Avista Receives Expanding Excellence Award for Best Customer Information System Implementation

SPOKANE, WA --(Marketwired - April 27, 2016) - Avista (NYSE: AVA) has been recognized for the successful implementation of its customer information system (CIS) by CS Week 2016. The Expanding Excellence Award, Level 1, honors outstanding contributions and innovation in utility customer service in four award categories, including best CIS implementation. Level 1 includes utilities with gross revenues in excess of $500 million.

Avista replaced its over 20-year-old legacy customer information system with Oracle Customer Care and Billing (CC&B) while also installing the IBM Maximo enterprise asset management system and launching a redesigned monthly energy statement for customers. The systems were serving customers on Feb. 1, 2015, in an effort named Project Compass by employees.

"These new systems will carry Avista into the future while increasing our operating efficiencies and providing new opportunities to build on the excellent service our customers expect," said Pat Dever, Avista's chief data strategist and co-executive project sponsor. "We are proud of our employees and partners Oracle, IBM, Black & Veatch, Ernst & Young, IntelliTect, Mosaic and TMG Consulting who all contributed to not only meeting our goal of a successful implementation, but exceeding it. Receiving this recognition from CS Week is an honor for Avista and everyone involved with Project Compass."

The implementation and integration of the CC&B and Maximo systems was a major project for Avista that also required over 100 integrations within 11 systems that are utilized to perform the company's business operations in three states and jurisdictions with different regulatory requirements. The four-year project impacted over 600 employees throughout Avista, or about 38 percent of total employees.

Avista's Customer Satisfaction scores for the first nine months following the 2015 go-live of the new systems were over 96 percent, surpassing 2014 scores. The success of Project Compass established a project management model that has now been leveraged across Avista for other major technology projects.

Rod Litke, CS Week's CEO, said, "I am proud to congratulate Avista Utilities on their hugely successful Project Compass, a Best CIS Project Winner of CS Week's prestigious 2016 Expanding Excellence Awards. Project Compass replaced an obsolete 20-year-old mainframe customer information system, essentially transforming the heart of the utility into a highly integrated, technically and functionally upgradeable, state-of-the-art solution. On behalf of the judges, I can say they were very impressed with the highly functional platform and improvements to customer satisfaction scores, tangibly proving the worth of the implementation schedule, financial investment and leadership commitment."

About Avista Utilities
Avista Utilities is involved in the production, transmission and distribution of energy. We provide energy services and electricity to 375,000 customers and natural gas to 335,000 customers in a service territory that covers 30,000 square miles in eastern Washington, northern Idaho and parts of southern and eastern Oregon, with a population of 1.6 million. Avista Utilities is an operating division of Avista Corp. (NYSE: AVA). For more information, please visit www.avistautilities.com.