Microsoft Server Product Portfolio

Customer Solution Case Study

Turkish Electricity Distributor Raises

Collection Rates 10 Per Cent with New

Overview
Country or Region: Turkey
Industry: Government, Utilities
Customer Profile
TEDAS is the leading distributor of
electricity in Turkey, delivering
power to 28 million customers
across the country.
Business Situation
An existing infrastructure for
subscriptions, billing, and payments
lacked the efficiency and reliability
to support TEDASs aims of
maintaining its premier position as
an electricity distributor.
Solution
TEDAS deployed a new solution
based on leading Microsoft
software, such as Windows Server
2003, and Intel Itanium 2
processor-based Unisys servers.
Benefits
Robust infrastructure.
Greater data control.
Improved data transfer.
Scalable infrastructure.
High availability.

With the new Microsoft infrastructure, we

decreased rate of frauda major business
benefitand increased our turnover.
Ahmet zelik, Chief Information Officer, TEDAS

TEDAS is the sole electricity distributor in Turkey. To

ensure its premier status for the future, the company
needed to overhaul its existing subscriptions, billing,
and payments infrastructure. The solutions were
expensive to manage, suffered data losses, and failed to
prevent widespread fraud. Working with Microsoft
Services and Microsoft Partner Meteksan Sistem, TEDAS
deployed a new infrastructure that combined latestversion Microsoft enterprise software, such as Windows
Server 2003 Datacenter Edition, with Intel Itanium 2
processor-based Unisys servers. The new application
developed using the Microsoft .NET Framework and
Microsoft SQL Serverhelped stop data loss, simplified
administration, and made infrastructure management
more efficient. The company reduced fraud levels and
increased collection rates by 10 per cent. Today, the
applicationcalled Abone.NETis used by more than

Situation

With real-time
collection, I can see
on any day what
collections were
made from each
bank. Therefore, the
banks have to keep
to the method of
payment agreed
between us.
Ahmet zelik, Chief Information
Officer, TEDAS

Excellent customer service is crucial

for business success. With increasing
competition worldwide, organisations
have to work harder to achieve the
kind of market share that once relied
on legislation to limit entrants. A
major route to greater
competitiveness is through IT
technology. For this reason,
organisations seek to maximise the
business value of their IT
infrastructures to reduce costs,
improve services, and boost
development.
TEDAS is responsible for electricity
distribution in Turkey, and executives
wanted to meet the demands of the
worlds increasingly liberalised energy
markets with greater operational
efficiency. The publicly owned
company employs more than 32,000
people, distributes electricity to 28
million subscribers across the country,
and generates annual revenues of 15
billion YTL (U.S.$10 billion).

worldwide is 7 per cent. For us, the

loss rate in 2004 was 18.9 per cent.
Historically, TEDAS ran a line-ofbusiness (LOB) solution developed in
COBOL running on a UNIX platform to
manage subscriptions. The
application ran in local branch offices
and was unreliable and not linked to
headquarters, affecting operations
considerably. Data was frequently
lost, and when branches turned to
headquarters for support, the missing
information had to be sent out on
paper or by tape, which caused
delays in basic operations.
Furthermore, taking payments under
the old infrastructure was inefficient
and problematic. Without the
possibility of real-time data transfer
between the banks and the branches,
payment-processing delays were so
great that subscribers regularly
received reminders even though they
had already paid their bills.

To improve operations, TEDAS looked

to replace its existing distributed
infrastructure for subscriptions,
billing, and payments. The
architecture posed a number of
serious business challenges.
Management costs were high, for
example, and reliability was poor,
providing opportunities for
widespread fraud.

TEDAS needed a replacement

infrastructure to deliver service
excellence. Yet any replacement
solution had to meet a non-negotiable
list of criteria. First, it had to provide a
more efficient, centralised operation
that could scale easily. This also
needed to improve the speed of
communication and take advantage
of the latest communication channels,
such as the Internet.

