De Watergroep goes live with fully integrated UMAX solution

Deurle, Belgium, 15 June 2015 – De Watergroep’s goal of further expansion as the leading integrated water company in Flanders was the impetus for its current Neptune program, which includes the successful rollout last week of a new ERP platform (Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3) and the upgrade to Itineris’ UMAX “private cloud” integrated utilities solution. The new fully-integrated ERP/CIS solution and updated business processes will deliver seamlessly integrated processes across De Watergroep’s operations.

The new UMAX/AX centralized system, with more than 500 end users, allows De Watergroep to further automate and streamline processes across the organization and efficiently manage customer care, billing, collections, accounting, and work assignments in service for 2.9 million citizens. Itineris will continue as an active solution partner to De Watergroep in the years ahead, working closely with the water utility and investing in this flexible solution to support future challenges and needs arising in the water industry.

Bert De Winter, head of
De Watergroep’s computer science department, noted, “What makes us unique is that our ERP system and CIS are one fully integrated system, so we have all processes end-to-end integrated and optimized. The resulting technological advantage is a strong asset that we continually develop and valorize. With this, we have established the foundation for our IT system for the years ahead. This allows us to tackle the challenges of the future, bring our company closer to our customers and quickly respond to new changes in the market such as mobile applications.”

During a period of intensive collaboration between Itineris and De Watergroep, the water utility’s business processes were aligned with the MS Dynamics AX and the UMAX utilities suite. After successful functional testing, user training, technical upgrade of the systems and migration of data, the new system went live on Monday,
8 June 2015. De Watergroep’s business processes are now fully supported and implemented within the new system, resulting in better and faster service to
De Watergroep’s customers, suppliers and third parties.

The operational enhancements De Watergroep is now enjoying are due in large part to the seamless integration between the UMAX CIS and Microsoft’s Dynamics AX ERP platform, the result of a close partnership between Microsoft and Itineris in the utility space. Furthermore, because UMAX leverages Microsoft’s investments in cloud technology, De Watergroep will also enjoy the flexibility and security of a “private cloud” IT environment, resulting in efficiencies and cost savings.

Chandru Shankar, Microsoft EMEA industry director, is glad to see De Watergroep extend their usage of Microsoft Dynamics based on their positive experience with Dynamics AX 2009 supporting their CIS processes. This has resulted in De Watergroep selecting Dynamics AX 2012 R3 as their ERP platform of choice for 500+ AX users. “First and foremost, I am excited to learn of De Watergroep benefiting from the usage of our solution. Customer satisfaction is at the very core of everything we do at Microsoft. We are pleased that De Watergroep puts their trust in our solutions to support their business operations, and we will continue to build on the partnership.”

“De Watergroep has been a valued UMAX customer since 2008 and we are excited to be part of its technology future, along with our valued partner Microsoft,” commented Itineris CEO Edgard Vermeersch, “It’s an innovative water utility, whose leaders understand the value technology plays in managing customer relations and water resources in sustainable ways.”

About De Watergroep

De Watergroep is an independent Flemish water supply company that provides services across the entire water cycle, both to individuals, companies and public authorities.

Key figures of De Watergroep 2014:

• 1.24 million individual meters in management
• Delivery of water to 2,883,814 citizens
• 153,009,835 m³ of drinking water available volume

Mission

We tailor make water today, for the generation of tomorrow.

Vision

Together we work on a new vision for our profession:

• De Watergroep has a passion for water as a source of life and health
• Our technological advantage is a strong asset that we continually develop and valorize
• We manage our people and resources in a sustainable way
• We are a leading partner to Flanders and beyond