Remote user experience tool delivers IT performance gains at SANBS

The South African National Blood Service (SANBS), a not-for-profit organisation providing an essential service within South Africa, has successfully rolled out the Aternity digital experience management platform with the help of Datacentrix, hybrid IT systems integrator and managed services provider.

The new platform provides SANBS with deep, actionable insight into its users’ digital experience and productivity, as well as the performance of end-user devices, application performance and the effect on the business.

Says Amit Singh, Senior Manager: Service Delivery at SANBS: “Our real need for improved remote management arose during the pandemic, with many staff members now working from home. We needed to manage the user experience and performance of two specific areas within the business: our tele-recruiters, who make contact with potential donors; and the finance department, more specifically debtors’ staff, who manage the collection of funds.”

Savan Marimuthu, Senior Account Manager at Datacentrix (l) with Amit Singh, Senior Manager: Service Delivery at SANBS

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SANBS put together a formal request for information (RFI), including criteria as agreed on by the IT side of the organisation, identified business owners within the organisation, and then issued a formal tender to the market. “The companies that responded were asked to run demonstrations and proof of concept projects, which we then short-listed to two entrants.

“The final decision to appoint Datacentrix was based on the rich feel of the application that they put forward, the user-friendliness of its dashboards, and its easily understandable reporting,” Singh explains. “Datacentrix’s solution ticked all of our boxes and, over the past five months since roll-out, it has delivered even more than our initial requirements.”

According to Savan Marimuthu, Senior Account Manager at Datacentrix, the solution implemented for SANBS provides actionable insights on user experience for every device and application within an organisation. “Not only can this information be used to drive user productivity, but it also allows for improved management of the IT environment, as businesses can access data linked to users’ measured experience, which is typically difficult to source as there is generally little visibility around the operational efficiencies between users, their devices and the systems they are using.

“This has become particularly important as we’ve moved into a more digitalised, remote environment in recent years, where issues such as slow system response and downtime have become more challenging for remote workers.”

Since implementation, SANBS has set up dashboards for its respective teams and can access user productivity reports at any time.

“Our intention was not to set up a ‘Big Brother’ scenario within the organisation, but rather to use this data to better utilise resources and address any capacity planning concerns,” Singh states. “Not only has the new tool allowed us to improve the splitting and assignment of workloads, but it has also proven to be a valuable tool for our IT department from a support perspective.

“We’re now able to pinpoint exactly where user issues lie, in terms of whether they are hardware or software-related. Instead of having to test and check, we’re now able to see exactly what is affecting the end-user quickly and easily, often before they even realise there is an issue.

“We’ll see even greater improvement in proactivity once the new tool is fully integrated with the SANBS service desk,” he adds.

“SANBS has enjoyed a brilliant partnership with Datacentrix over a number of years now, right up to CEO level. It’s heartening to know that any challenges could be escalated right to the top of the organisation, but there has never been the need. We really cannot fault their delivery,” Singh concludes.