The company lost valuable revenue

from customers taking advantage of
current processes to steal powerin
the Istanbul alone, this amounted to 4
billion kilowatt hours per year. Ahmet
zelik, Chief Information Officer at
TEDAS, says: The accepted loss rate

With large networks, maintenance is

key, so the solution had to ensure
cost-effective administration as well
as straightforward integration
between applications. It also needed
to be hardware neutral so that TEDAS
had a free hand in choosing the best

server and processing technology for

its business need.

Solution

One very big

benefit that TEDAS
has gained is the
know-how
accumulation in the
IT teams. This helps
us both to maintain
and improve our
system and also to
create new systems
and projects.
Ahmet zelik, Chief Information
Officer, TEDAS

Working with Microsoft Services,

TEDAS executed the major design and
development phases. It also
completed two major testing phases
before launching two pilot
infrastructures and finally deploying
the new subscriber management
system, Abone.NET, across the whole
organisation. zelik says:
Convinced by the new Abone.NET
infrastructure meeting and exceeding
our business needs, we started
rapidly deploying it all over Turkey.
A Microsoft-based infrastructure was
installed. Deployment of Abone.NET
software such as data conversion,
software support, consultancy, as well
as integration, onsite maintenance,
installation, and support services,
were implemented by a team
consisting of TEDAS staff, Microsoft
Services, and Microsoft Gold Certified
Partner Meteksan Sistem.
A vital part of the decision to accept
the proposal was the business value
of Microsoft solutions. This, coupled
with the enhanced performance of
Microsoft software, ensured the
company received an infrastructure
with excellent performance and
flexibility.
The Abone.NET infrastructure
combined latest-version Microsoft
solutions integrated using simple and
stable programming tools and
delivering enterprise-class firewall,
management, monitoring, and
database services. Based on the
Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF)
methodology for best-practice design,

the architecture includes the

following:
Windows Server 2003 Datacenter
Editiondelivering the
architectures core operating
system.
Microsoft SQL Server 2000
providing the central database
service.
Microsoft Internet Security and
Acceleration (ISA) Server 2004
protecting the network from
Internet-based intruders.
Microsoft Internet Information
Services (IIS) 6.0delivering
reliable Webapplication support
for Windows Server 2003.
Microsoft Operations Manager
(MOM) 2005automating many
aspects of the server network.
Microsoft Systems Management
Server (SMS) 2003updating
servers with latest software for
maximum security.
Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003
the integrated development
environment for cost-effective
programming.
Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1
providing the programming
libraries for rapid development.
During 2005, the company began
rolling out the new infrastructure. All
parties worked together to ensure the
transition was as painless as possible.
The deployment in the province of
Ankara provides a good example of
their exceptional teamwork. They
ensured that employees were trained
in the replacement technology and
minimised the disruption caused by
the transfer of the offices 1.7 million
subscribers to the new system. By the
summer of 2006, the rollout
programme was complete.

To build on the infrastructures

performance excellence, TEDAS is
now looking to migrate from SQL
Server 2000 to SQL Server 2005. The
company is currently testing SQL
Server 2005 and the improved
decision support system (DSS), which
determines the speed with which
query results are returned. The
benefits from an upgrade are clear.
SQL Server 2005 supports better
business decisions with greater
insight into internal processes and
operational excellence. Plus, it takes
advantage of the latest developments
in security and scalability. Specific
features include:
Data mining
Unified dimensional modelling
Cross-tier and cross-language
debugging
Combining Microsoft technologies
with integration, project
management, deployment, and
support capabilities of Microsoft
Services and Meteksan Sistem, TEDAS
transformed its existing bill collection
systems into a complete Subscriber
Management System. Abone.NET
allowed TEDAS to have a centrally
manageable, interoperable,
upgradeable, secure, and userfriendly Subscriber Management
System.

