AT A GLANCE

• PYBAR

INDUSTRY

• Mining

BUSINESS OBJECTIVE

• Migration from on-premises infrastructure to cloud platform
• To integrate with PYBAR’s on-premises infrastructure such as SQL
• To migrate a heavily customised version of Microsoft Dynamics AX2009 to the cloud

SOLUTION

• Microsoft Azure

BUSINESS BENEFITS

• Increased reliability and availability as head office was no longer the hub
• Being able to give all other sites access to the business apps
• All offices can continue running if there is a power outage at head office
• Cleaned up PYBAR’s SQL infrastructure

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Intergen
W: www.intergen.co.nz
E: enquiry@intergen.co.nz
T: +64 9 966 3070 or +64 4 472 2021

Working with Intergen’s parent company Empired, PYBAR migrated to Microsoft Azure, which delivered the vastly improved redundancy and reliability that the business required.

About PYBAR
PYBAR was founded in 1993 and is now the third-largest underground hard rock mining contractor in Australia. Through its subsidiaries and affiliates, the PYBAR group provides a comprehensive service to the mining sector, including underground mining, exploration drilling, mining electrical, and mine equipment maintenance. PYBAR has resources based in all major mining centres in Australia and employs more than 1,000 staff to deliver exceptional standards in underground mining.

Disruption in one location affected all others
PYBAR operates as a fast, efficient, and responsive organisation. This means the business’s IT capabilities must be agile, robust, and reliable. The company’s key infrastructure was located in its head office, in Orange, New South Wales. This created a potential issue for the organisation since any disruption in Orange would ultimately affect every other office throughout Australia, compromising PYBAR’s ability to operate seamlessly.

Troy Grey, ICT superintendent, PYBAR, said, “Disruptions as simple as a power outage in Orange would put a stop to work for all the other offices throughout the country. This was too risky for the business and it was important to find a solution that would guarantee availability and uptime.

“Furthermore, some of the on-premises kit in Orange was starting to get dated and it was time to upgrade. This need for a comprehensive overhaul created the perfect opportunity to explore a move to the cloud, as this would help deliver better redundancy and reliability.”

Azure chosen for ease of use and functionality
The PYBAR team began evaluating the options and processes involved in shifting the organisation’s infrastructure to the cloud. Various providers were considered before the team settled on Microsoft Azure.

Troy Grey said, “The team considered other cloud vendors but they didn’t have the same ‘lift and shift’ capability that Azure demonstrated. Azure was plug-and-play, as well as being very intuitive. Azure was also the best fit to integrate with PYBAR’s on-premises infrastructure such as SQL. PYBAR was already a Microsoft shop so it made sense to stick with one vendor, making Azure the obvious solution.”

The PYBAR team had previous relationships with Microsoft partners including Empired, so the team approached Empired to run a test project with a view to engaging Empired for the Azure project.

Troy Grey said, “The moment we spoke with the team at Empired we were taken aback at just how on-the-ball they were. The Empired team was on board and ready to get things happening quickly.”

The team proceeded with a proof of concept to migrate an on-premises version of Microsoft Dynamics AX2009 to the cloud. This was to prove challenging, since PYBAR’s version of Dynamics AX2009 was heavily customised and not originally intended for cloud use.

Troy Grey said, “Migrating such a heavily modified version of AX2009 was a challenge because it didn’t meet Microsoft best practice. However, working together with Empired we found a way to make it work. The proof of concept was accepted and it was full steam ahead for the Azure project.”

Redundancy and connectivity were vastly improved
The PYBAR team in charge of the Azure migration was very lean, so it required significant support from Empired to manage the implementation process. The Empired team worked seamlessly with PYBAR to get the Azure solution up and running.

Troy Grey said, “All the Empired team members on this project were very responsive and knowledgeable so, when the Azure solution was implemented and tested, it just worked. The team overcame a lot of hurdles in a short space of time, and the result was a smooth transition to Azure for PYBAR.”

Once the Azure platform was up and running, the key benefit for PYBAR was increased reliability and availability. Rather than using the business’s head office as its central IT hub, Azure has taken on that role. That means head office operates the same way as any other office, with all locations dialling into Azure.

Furthermore, giving all other sites access to the business apps they needed via the cloud overcame low connectivity issues that had been experienced by remote sites. Better connectivity has resulted in improved app performance, making life easier for PYBAR employees across the country.

