| Centrica sues Accenture over IT system |
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| Monday, 12 May 2008 | |
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British Gas is suing Accenture over problems in implementing a new customer billing system.
In a High Court writ, the firm's parent company Centrica claimed that the alleged failure of "Project Jupiter", the name given to the new domestic billing IT system, cost British Gas hundreds of thousands of customers. "An independent analysis of the billing system has concluded that Accenture was responsible for fundamental errors in the design and implementation of the system. Unfortunately, British Gas has been left with no option but to pursue legal redress against Accenture to compensate for its losses," according to the writ. Software upgrade British Gas supplies gas and electricity to 12.5m homes in the UK. The £317m system, commissioned by Centrica from Accenture in 2002, was intended to save British Gas £397m in the first ten years by enabling the company to process up to 250,000 metre readings and 200,000 bills a day. In March 2006 Accenture and British Gas reached agreement on a revised contract for the project, including a guarantee by Accenture that a software upgrade to the system would work without further glitches. Centrica said that instead of making life easier for employees, the new system led to more chaos - forcing British Gas to employ 2,500 extra staff to help it cope with the number of "exceptions", cases where human intervention was required by the system. The writ also contains claims by Centrica that Accenture provided inadequate computer hardware, failed to implement the system properly and had failed to make the system capable of producing adequate management information. Breach of contract Centrica formally notified Accenture in February 2007 that it considered the firm in breach of contract, but said that the consultancy group left it for weeks before a small team finally looked into the matter. “Ultimately, the Accenture UK team provided no material information or assistance whatever to Centrica," according to the writ. Energy watchdogs were highly criticical of British Gas' customer service in 2006 and 2007, when at the same time the firm drastically increased consumer costs. British Gas is estimated to have lost more than a million customers in 2006 alone, as its poor service, increased rates for gas and electricity and the popularity of price comparison sites made switching energy supplier an increasingly attractive option. The energy supplier was last year voted "worst provider" for the second consecutive year in a survey by price comparison site uSwitch.com. Baseless and without merit British Gas said that it had since managed to get a grip on its customer service problems, resulting in an 85 per cent drop in complaints to watchdog Energywatch in the last year. A spokesperson for Accenture called the writ "baseless and without merit" and said that it would "vigorously defend" itself against the claims. The firm denied that it had failed to test the system properly before letting it loose on British Gas employees. “Accenture delivered the system at the end of 2005. The system we delivered met all of our commitments and the specifications that Centrica set; it was delivered on the agreed timeline and budget," the firm concluded. Related articles Related links |
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