Eskom wins Gold BPM Award for work with Graham Technology

One of the world's largest energy companies realizes $26 million in savings from process-driven customer care platform

Graham Technology, a provider of customer-oriented business software and services, today announced that its customer, South African energy giant, Eskom, has won the Gold Award for the Middle East and Africa region at the International BPM Awards and Technology Showcase in Nashville , Tennessee . Eskom , South Africa 's state-owned electricity company is the seventh largest utility in the world in terms of generation capacity, and ninth in terms of sales.

The winning project, codenamed UBUSO (the Zulu word for "face") created a Customer Service and Relationship Management solution underpinned by Graham Technology's business process platform, which provided the means to control routing and monitoring of work over Eskom's vast operational arena and sharing workloads across their seven regional call centres. The platform was also essential in providing campaign management, segmentation and customer profiling capabilities.

"It is an honour to receive an award of this nature at such a well-respected industry event," said Gabriel Kgabo, Divisional Customer Service Manager, Eskom. "We have focused entirely on our people and processes over the last few years and with Graham Technology's software platform, we have been able to strip out waste and dramatically improve the customer experience."

Eskom, with revenues of over US $5 billion, serves more than 3.7million customers throughout South Africa . The vertically integrated utility generates 95% of the electricity used in South Africa and generates over 50% of the total electricity produced in Africa , making Eskom by far the continent's largest utility company.

The project produced strong results for Eskom:

• Reduced costs: Intuitive system led to lower training costs; Single user interface reduced the cost of people skills as only a single skill set was required; Reduced cost per customer interaction
• Time savings: Reduction in average call handling time; Reduction in dispatched items; Reduction in repeat calls
• Productivity improvements: Increased ability to respond to business change; Increased efficiency through customer self-service; Case handling cuts out inefficiencies; Integration with back end systems provides real time access to information

Taking into account all of the above improvements, Eskom calculates that it will realize accumulated cost savings of more than US $26 million over a five year period.

"Eskom are true visionaries in the application of process-improvement techniques across their operations. Their ambition was instrumental in our product development agenda as they pushed for more and more cost savings and improved customer experience scores," said David Williams, CTO, Graham Technology. "Our technology takes BPM to the very front line of customer service and support, making it a great fit for Eskom and our many other global clients."

Now in their 14th year, the Awards were presented on Monday, February 25th, 2008 in conjunction with the BPM Awards and Technology Showcase (http://www.bpmfocus.org/events) held from February 25-26 at the Sheraton Nashville Downtown, in Tennessee . The awards are jointly sponsored by BPM Focus and Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC) with support from industry associations Object Management Group (OMG) and media organization, BPM.com.

The BPM Awards and Technology Showcase is a 3-day forum designed by a team of leading independent consultants and industry analysts in the field of BPM. This program was designed for organizations to minimize risk and accelerate decision-making around BPM. Based around an assessment framework and onsite introductions to the leading BPM vendors, it provides an opportunity to fast track your BPM projects and technology assessments.

About Graham Technology

Graham Technology specialises in contact center software and services. Since 1986, Graham Technology has worked with blue-chip organisations striving for operational excellence and who, in partnership with Graham Technology, have realised exceptional return on investment.

Headquartered in the UK , Graham Technology has seven global offices, supporting a worldwide customer base. With its flagship customer interaction software, ciboodle, the company has become recognised as one of the most visionary CRM solution providers in the world.

www.grahamtechnology.com

Media and analysts contact:

Danny Sullivan
inmedia Public Relations Inc.
Tel (UK): +44 (0) 141 404 6478
Tel (US): +1 613 686 5657
Email: dsullivan@inmedia.com

ciboodle launched in Australia with Crazy John's deployment

Graham Technology platform underpins mobile retailer's growth into an MVNO

Graham Technology, a provider of customer-oriented business software and services, today announced that it has successfully rolled out a company-wide CRM platform for Australian mobile phone retailer, Crazy John's. The platform is based on ciboodle, Graham Technology's new customer interaction platform, and represents the first deployment of the software in Australia.

Crazy John's is Australia's most successful independent mobile phone retailer with over 100 retail outlets across six states, two mainland territories and three time zones, employing over 700 staff. The company recently launched its own mobile virtual network, and ciboodle provides the underlying CRM and sales platform required by Crazy John's in support of this initiative.

