Since March 2005, freighting and forwarding company Rohlig Grindrod has been outsourcing its entire IT department to information technology solution provider Bromide Technologies, with benefits ranging from cost-savings to improved efficiency, higher availability, higher productivity and increased control over expenditure.
The success with which Bromide has managed Rohlig Grindrod's IT function has, in fact, resulted in a decision for its call centre to be managed by the ICT specialist as well.
"Our involvement with the client really took off when we implemented probably the largest deployment of centralised thin client technology in South Africa to date for them, involving 250 users countrywide, across offices in Johannesburg, Durban, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and East London," says Bromide Technologies Operations Director, Leo van Beek. "I doubt there is another deployment of centralised thin client technology using Citrix on this scale in the country."
In simple terms, a centralised thin client solution means there are virtually no applications installed on a user's laptop or PC - all the icons link the user through to a centralised server over a virtual private network (VPN). Bromide Technologies' partner Ensync Business Solutions provided the VPN design, implementation and management for the hosting and connectivity of the total wide area network, while Bromide implemented the Citrix-based centralised thin client technology solution, a Microsoft Active Directory, and all hardware and software involved. Soon after, the company was awarded the managed support contract for the entire infrastructure, now also including the call centre. The VPN was designed to incorporate dual connectivity, routed to different servers, to ensure optimum redundancy and availability of the network, as it is crucial to the company's business model.
"A centrally hosted server farm means that when new software has to be installed across the organisation, such as will be the case with the new Windows operating system in 2007, we don't have to physically install software on 150 individual laptops or PCs," Van Beek explains. "The upgrade literally gets done overnight on the central server, and by the next morning the users log on to find themselves using the new software. Apart from greater control over the IT infrastructure, a central server makes for much easier management and problem solving, higher information and systems security, as well as increased productivity."
On the call centre side, call routing and attendance has been increased since Bromide took over the function, and more callers are getting through faster, contributing to higher end-user satisfaction.
"People may ask why we stray so far from our core focus, even on large projects like this one," says Van Beek. "The answer is quite simple: we are serious about proving our 'can do' approach - if our clients have needs that we can meet, whether it is in our main line of business or not, then we will endeavour to provide them with the best possible solution available."
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