“Empired had no hesitation in bringing in people with new skill sets to find a way to get things done. Even when the odds seemed insurmountable, Empired found a way to get it done, which was very refreshing.”
Troy Grey ICT Superintendent, PYBAR

Troy Grey said, “All IT is still in a central location, which was important for consistency, but now it doesn’t matter if there’s a minor power outage or a major issue in Orange; all offices can remain up and running. PYBAR can now safely guarantee a high availability of its systems to both metro offices and remote mining operations. Since moving to Azure, Orange has already had one power outage and the rest of the business was able to carry on as usual without interruption.

“An important benefit of this project is that PYBAR now has flexibility to spin up servers and shut them down, expand or remove performance as required, and guarantee redundancy. As part of this project, the team cleaned up PYBAR’s SQL infrastructure, making it more stable and secure.”

Now that PYBAR has standardised on Azure, the business will be able to move more apps into the cloud in the future.

Working with Empired
Empired provided the resources and support that PYBAR required to facilitate its move to Azure.

Troy Grey said, “The best part of working with Empired was that, when the project required additional resources, Empired had no hesitation in bringing in people with new skill sets to find a way to get things done. Even when the odds seemed insurmountable, Empired found a way to get it done, which was very refreshing.

The Empired team can actually do what it says it can do, with all the knowledge and power it needs in house. The team was always generous with advice and assistance, which really helped on this journey because the PYBAR team was very lean and needed to rely on Empired.

The Empired team was on hand during the weekend that the Azure solution went live, so we had the help we needed to ensure it happened smoothly. The team continued to provide support for the first week, responding urgently to any requests we had. This was exceptional and PYBAR is already looking at engaging Empired for future work such as a planned Microsoft Teams migration and SharePoint Online migration in the future.”

Source: This article was originally sourced from Intergen

FURTHER READING

AT A GLANCE

• Abano Healthcare Group – Lumino Dental Plan

INDUSTRY

• Healthcare

BUSINESS OBJECTIVE

• Create online commerce solution to grow revenue and patient forecasting
• Deliver world class digital customer experience to enhance customer engagement and loyalty
• Streamline, automate and connect process for cost and operational efficiencies
• Deliver online patient portals to provide complete dental history and upcoming care

SOLUTION

• Customised LDP web portal built by Intergen on Microsoft Azure PaaS incorporating full Microsoft stack including Dynamics NAV and CRM and integrated with Lumino’s practise management and payroll systems.

BUSINESS BENEFITS

• Enabled e-commerce, mass personalisation, simple sign-on and multi-device/channel access
• Accelerated time to market for cross selling, upselling bundled offerings
• Reduced manual processes, increased sign up rates and introduced integrated billing
• Increased customer satisfaction and digital sales across target markets

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Intergen
W: www.intergen.co.nz
E: enquiry@intergen.co.nz
T: +64 9 966 3070 or +64 4 472 2021

Abano Healthcare Group’s vision is to be a leader in oral healthcare in Australasia, through its two dental networks – Lumino The Dentists in New Zealand and Maven Dental Group in Australia. Technology is playing a key role in helping Abano achieve this goal, aiding revenue growth and cost reduction and improving customer loyalty.

Abano partnered with Intergen to revolutionise dental care with a forward-thinking and unique solution: the Lumino Dental Plan (LDP), created using Microsoft technologies. The solution is creating digital disruption in the trans-Tasman dental industry. The initial release of the Dental Plan is just the beginning, with new and innovative products and services soon to be delivered using this digital platform.

Abano’s Chief Information Officer, Peter Radich, has led the technology-enabled transformation and here we take a closer look at the journey.

The situation
NZX-listed Abano Healthcare owns and operates one of the largest private dental groups in Australasia, with a network of more than 2,300 people working across 235+ practices in New Zealand and Australia.

Having grown through the amalgamation of hundreds of private practices across the two countries, Abano has emerged from a world where disconnected systems, manual processes and a disjointed view of the customer was the norm.

New Zealanders have some of the worst oral dental health in the developed world, with very little insurance or government support for adult dental healthcare. Often people leave issues too long and are not proactive in managing their oral health due to cost concerns. As a leader in the industry, Abano is continually looking for ways to improve access to quality dental care for all patients.

Abano saw an opportunity to do something positive to change this trend, while at the same time creating a revolutionary, integrated solution to help drive business growth, greater visibility and better customer engagement for the group.

The opportunity
With the customer in mind, the team at Abano conceived the Lumino Dental Plan, a ‘dentistry as a service’ concept providing a much more proactive and affordable offering. The company’s fail-fast philosophy for innovation projects enabled them to pilot the idea with a small group of practices.

