers to navigate with ease
4% reduction in the cost of paper for billing processes
Increased effectiveness of conservation efforts through increased access to educational Web content
Decreased call center costs through Web-based customer self-service usage
Faster development of new Web applications

Products and Services

Story Details

Wanting to increase efficiency in both its business processes and its customers’ energy consumption, BC Hydro had developed Web-based applications to streamline self-service tools and educate consumers. But it was losing the benefits that efficiency brings on both fronts. Its 15 customer-facing applications had been developed with customer access technologies that required customers to log in separately to each application.

In an ideal scenario, the applications would have been reducing the cost of paper in billing operations, lowering call center costs and effectively reducing energy consumption to help customers save money and help the environment. But results were slow to materialize because the cumbersome method of accessing multiple applications discouraged usage and created a drag on efficiency.

Single Sign-On Zaps the Problem
BC Hydro put out a request for proposal for a single sign-on solution that would enable its customers to sign on once to be able to access all of its efficiency-boosting Web offerings. Sun, Netegrity and Oblix responded. Sun offered a solution that included Sun OpenSSO Enterprise and Sun Java System Directory Server.

BC Hydro chose Sun for several reasons. Neither of the other two vendors could offer a combined, single-vendor solution for Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) directory, access management and the Web interface APIs to build upon—the keys to single sign-on. BC Hydro had also been developing a sense of trust in Sun over the course of a long-term relationship that was based on Sun’s ability to provide trouble-free hardware and software. In addition, the Sun team did a quick proof of concept that impressed the company.

The Sun software runs on Sun Fire 280R servers powered by the Solaris 8 Operating System. The Sun Java System Directory server provides profile information on all users and Sun OpenSSO Enterprise authenticates the customer using the stored profile information and authorizes access.

Applications on different servers in BC Hydro’s heterogeneous environment are now seamlessly integrated for customers, who are enjoying a rewarding and educational Web experience. Visiting 30 percent more Web pages per session than previously, customers are driving down call center costs and helping the company save 4 percent in the cost of paper. As a bonus, new application development is quicker than it was previously, because authentication and authorization code has already been built in to the underlying infrastructure.

BC Hydro can congratulate itself on making life easier and more livable for the 250,000 customers it has reached with its single sign-on solution. Hoping to grow the user population by 20 percent year over year, the company looks forward to future engagements with Sun as an efficiency enabler, not just another vendor.