Harte-Hanks Trillium Software Selected by Wales & West Utilities for Asset Management, Regulatory & Financial Data Quality

The Trillium Software System Is Selected Over Four Competing Solutions to Help Ensure Effective and Safe Business Operations and Accurate Regulatory Reporting for Compliance


READING, UK--(Marketwire - July 6, 2010) -  Trillium Software®, a business of Harte-Hanks, Inc. (NYSE: HHS) and a leading enabler of Total Data Quality solutions, today announced that Wales & West Utilities (WWU), a regulated gas distribution business in the United Kingdom, has selected Trillium Software to help assure the quality of data and information needs across its enterprise. The Trillium Software System® will be deployed to provide assurance into the quality of data supporting the company's asset management, regulatory reporting and financial governance processes.

"We have 11 million records covering many thousands of assets such as gas pipes, pumps, valves and meters. We must maintain these assets efficiently and safely in accordance with statutory requirements. To satisfy the requirements of our industry regulator, OFGEM1, we must periodically report on these asset management activities, our gas distribution income, and costs. We must also show that our operational and financial governance meets defined performance criteria," said Martin Malin, business applications manager at WWU. "It's vital that the information upon which we operate our business, and which we report to the regulator, is proven to be accurate."

WWU already has a data governance regime in place to monitor the quality of new data entering the business, investigate issues and cleanse data. The Trillium Software System could deliver substantial cost savings as well as enable WWU to build even higher levels of data quality quickly and efficiently. It will enable management to help identify data quality accuracy through metrics relating to key business areas, alerting them to any areas requiring action.

Malin continued, "We believe the Trillium Software System could help deliver substantial cost savings across our enterprise data quality process. The higher levels of data accuracy could also enable further efficiencies in our asset management operations as well as give management more confidence in our corporate and regulatory information."

As part of its evaluation, five vendors were asked by WWU to demonstrate the capabilities of their software against a large test file of asset data. The Trillium Software System was selected on the basis of the exceptional insight it gave into the test data, scalability, functionality and the ease with which business users at WWU would be able to work with the software. The company particularly valued the broad set of 'built-in' data quality rules, and the ease with which users could create and test their own business rules.

"Wales & West Utilities selected Trillium Software to help solve an important business process problem; to safely and effectively manage the company's many thousands of assets in line with its compliance obligations," said Ed Wrazen, vice president of product marketing at Trillium Software. "With our solution, the utility can be much more certain that it has accurate information on the location, build, and history of every single asset item. And it can be more confident too, that its financial performance reporting is verifiably accurate for business and regulatory management."

Notes for Editors:

1. OFGEM is the UK Office of the Gas and Electricity Markets

About Wales & West Utilities
Wales & West Utilities, with its main offices based in Newport, South Wales, is a regulated gas distribution business with around 35,000 km of gas distribution pipelines located in Wales and the South West of England. Formerly part of National Grid Transco and covering 1/6th of the UK, WWU serves a catchment area with a population of 7.4 million. Its primary role -- undertaken on behalf of 'gas suppliers' -- is to transport gas to the gas meters of homes and businesses -- from the Northern Welsh border to Cornwall. WWU does not sell gas but instead ensures that it is piped in a safe and efficient way. The company is also responsible for dealing with gas escapes, laying new gas pipes and replacing and moving pipes and meters. More information at http://www.wwutilities.co.uk

About Harte-Hanks
Harte-Hanks is a worldwide direct and targeted marketing company that provides marketing services and shopper advertising opportunities to local, regional, national and international consumer and business-to-business marketers. Visit the Harte-Hanks Web site at http://www.harte-hanks.com or call (800) 456-9748.

Harte-Hanks Trillium Software enables organisations to achieve Total Data Quality by providing a full complement of technologies and services providing global data profiling, data cleansing, enhancement, and data linking for e-business, customer relationship management, enterprise resource planning, supply chain management, data warehouse, and other enterprise applications. For more information about Trillium Software and its offerings, call (978) 436-8900 in the United States and in the United Kingdom call +44 (0) 118 940 7666, or visit Trillium Software online at http://www.trilliumsoftware.com.

This document may contain trademarks that are owned or licensed by Harte-Hanks, Inc. and its subsidiaries, including, without limitation, Harte-Hanks®, Trillium Software®, Trillium Software System®, Trillium Consulting, Total Data Quality, Data Intelligence & Governance and other names and marks. All other brand names, product names, or trademarks belong to their respective holders.

Contact Information:

Media Contacts:
For Harte-Hanks Trillium Software
United Kingdom
Derek Harris
+44 (0) 1395 516 613
derek@harriscomms.com

United States
Michael Antonellis
(978) 439-3813
michael_antonellis@trilliumsoftware.com

Wales & West employees inspect gas distribution pipes. The company uses Trillium Software to analyze associated asset and regulatory data.