In 2016, for less than a $1 a day, they started to offer patients a comprehensive dental consultation, including an exam, x-rays, two hygiene visits and 10% off any additional treatments, payable as a monthly subscription, or annually with discount of up to 30 percent off RRP.

The proof of concept proved to be hugely successful, with over 8,000 patients signing up for the LDP over a two-year period. Not only this, further analysis showed that customers once signed up to the plan were typically accepting further treatments, outside of the initial plan, having built up trust and an understanding of the benefit of treatment versus perception of high cost.

Abano validated the concept, proving much greater customer engagement and improved business benefits and forecasting. However, as the numbers grew the manual system was not scalable and there was no automated back-end financial systems integration to allow for the Dental Plan solution to be rolled out to all of its dental practices.

Wanting to expand the solution to Lumino’s 123 New Zealand practices and thousands of patients nationwide, Intergen was selected and engaged to create a scalable, integrated digital solution unique to Lumino.

The result
The solution delivers a rich customer experience: a patient can see all their details, including last visit, treatments already performed, treatments available and treatments done, as well as any financial transactions. Patients can also select and book treatments through their portal. Other features now available to the company include mass personalisation, simple sign-on and multi-device/channel access and integrated billing.

In due course, an AI-driven engine will recommend dental services appropriate to individual patients, such as straightening or whitening.

Patient feedback is very positive, citing the LDP as the vehicle that got them back into regular dental maintenance after a long period of absence from the dentist, and helping to buck the trend of New Zealand’s poor dental health.

CIO Peter Radich says Intergen has created a solution which uses best practice development lifecycle management, with automated deployment of software updates across the various environments. Utilising Microsoft tools for DevOps has two major benefits, enabling both rapid extension of the LDP solution to new dental practices and, when updates are made to the solution (including the future introductions of new subscriptions for additional products and services), it is a straightforward process.

Intergen has engineered the system with diagnostic capabilities and trained Lumino’s team on the Enterprise Service Bus to self-solve issues. Radich simply calls it ‘The Magic Bus’. Since the solution started its phased go-live in October 2018, a further 3,200 patients have signed up to the LDP, by word of mouth alone.

The future
Currently in its first iteration, the LDP platform is designed and built with extensibility in mind. Not only is it expected to be introduced into Abano’s Australian operations, but the LDP will make a significant contribution to the long-term growth of the Abano business, helping the company carve out a unique position in the delivery of quality oral care with real benefits for every patient.

“This is the biggest investment we’ve ever made outside of dental practices themselves. We don’t develop software but buy and customise it. In this case, it would not be possible to create LDP without Intergen and Microsoft technology, which now enables us to scale this solution across 123 sites in New Zealand, and into Australia in the future.”
Peter Radich CIO, Abano

The dental plan has been designed to be flexible so Lumino can offer additional products to LDP patients, for example, teeth whitening, corporate plans and other dental products, which can be made available as subscription purchases in the future. Immediate results have proven excellent, even before the commencement of any marketing or advertising initiatives. Technology has played a central role in achieving an outstandingly successful digital transformation.

The technology behind the solution
The solution was a clean slate .NET development by Intergen using agile development methodology and the latest technology. Abano moved to Microsoft Azure in 2017/18 and therefore this solution was designed to leverage as much Software as a Service (SaaS) as possible. Deployment in Microsoft’s Azure cloud infrastructure is based on a state of the art serverless architecture.

FURTHER READING

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AT A GLANCE

• GMHBA

INDUSTRY

• Not for profit

BUSINESS OBJECTIVE

GMHBA needed to upgrade its content management system (CMS) to offer improved personalisation and give more control to the marketing team

SOLUTION

• Episerver

BUSINESS BENEFITS

• Moved from an on-premises to cloud-based content management system (CMS)
• Successfully upgraded to Episerver using an agile approach
• Close collaboration between the teams has set a strong personalisation strategy for the future
• Can see a clear sales funnel as users navigate the improved website

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Intergen
W: www.intergen.co.nz
E: enquiry@intergen.co.nz
T: +64 9 966 3070 or +64 4 472 2021

GMHBA’s focus is on their customers
GMHBA is an Australian not-for-profit health fund with more than 80 years’ experience. It puts members before profit to provide great value health cover and work together to build stronger and healthier communities. It prides itself on its personalised approach and exceptional customer service.

