Harte-Hanks Trillium Software Customer Wales & West Utilities Improves Financial Regulatory Reporting Process While Reducing Compliance Costs

READING, UNITED KINGDOM--(Marketwire - Aug 3, 2011) - Trillium Software^®, a business of Harte-Hanks, Inc. (NYSE: HHS) and a leading enabler of Total Data Quality^™ solutions, today announced that its customer Wales & West Utilities (WWU), a regulated gas distribution business in the United Kingdom, is now able to submit for the first time, financial regulatory reports that are backed by automated data and information quality assurance capabilities. This capability has boosted confidence in the figures being reported and reduced compliance costs.

During July 2011, WWU compiled its annual submission of the 'Regulatory Reporting Pack, Mains & Services' for the regulator OFGEM¹. A year ago the utility replaced its manual data quality activities with the Trillium Software System^® across the enterprise, including for the company's asset management, financial governance and regulatory reporting processes.

"In the past, data quality assurance was an annual activity costing several man-months of effort every year," said Martin Malin, business applications manager at WWU. "The Trillium Software System assures our data quality on a continual basis, every year saving us a substantial amount of manual effort and associated costs. Additionally, improved control is giving management even more confidence in our corporate and regulatory information reporting."

The Trillium Software System has so far enabled WWU to define 250 business rules to which its data should adhere. Thresholds are described and the data is then tested for conformity. Data quality accuracy levels are monitored using key business metrics, alerting management to any areas requiring additional action.

"We have some 11 million records covering many thousands of assets such as gas pipes, pumps, valves and meters for which we must be certain of their location, build, history and other data," said Malin. "It is vital that the information upon which we operate our business, and which we report to the regulator, is accurate and indeed proven to be accurate."

The Trillium Software System was selected by WWU from amongst five short listed data quality products on the basis of the exceptional insight it gave into test data, scalability, functionality and the ease with which business users at WWU could work with the software, without the need for technical expertise from the IT department. 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.

"Regulators can require companies to prove that they have suitable processes and controls in place to ensure the information they report is correct, complete and up-to-date," said Ed Wrazen, vice president marketing, international at Harte-Hanks Trillium Software. "With Trillium Software at the centre of their data quality strategies, organisations can be confident that the data behind their compliance, management and financial reporting is always verifiably accurate, whilst avoiding the costs, upheaval and uncertainty of manual data quality exercises."

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. Covering 1/6th of the UK, WWU serves a catchment area with a population of 7.5 million. Its primary role 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 direct 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.

About Trillium Software
Harte-Hanks Trillium Software^® enables organizations 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, data governance, 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^®, Total Data Quality^™ and other names and marks. All other brand names, product names, or trademarks belong to their respective holders.