A well maintained and ultra efficient existing internal network is the secret behind the plans of Hans Merensky, one of South Africa`s largest agricultural and timber exporters, to turn their network into a viable B2B tool.
"This will further expand and enhance our service offering to our clients," explains Mercia Griffin, information technology specialist, infrastructure, at Hans Merensky. "But it is only possible to create on the back of our exceptional network, without which such moves would be impossible."
And the secret to their ultra efficient network? "We have outsourced the full maintenance and upkeep of our network to Ultra Networking Solutions, and while they have had it there has never been any serious problem," answers Griffin.
Headquartered in Parktown, Hans Merensky has 12 sites countrywide, which include marketing offices (in Cape Town, Bedfordview and Pietermaritzburg, and fruit and timber farms in KwaZulu-Natal, the Eastern Province, the Northern Province and Mpumalanga. The company also owns a sawmill near Sabie. Fruit products such as mangoes and avocado pears are exported to Europe and the USA, while the timber products are also exported worldwide.
"Our network is thus very widely dispersed," says Griffin. "We run 64K lines form most of our sites to the head office, and then 124K lines from the head office to the IT section in Bedfordview."
Ultra Network Solutions, a company specialising in the administration, supply and maintenance of networks, was given the task of administering the Hans Merensky network some five years ago. "They do all our system monitoring, faultfinding, capacity planning, general maintenance of PCs, workstations, and also do our Internet," says Griffin. Ultra is also working closely with Hans Merensky on creating the Internet based B2B application.
"Although the decision to implement the B2B move is still awaiting final board approval, we are busy with the project," says Griffin. "In terms of the strategy, we will institute the beginnings of a customer relationship program. Client companies will be able to connect by Internet and pick up all their accounts, invoices, have a view of what stoic is available at what prices, and so on." All this data will be drawn off the internal network that must be kept up and running at all times in order to ensure that the very latest data is always available.
"If the network falls down, we will not be able to offer the B2B service, hence we had to ensure that whoever does our network maintenance, had to know what they were doing," says Griffin. Ultra monitors the network remotely from its head office in Sandton, but also has on-site technicians available on demand to Hans Merensky if the need arises.
Bernard Enslin is one of Ultra`s technicians who helps to ensure that system between the Parktown head office and the IT section in Bedfordview always runs according to plan. "I start off first thing each morning by contacting Hans Merensky by telephone to see if there are any issues that need to be addressed," says Enslin.
"Occasionally there will minor user problems, such as printing jams, or users being unable to log onto the mail server," says Enslin. The system has however never been down for any protracted length of time, and this is because the maintenance and monitoring of the physical network is constant. Serious problems are spotted before they become major, and proactive measures are taken to ensure that down time almost never occurs.
The network is currently primarily used for the business to ensure that the head office always has current, up to date data on all the activities of the disparate sites. The databases at the head office are updated via the network three times a day.
"This is used to create business intelligence for the company," explains Griffin. "Only by having valid data can the company determine its marketing strategy, pricing and positioning." The data is broken down into sales, stock on hand, stock by region or by sales representative. "Ultra ensures that all this actually does happen," Griffin concludes.
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