Would-be travellers and those planning a journey of study abroad will be interested to note that the American Institute of Foreign Study (AIFS) has embarked on a technological voyage of its own. The institute has acquired the services of network integration specialists, Integr8 IT, to re-configure its CRM infrastructure.
The institute is represented nationally with branches in Port Elizabeth, Johannesburg, Durban and Bloemfontein. It co-ordinates all communication and events through the customer relationship management (CRM) package, SalesLogix.
Until recently, all four branches have been linked to and worked off the institute`s central database in Cape Town. New calls are logged, information and contact details are stored and related correspondence is managed via 64K Diginet lines.
Technical engineer at Integr8 IT, Gerhard Conradie, says the volume and frequency of database queries and updates by the branch offices have had an impact on the speed of the lines and the additions of more computers at the branches was affecting the response times.
Integr8 IT recently completed the upgrading of the institute`s Windows NT 4 Server onto Windows 2000. The server was also configured for Terminal Services, which allows the branches to use the faster Terminal Server technology rather than querying the database over the Diginet lines.
Says Conradie: "To give you an example of just how this migration has improved the performance, we can look at the Institute`s recruitment procedure regarding the US Camp service. At times, the organisation queries the database for as much as 10 000 individuals at a time including past participants and current contacts. From a workstation this can take up to 10 minutes. Working through the localised SQL Server running Windows 2000 Terminal Services, the process takes less than a minute. It really is a proven solution for a company with a low bandwidth environment and for slower desktop PCs."
According to Sonia Last, Operations Manager at AIFS, the migration has the potential to reduce the time of the sales cycle from a week to a minute. This, she says, is significant when one considers the degree of communication that takes place not only between the institute`s local offices, but also between the many countries it has representation in.
"From the moment a prospect phones into our call centre and their details are entered onto the database, this information immediately becomes available to the sales people in the field and pops up onto their desktop. It has also helped as a training tool where I can train new people in the field over the phone in real-time with the same application open on both our desktops."
Last adds: "Its great that a medium-sized company like ourselves can make use of state of the art technology with only a reasonable outlay of capital expenditure.
"It is imperative that we can tap into any of our customer`s current information at any time, ie host family details in the US for example so that in an emergency we can contact them. Our database software, SalesLogix, allows us to do this as we integrate our London database with our SA database daily and merge all the London input with our own each day. This information is instantly available to all users around the country."
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Integr8 IT (Pty) Ltd is a wholly owned network technology services and solutions company in southern Africa. Based in SA, the company employs a wealth of highly skilled and certified system engineers who are directly involved in high level consulting, support and integration.
With offices located in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban, and representation in Port Elizabeth, East London and Port Elizabeth, Integr8 IT spans nationally across Southern Africa and Africa continent. It has the people and expertise to plan, deploy, manage and maintain an information technology environment.
Whether a client seeks better control of its networked environment or is in need of practical solutions, complex or simple, Integr8 IT provides the answers with enhanced information technology services.
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