applied business systems, consultants, systems integration, training, migration, strategic planning, vendor evaluation, needs analysis

SCANA Success Story

SCANA is a South Carolina holding company that offers comprehensive solutions to energy needs.  With its 13 wholly-owned subsidiaries (South Carolina Electric & Gas being the largest), SCANA's primary business is conventional/nuclear electric and gas utility operations.  It also provides an array of value added services including: exploration, research, fiber-optic telecommunications, power-plant maintenance, appliance maintenance and repair services.

The corporate culture of SCANA enjoys a rich tradition of successes dating back 150 years when they installed the first gas streetlights, then later the first electric streetlights and, in 1894, the first electric powered textile mill.

SCANA recognized that to maintain and improve their competitive position as an industry leader, plus to efficiently service 500,000+ customers, they had to: reengineer the core of their financial processes and take full advantage of Client/Server technology; deliver high performance and flexible financial reporting to corporate and remote users; as well as, increase staff productivity and capabilities.  Further, all of the above had to be accomplished in a high volume, distributed environment operating 5 independent accounting systems.

Therefore, after purchasing the SmartStream Financials suite SCANA selected eZ Extract from Applied Business Systems as the foundation for their company's financial reporting and Intranet report distribution.

"We needed a high performance, scalable financial report writer that minimized report development costs and could easily be deployed on independent systems.  eZ Extract satisfied all of our needs and empowered our users.  And, because eZ Extract employs sound architecture and is well-integrated within SmartStream, it increases our ability to quickly respond to future industry changes."

Based upon their successes with eZ Extract, SCANA engaged Applied Business Systems to address various other aspects of the SmartStream implementation, including:  SmartStream development, customization and trouble-shooting; performance tuning; conversion and system testing.  They also utilized Applied Business Systems to develop and conduct custom, on-site user/technical training programs for eZ Extract, SmartStream and MS Access.

"The application expertise and technical skills of Applied Business Systems were a great asset to the project.  Their consultants were highly productive and accelerated our staff's learning curves. Applied Business Systems resolved SmartStream issues (e.g. job control deadlocking) that could have been show-stoppers.  They reduced run times, in some cases, by factors of over 100.   And, certain key project deliverables that Applied Business Systems completed were ahead of schedule and under budget."

Early benefits from using Applied Business Systems show substantial productivity gains have been achieved in the SCANA environment.  Reporting effectiveness, flexibility and efficiency have greatly improved. SmartStream is more robust. Staff productivity and capabilities have increased.