Benefits
By choosing a solution based on
Microsoft software, TEDAS created an
infrastructure that answered its
business needs. Not only did the
solution help the organisation tackle
high levels of customer fraud and
impact capital programmes
significantly, it also ensured that
TEDAS was ready to face future

challenges in the worlds energy

markets.
The centralised infrastructure
transformed reliability and reduced
costs while establishing a solid
foundation for combating fraud.
Today, Abone.NET is used by more
than 9,000 people, handling 300
million transactions and 280,000
reports a month.
Robust Infrastructure Reduces
Fraud
For TEDAS, the Abone.NET
infrastructure ensures greater control
over customer records. Having
consumer data stored centrally where
it is simple to update and readily
available means the organisation can
monitor levels of usage more
accurately. In turn, it has reduced the
level of fraud and gained greater
turnover for more investment. The
electricity loss rate began to fall
almost immediately after rollout
started, and collection figures quickly
rose by 10 per cent.
zelik says: One of the most
important stages of this project was
to establish in what areas leakages
were occurring with the greatest
density. With the new Microsoft
infrastructure, we decreased rate of
fraud, a major business benefit, and
increased our turnover.
Cost-Effective Management
The simplicity of the Microsoft
development tools used to build the
new infrastructure ensured TEDASs IT
personnel adapted rapidly to the
vendors software. With training
programmes, workshops, and the help
of Microsoft consultants, the IT team
developed the core skills to construct

and maintain the infrastructure costeffectively.

The duration and cost of these
trainings and workshops were
comparably less than other platforms
and technologies. The team actually
started coding software in the first
three months of the projecta very
short start-up time when compared
with other technologies, says
zelik.
Better Data Communication
Using Web Services, the Abone.NET
system is accessible online to local
banks, which receive customer
payments. This means customers see
payments to TEDAS registered in realtime. It avoids the previous time lag
in payment registration, which caused
unnecessary confusion, and creates a
more flexible payment system, giving
customers a wide choice of places
all with a standardised level of service
to pay bills.
With real-time collection, I can see
on any day what collections were
made from each bank. Therefore, the
banks have to keep to the method of
payment agreed between us, says
zelik. In the case of TEDAS, this can
represent the transfer of funds
between the bank and the
organisation within three days.
Scalable Solutions to Meet Future
Challenges
TEDAS is committed to maintaining
service excellence. It knows the
worldwide trend toward liberalised
energy markets means operations
must be efficient and customerfocused to ensure its continued status
as Turkeys leading electricity
distributor. With the new

infrastructure combining Microsoft

software, the organisation believes it
has the tools to achieve its long-term
business aims.
The new architecture has the
scalability and performance to meet
the demands of future Microsoft
solutions. And on the maintenance
side, the TEDAS IT team has sufficient
knowledge of running Microsoft
infrastructures to ensure a slick, costeffective administration.
One very big benefit that TEDAS has
gained is the know-how accumulation
in the IT teams. This helps us both to
maintain and improve our system and
also to create new systems and
projects, says zelik.

For More Information

For more information about
Microsoft products and services, call
the Microsoft Sales Information
Center at (800) 426-9400. In
Canada, call the Microsoft Canada
Information Centre at (877) 5682495. Customers who are deaf or
hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft
text telephone (TTY/TDD) services
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States or (905) 568-9641 in Canada.
Outside the 50 United States and
Canada, please contact your local
Microsoft subsidiary. To access
information using the World Wide
Web, go to: www.microsoft.com

Microsoft Server Product

Portfolio
For more information about the
Microsoft server product portfolio, go
to:
www.microsoft.com/servers/default.m
spx
For more information about Microsoft
Exchange Server, go to:
www.microsoft.com/exchange

For more information about

Meteksan Sistem ve Bilgisayar
Teknolojileri A.S products and
services, visit the Web site at:
www.meteksan.com
For more information about TEDAS
products and services, visit the Web
site at: www.tedas.gov.tr

Software and Services

2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

This case study is for informational purposes only.
MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
Document published June 2007

Microsoft Server Product Portfolio

Microsoft Internet Security and
Acceleration (ISA) Server 2004
Microsoft SQL Server 2005
Microsoft SQL Server 2000
Microsoft Systems Management
Server (SMS) 2003
Windows Server 2003

Technologies
Microsoft Operations Manager
(MOM) 2005
Microsoft Visual Studio .NET
2003
Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1

Services
Microsoft Consulting Services
MS Premier Services
Microsoft Internet Information
Services (IIS) 6.0
Hardware
Intel Itanium 2 processor
9000 series
Unisys Orion 440 Server Systems