The South African division of short-term insurer, CGU recently installed Lotus Notes/Domino as part of an upgrade project commissioned to enable the local office to comply with CGU`s global messaging standard.
According to Richard Henwood, project manager at CGU, Notes/Domino provides benefits that reach far beyond merely adopting a single international messaging standard. "Firstly, it is a communication channel, enabling us to create a main data centre for our network of brokers and intermediaries making relevant data directly available to them. Secondly, it heralds the dawn of a long awaited paper-free office for CGU," he says.
Due to the fact that most CGU staff was not computer literate the main focus was on teaching them basic PC skills and then familiarising them with Notes. CGU aided their staff in overcoming this technological learning curve by employing, Microknowlogy, to run training sessions concurrently with the Notes upgrade at CGU branches.
"The study material was customised to the specific requirements of CGU, which ensured that training emphasised the areas considered critical to the company," says Clive Belsham, co-director of Microknowlogy. "As far as possible, students are coached in their mother tongue to decrease the stress of coping with a deluge of new information."
Since the start of the installation Microknowlogy trainers have not been the only help available to CGU staff on the Lotus front. CGU has a helpdesk specifically designed for staff members that have completed the Microknowlogy course and still experienced hick-ups, says Henwood. "Lotus presents a myriad of applications that lies dormant if users are not knowledgeable on how to actually apply it. Although users are able to easily familiarise themselves with the product, time constraints ruled out that option for us," adds Henwood.
Steve Dunbar, marketing manager at Lotus Development SA, concurs but adds that Notes/Domino implementations typically follow the snowball model of growth. "The more users learn about what the platform and applications can do, the more they use them and the more ideas they come up with to improve business processes and/or productivity," he explains.
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