British Gas complied with industry deregulation (1998) with an Electricity Billing System (EBS) designed to support a volume of 1 million customers. Together with Accenture, they embarked on a project to implement platform changes and allow for increased capacity to support a customer volume of 3 million with a clear view upgrade path to support 4 million customers.

ITG was directed to establish the service assurance process for this £15 - £20 million upgrade. To achieve this it was necessary to develop a process that would allow the preparation of a conclusive report, encompassing all application and platform changes, to support an objective assessment regarding a go live decision.

All the activities associated with business changes to Customer Billing, MIS and Prepayments together the significant stage 1 technical upgrade were thouroughly audited in line with the assurance process.

The new platform, tested under load using Mercury Interactive's automated toolset, was assessed for operational readiness leading to ITG's recommendation to the Implementation Board and successful deployment. British Gas Service Assurance management, commented "your contribution provided the basis for Procedural Work Instructions which was the major part of the process redevelopment last year".

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