Improving content management and personalisation
GMHBA was looking to upgrade its existing content management system (CMS) to a more enterprise-level system with extended capabilities such as advanced editing functionality. This would let its marketing team make changes to online content instead of pulling in developers when changes were needed.

Furthermore, GMHBA was looking to improve the user experience of its site through personalisation and a better user interface. The team did extensive work on persona development to provide a new health insurance quoting process for customers.

Guy Moodie, Digital Customer Experience Lead, GMHBA, said, “GMHBA was also keen to move from on-premises to a cloud solution to reduce the maintenance and support required from the internal IT team and offer cleaner deployments in the future.

“Personalisation was a key aspect of the project since it is becoming increasingly important in the health insurance industry. If GMHBA was unable to improve its personalisation, it would have been difficult to compete effectively in a crowded market.”

Episerver provides right fit
Following a comprehensive market scan, GMHBA identified Episerver as a strong solution and Empired as the ideal partner to implement Episerver. GMHBA chose Episerver because it was the closest fit for the organisation’s requirement with features such as strong automation, content management, and personalisation all in one solution.

Empired was already a preferred partner for GMHBA, so it made sense to work together on this project.

Guy Moodie said, “Clearly GMHBA knew Empired could do the work, however the cultural fit was also really important. Our team was impressed with Empired’s strong customer experience lens as well as the team’s ability to go very deep technically.”

Collaborative approach led to project success
The GMHBA and Empired teams gelled quickly and worked successfully to co-build the solution. This was the first time GMHBA had gone all-in with an agile approach, which helped ensure the project stayed on track.

Guy Moodie said, “Using the solution before it was live and having training processes in place were critical to success. Change management was also important. Because the two teams worked closely together, the end result was a successful project.”

Currently, GMHBA has the personalisation building blocks in place and will continue building on those as time goes by. The solution is working as expected and the team has received positive feedback from users.

Guy Moodie said, “We received really positive feedback after launching the site from within the company. In user experience feedback sessions, we’ve been able to see how people are navigating and moving through the site, and we’ve seen an uplift in engagement, which is great. It’s also helped identify areas for improvement, particularly when it comes to the sales funnel. That’s a very complex piece, so work will likely be ongoing around that.” Due to the government’s reform regarding health insurance product classifications, GMHBA needed to understand what this meant for customers so it could determine how to deploy personalisation for maximum benefit.

Guy Moodie said, “Health insurance has become incredibly complex, so it’s not useful to have a website that puts the same information in front of every customer. Personalisation will be crucial as GMHBA refines the site to a more individualised experience for each user.”

Now that the Empired solution has been trialled on selected products, GMHBA will look to do a full-scale rollout across all products and create seamless integrations with third parties that provide health and wellbeing services.

Guy Moodie said, “It’s important to offer value-adds to customers to build brand loyalty and differentiate GMHBA. This should help with customer retention as well as acquisition. The signs are promising that the new solution will deliver this.

“In the next six to 12 months, GMHBA will focus on increasing personalisation, improving customer communications through targeted campaigns, and continuing to manage customer data effectively to provide superior experiences.”

Source: This article was originally sourced from Intergen

FURTHER READING

AT A GLANCE

• Force Technology

INDUSTRY

• Retail and Manufacturing

BUSINESS OBJECTIVE

• To improve the overall customer experience of their website
• A responsive design for tablet and smartphone users
• User friendly search function

SOLUTION

• Microsoft sharepoint

BUSINESS BENEFITS

• Existing website offered opportunities for improvement to deliver a better customer experience
• Empired offered a bespoke solution that was more flexible and offered modern functionality
• Seamless implementation occurred due to strong, collaborative relationship
• Anticipated benefits to include incremental sales increases

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Intergen
W: www.intergen.co.nz
E: enquiry@intergen.co.nz
T: +64 9 966 3070 or +64 4 472 2021

Force Technology International Pty Ltd (Force) needed to update and improve its website user experience and offer improved e-commerce functionality for its B2B customers. A key strategic focus for Force was to be customer-led and maintain a leadership position in its space. Working with Intergen’s parent company in Australia, Empired, Force used the Microsoft stack to upgrade its website and deliver a more responsive, user-friendly e-commerce experience for its customers. The team anticipates this will result in a significant uplift in sales.

About Force Technology
Force was established more than 25 years ago as a wholesaler of mobile lifestyle brand products. Force supplies to a substantial reseller network for more than 3,000 outlets throughout Australia and New Zealand. This includes specialty communication retailers, major retail groups, service providers, and network carriers. Its distribution centre is recognised as a world-class enterprise hub with the power to facilitate a technologically-advanced supply chain.

