Harvey Jones wins 2 Microsoft awards for customer satisfaction

Harvey Jones Systems recently won two awards from Microsoft, one related to customer satisfaction, for a project it did for SABMiller Africa and Asia, and the other for customer experience for a project it undertook for the Development Bank of South Africa (DBSA). This makes it the only South African company to win Microsoft awards in the enterprise space in 2004. These are annual global awards which are announced at the worldwide Microsoft partner conference.

Keith Jones, MD of Harvey Jones Systems, says partners enter themselves for the awards, but the applications have to be accompanied by a recommendation from the customer, which is then evaluated by Microsoft.

Jones says: "For Harvey Jones Systems, winning these awards is particularly exciting, as they are not technical awards, but are about creating added value for a client solution. Solution providers may be able to deliver the most amazing technical solution, but if it does not meet business needs, it is a failure.

"A lot of IT companies often don`t look at the business side when they build a solution for a client, whereas we focus strongly on meeting the business needs from day one."

Harvey Jones Systems implemented a financial reporting and analytical solution for SABMiller Africa & Asia, which incorporated key performance indicators (KPIs), to allow it to compare results from its operations throughout Africa and Asia, thus eliminating variables such as size of the operation.

The multinational brewer now has analytical capabilities in a format it can use to gain complete business intelligence across its operations The solution was extended substantially to include procurement and branding, for example.

"SABMiller Africa & Asia saw value in one area and asked us to extend that same functionality to a number of other business areas. The feedback from all users at all levels has been exceptionally positive," says Jones.

Colette Borain, BI manager of SABMiller Africa & Asia, says the company and Harvey Jones Systems together designed a system for the company`s financial cubes, which Harvey Jones then went on to develop to deliver a comprehensive financial solution.

She says: "Previously information was delivered across the group in the form of faxes, printouts and e-mail and there was no central access point and no standard reporting system. Few people had access to the financial data and had to print it or e-mail it to everyone else who needed to see it.

"Since the implementation was completed, the benefit for SABMiller is it now has easy access to information across the group, which employees at all levels can access."

Jones says the implementation at DBSA was more extensive than at the breweries. It incorporated a full BI component in all areas, such as HR, loans, National Treasury, and financials. It also includes management and Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) reporting for the National Treasury. Harvey Jones also created dashboards for executives, so they can monitor the KPIs each day.

Jones says: "One of the main reasons for the success of both solutions is we looked at the business intelligence and information strategy requirements upfront. We aligned the information requirements to meet the business strategy and built the solutions around this."