Alchemex Webinars a hit with international audiences

South-African based business intelligence (BI) vendor, Alchemex, has successfully overcome the limitations of being geographically removed from its growing North American user base through the effective use of Webinars or Web-based seminars.

Leveraging Citrix Online's GoToWebinar technology, Alchemex uses Webinars to demonstrate its Excel-based BI software, deliver Excel sessions to expand Excel reporting skills, and educate partners, sales teams and end-users on the optimal use of its software.

Charles Teversham, Alchemex MD, explains: “Alchemex has a 'whole-product' philosophy - we don't simply provide reporting software - we are firm believers in enabling our partners, their channels and users to utilise our software to its full potential, which means providing the necessary training and support. Webinars play a large role in allowing us to do this, especially as we are expanding globally and developing BI software modules for more and more Sage accounting packages.”

Webinars are similar to conference room-based seminars; however, participants participate remotely via a computer. The speaker generally presents to the audience over a standard telephone line or through the use of VOIP audio technology, allowing participants to view anything the presenter currently has showing on his or her screen, typically a combination of PowerPoint slide presentations and the Alchemex software or Microsoft Excel application in action. Alchemex Webinars allow full participation between the audience and the presenter via live text chat question-and-answer sessions.

Ruth Gray, Alchemex Learning Services Manager, cites the benefits of this technology as “being able to reach a large audience at a far reduced cost to the alternative of travelling and delivering content live. All the user needs to attend is a computer, Internet access and a phone line. Furthermore, a broad audience of attendees can participate in a seminar without having to leave their desks.”

GoToWebinar also allows for content to be digitally recorded for future playback, and Alchemex makes full use of this feature by including recorded versions of its Webinars on its BI Community. In fact, membership of this online community, related to all things BI, Excel and reporting, spiked recently after a particularly large Excel skills Webinar that was delivered to a Simply Accounting audience of 1 000 attendees. Gray says: “The Webinar was actually oversubscribed - the maximum audience is 1 000 attendees - so we had to open up a second session the next day. Over 100 people joined our BI Community as a direct result as they could go there to replay the recorded session.”

Positive feedback from attendees has been encouraging to the Alchemex executive team, who has had to restructure the working hours of a number of staff members to coincide with North American time zones. According to Sue Moore, Principal Trainer, Learning Services, Sage Business Solutions, Sage North America, Alchemex presenters do a “terrific job and (the Webinars) have been very beneficial for me”.

Teversham says: “Over the last 10 years the Internet has provided businesses with a lot of advantages, and the use of Webinars is a superb example of how the Internet can be used in a way that benefits both the company and its customers. We started utilising Webinars as a means of demonstrating our software about three years ago. While it is steadily gaining popularity in South Africa and Australia, our biggest wins have come from the North American market where audiences are more tuned in to this type of technology, probably because of the vast geographies involved in conducting business there anyway. Webinars are most certainly the way to conduct business training, educate the customer and generate leads in the twenty first century.”