Sui Southern Gas Company: fostering the vision of becoming the most IT-enabled company in Pakistan

We are at the doorstep of cyber supremacy that came along with increasing economic pressures, greater security concerns, and well-informed consumers with a great sense of consumerism.
As we move along with a wider diversity around social, cultural, environmental and economic fronts to venture-up the challenges, we need to be proactive in equipping ourselves with modern technologies.
To respond to these challenges that SSGC translated as, lowering cost of doing business, securing its infrastructure, and providing un-surpassed customer service, and to be at the forefront of information age; Sui Southern Gas Company has taken important initiatives for the realisation, evaluation and implementation of new technologies.
The focus is on centralisation, automation and integration of various independent functions across the entire organisation.
As some would know the dynamics of gas-delivery to the end consumers on a higher level, they might not be aware of the complex mechanism coupled with rigorous planning, execution and control of long transmission and distribution lines that are extended across SSGC service network.
SSGC capitalises on modern technology (SCADA) System Communication and Data Administration to monitor its transmission lines.
Moving forward, SSGC plans to extend the use of SCADA over its entire Distribution Network that will help monitor the distribution lines, remotely.
On the back-office automation arena, SSGC was one of the earliest adopters of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Applications. SSGC implemented Oracle Financials in 1996 when there were a few companies that even knew about ERP Systems.
Currently, SSGC is in a process of upgrading and expanding Oracle Application Suites in other areas. ERP culture is now well adopted in Financial Accounting, Controlling, Treasury, Budgeting, Procurement and Stores departments with a plan of extension to Project Systems and Human Resources.
SSGC has long been engaged in providing supreme services to its customer base. 119 is an emergency response team that is being managed through SSGC's Consumer Service Department with an in-house Call Center that operates round the clock.
In order to facilitate the consumers, SSGC has set-up several customer facilitation centers all around the major metropolitan areas.
As SSGC abreast with the technology evolution, it is now in a process of evaluating a comprehensive Customer Information System (CIS) that will automate its Customer Care and Billing functions.
Upon the implementation of CIS, SSGC would be able to centralise and integrate its Pre-Sales, Sales, Utilisation/Provisioning, Billing, Metering, Customer Service and Collections functions by using a single customer data-base with several different customer views.
Customers, Vendors, and Employees self-service portal will also be in-place once CIS is successfully implemented and adopted by users.
SSGC proactively maintains its Transmission and Distribution Lines and plans new expansions across the provinces of Sindh and Balochistan.
To support the field activity relating to several different types of surveys and to intelligently organise its customers and assets geographic profile, Sui Southern Gas is in a process of developing a comprehensive Geographic Information System.
Upon the completion and deployment of SSGC's GIS system, user departments would be able to access detailed levels of geographic information at a mouse click, which had previously required time consuming field surveys.
Following, is a glimpse of IT related activities that SSGC have been engaged with.
-- Setting-up of IT-Infrastructure including Local and Wide Area Network, Centralised Data Centers and Security Protocols
-- Streamlining and Integration of corporate-wide communication across SSG various locations using Unified Voice Messaging System (UMS)
-- Back office automation using modern Enterprise Resource Planning Application that covers entire Financial Accounting and Controlling, Procurements, and Inventories functions
-- Planned implementation of CIS application that will integrate Sales, Billing, Utilisation, Customer Service, Metering and Collection functions.
-- Development of a comprehensive Geographic Information System that will cover the entire Sindh and Balochistan Service Network.