South Africa`s largest credit insurance company, Credit Guarantee now approves cover applications within seconds, as opposed to the previous one working day average.
Credit Guarantee`s web-enabled application, CregaLink, uses middleware software to give customers direct online response to credit limit applications. "The middleware assists in fulfilling Credit Guarantee`s commitment to provide unrivalled service to its clients," says Joe Rios, Software AG business manager at Dimension Data i-Commerce Software.
Clients are now able to manage their policies in their own time using the Internet, linking to the system easily and quickly, with no software being loaded onto their machines. "The burden of having to maintain the software on all client machines has been eliminated," comments Sandro Vita, general manager: information systems at Credit Guarantee.
"Software AG`s middleware offering, EntireX, gave us a mechanism to enter the e-commerce arena with an advanced and strategic product and at the same time enabled us to maximise our investment in our back-end systems," he adds.
Offering credit terms to others is a high-risk area for any business. Credit Guarantee helps to limit its clients` exposure to risk by providing credit insurance.
Credit Guarantee is a long-time Software AG technology user. The company`s original dial-in, Natural system was replaced in 1997 with a Natural Lightstorm / Entire Net-work version. Being more user-friendly with better performance it became easier for clients to administer their policies.
Says Vita: "A major drawback in our previous product was the software needed to be installed on the clients` machines. The solution became costly to maintain, support and upgrade, as any software changes needed to be reinstalled on all client machines. There was a limit to the number of systems Credit Guarantee could realistically support."
A first in credit insurance in South Africa, CregaLink is the 'brainchild` of Credit Guarantee executive director and chief operating officer, Mike Truter. "Through CregaLink, our clients can tap directly into our mainframe computer to transact business with us and obtain vital information needed to run their businesses," explains Truter.
Policy status, credit limit applications and the availability of cover on buyers are all available on-line.
Web enabling was the answer and Internet Solutions was tasked with achieving this.
"It is our job to find the best way to integrate and use legacy systems for an application. As part of our investigative stage into the web enabling of CregaLink, we were informed of the extent of existing code which we would need to rewrite to get at the required data," says Graham Oberholzer, senior developer and technical team leader for Internet Solutions.
"From a development and programming point of view, we found EntireX extremely easy to use. Calling a Natural program on a remote host was just as easy as calling a function or program on the local machine. Performance is good and EntireX`s ability to run more services under heavier load allows for optimal performance tuning," adds Oberholzer.
The new solution only requires a web-browser to be installed on the users` machines, relieving Credit Guarantee of their former support and maintenance problems. All business logic and data now reside at Credit Guarantee making upgrades and maintenance easy.
For a company involved in both domestic and export credit insurance, an added bonus with this web-enabled solution is data is available from anywhere in the world.
"CregaLink is strategically very important to Credit Guarantee and gives us a definite competitive advantage," states Vita.
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