"The evolution of Crazy John's has to be supported by the right kind of technology platform, allowing us to provide the extensive customer-focused services required by an MVNO," said Stephen Tuffley, Head of Operations, at Crazy John's. "ciboodle has provided us with all of the tools we need to achieve our key objective of delivering the three C's - customer service, customer choice and cost control."

ciboodle is Graham Technology's flagship customer interaction software for contact centres. Loaded with contact centre-specific features, and highly agile to adapt to specific business needs, ciboodle is a refreshing alternative to the rigid CRM and telephony software packages prevalent in today's call centres. While Graham Technology has had an established presence in Australasia for some years, with customers including Energex, MBF Group and Telecom New Zealand, the Crazy John's deployment is the first implementation of ciboodle in the region.

"The Australasian market is very important to Graham Technology, and we are excited to have secured our first successful deployment of ciboodle here," said Mike Hughes, Managing Director, Graham Technology. "The success of ciboodle since its launch has seen it win customers all across the globe, and we are looking forward to building on the success of this implementation to secure more customers across Australia and beyond."

In developing the system for Crazy John's, Graham Technology defined the high level and detailed requirements, designed the solution architecture, screens and business processes and built the solution. The solution enables a 360-degree view of the customer across all channels with integration into over 25 backend systems. The ciboodle driven platform is available to all retail stores and over 100 call centre and back office staff.

"We are delighted to have successfully rolled out ciboodle in support of Crazy John's growth into an MVNO, which has been an excellent engagement, and continues to be so," said Ross McGown, Managing Director Australia, Graham Technology. "We look forward to an ongoing successful relationship with Crazy John's and view this deployment as the launch pad for a significant ramp up in sales of ciboodle in Australia."

At Crazy John's, ciboodle is now the driving technology behind a host key functions, including:

• Sales
• Customer management
• Account management
• Proactive customer contact
• Operational and analytical reporting
• Agent administration
• Web self service
• Order management and fulfilment

With the critical core processes in place, Crazy John's is looking ahead to enhance ciboodle to help it achieve its goals on the road to becoming an MVNO. Future features are set to include complex order management and case handling, campaign management, collections and more.

About Graham Technology

Graham Technology specialises in contact centre software and services. Since 1986, Graham Technology has worked with blue-chip organisations striving for operational excellence and who, in partnership with Graham Technology, have realised exceptional return on investment.

Headquartered in Scotland, Graham Technology has seven global offices, supporting a worldwide customer base. With its flagship customer interaction software, ciboodle, the company has become recognised as one of the most visionary CRM solution providers in the world.

www.grahamtechnology.com

Media and analysts contact:

Danny Sullivan
inmedia Public Relations Inc.
Tel (UK): +44 (0) 141 404 6478
Tel (US): +1 613 686 5657
Email: dsullivan@inmedia.com

Lisa Goodwin
Graham Technology
Tel (Aus): +61 4 2092 8131
Email: Lisa.Goodwin@grahamtechnology.com

Graham Technology launches ciboodle.com

New web site sharpens company's focus on product-driven strategy

Graham Technology, a provider of customer-oriented business software and services, today revealed a new web site dedicated to its customer interaction platform, ciboodle. The site, www.ciboodle.com, is packed with information and features for those seeking to address the significant customer service challenges faced by organisations today.

With access to compelling interactive content, independent reviews and a wealth of product information, the site is designed to be a single source for all information about Graham Technology's flagship software product.

"With an outstanding first year of business behind us, ciboodle is the primary business focus of this company, and this web site reflects that," said Mike Hughes, Managing Director, Graham Technology. "By providing the market with a dedicated site for all things ciboodle, we are demonstrating our commitment to ensuring that the product achieves even greater success moving forward."

In addition, Graham Technology has upgraded its existing web site, www.grahamtechnology.com, which has been tailored to concentrate on business areas outside of ciboodle, such as the company's professional services, its partner programme and career opportunities.

With many more new and exciting features in the pipeline, all interested parties are encouraged to check back regularly for new updates.

About Graham Technology

Graham Technology specialises in contact center software and services. Since 1986, Graham Technology has worked with blue-chip organisations striving for operational excellence and who, in partnership with Graham Technology, have realised exceptional return on investment.

Headquartered in Scotland, Graham Technology has seven global offices, supporting a worldwide customer base. With its flagship customer interaction software, ciboodle, the company has become recognised as one of the most visionary CRM solution providers in the world.

www.grahamtechnology.com

Media and analysts contact:
Danny Sullivan inmedia
Public Relations Inc.
Tel (UK): +44 (0) 141 404 6478
Tel (US): +1 613 686 5657
Email: dsullivan@inmedia.com