The Client Profile
The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) is a state commission that regulates privately-owned utilities, including electric power, telecommunications, natural gas, water, and transportation companies, in addition to household goods movers, and rail safety. The commission’s headquarters are in San Francisco; field offices are located in Los Angeles, San Diego, and Sacramento. The CPUC is responsible for ensuring that customers have safe, reliable utility service at reasonable rates, protecting against fraud, and promoting the health of California's economy.

The Business Problem
The CPUC had experienced an unusual number of disruptions of service at their data center that had state-wide impact. These events indicated potential fragilities within the technology center. CPUC Deputy Executive Director and the CPUC CIO engaged TechProse to conduct a review of the Information Services Branch (ISB). The review’s goals were to isolate underlying causes of the outages, provide recommendations to improve service availability and reliability of the data center, and develop a Strategic Plan to accommodate future growth.

The TechProse Solution
A team of TechProse consultants conducted a six-week analysis and review of the ISB.  The team investigated disruptions to service, analyzed underlying causes, and developed an ISB Information Technology (IT) Strategic Plan. The plan offered specific recommendations to mitigate vulnerability, and aligned the ISB more closely with CPUC’s business goals. Assessments were based on interviews, focus groups, review of existing technology and infrastructure, and organizational issues, and revealed vulnerabilities that could expose the Commission to extreme risk. TechProse presented a report that included short and long term recommendations for technology, processes, and procedures.  TechProse prioritized these into a set of achievable initiatives, to implement in an orderly progression over the defined plan period of three to five years.