Existing website needed to be improved
As a full-service supplier, Force is always looking for innovative solutions to enhance its total product offering. This includes making it easier for customers to see Force’s extensive product range and service offering, order without friction, and rely on on-time delivery of products.

Force had an existing website with strong functionality but it wasn’t mobile-responsive and the team recognised that it could do an even better job of presenting options to B2B customers. Force had invested a significant amount of resources in becoming a market leader and wanted to further enhance the functionality it offered customers to cement that leading position.

“Using improved notifications and extended layout functionality, we’ll experiment to see how we can increase orders and value.”

Chris Sciortino, Chief Marketing Officer, Force Technology, said, “The existing website had become slightly dated in terms of the user experience and it needed to become mobile-responsive. The main goal was to improve the overall customer experience for the retailers that order from us. It was important to make it the best in the sector. “Furthermore, Force is committed to being customer-led and the website update was a great opportunity to do that. This was a transformation opportunity that would set us apart from the competition.”

Customer feedback highlighted areas for improvement
The team started by gaining functional feedback from customers. Through telephone surveys, Force uncovered its customers’ pain points and wish list, identifying areas for improvement especially around search and ordering functionality. As part of its work with Empired, the team collated this feedback and prioritised the pain points to turn them into functional elements that could be included in the new site.

Chris Sciortino said, “In this way, the scoping process was very customer-led. Engaging with key active, engaged power users, we were able to get a real sense of what was needed and how to proceed.”

Once it was clear what elements needed to be addressed, the Force team began searching for a solution. It started with considering off-the-shelf solutions to upgrade the existing site structure. However, on further investigation it became clear that the opportunity was about more than just upgrading the existing site; it was about creating an entirely new site with modern functionality.

Chris Sciortino said, “To maximise functionality and have development flexibility, we needed to work with a partner that would offer a collaborative experience while providing strategic advice and best practice. Empired shared our goal of having the best e-commerce site recognised within our industry. While we considered other options, it was clear that the best path was to engage with Empired.”

Three key pain points dictated requirements
Empired took Force on a journey from understanding its customers’ requirements to putting those requirements into a solution. Both the Empired and Force teams understood the absolute necessity of keeping every activity customer focused.

Together, Empired and Force identified three key pain points that needed to be addressed. The first was the site’s look and feel, and its ability to provide clear information on each of the thousands of product lines offered by Force. Collating the information on screen to showcase that information in a clean, simple way was important to help customers visualise the products.

The second pain point was around search. The previous functionality was augmented by a Google-style search box that let users search more generally for products, in addition to the traditional searches by category or brand, which is an industry standard. The additional functionality helps customers who aren’t sure what they’re looking for, creating a better user experience. The final pain point was around responsiveness. Customers using tablets and smartphones for ordering were frustrated by the site’s non-responsive design, so it was imperative to ensure the new site would be fully responsive to cater to customers’ device preferences. Empired developed a bespoke solution based on JavaScript, .NET, and NAV integration to solve each of these pain points comprehensively.

Seamless implementation due to collaboration
The implementation process was professional and seamless. Sprint sessions kept the agile project on track with plenty of flexibility for feedback and changes.

Chris Sciortino said, “The management of the sprints was extremely well-executed by Empired. It was a collaborative and enjoyable experience with feedback taken on board and actioned quickly. This helped us get to the key functionality we were looking for.” The solution included integrating the website functionality with Force’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, which had created challenges in the past. However, the integration with the new system has been smooth.

The messaging engine has also improved with better tools to communicate with customers. Force no longer relies on simple email marketing; the team can now communicate through text messages and more sophisticated emails regarding order receipt and processing.

Chris Sciortino said, “Being able to keep customers informed at each stage of the buying process is a big benefit. It adds to the transparency and visibility that customers prefer, delivering on our promise to be customer-focused.”

Force elected to keep both the old website and the new one operating in parallel while customers switched over to the new one. Eventually, the old site will be phased out as customers transition completely to the new site.

Anticipated benefits include incremental order increases
The project was scoped to deliver incremental extra orders through the improved user experience. This included functionality like suggestive ordering, the ability to add extra items into the basket, and so on. These functions are in the early stages of deployment and Force anticipates that cumulative orders and total value of orders will increase as customers become more used to using the new site. From there, the team will look to further enhance those tools to work out the key triggers that lead to incremental basket share. Chris Sciortino said, “Now that both sites are up, Force will run a promotion to establish some benchmark numbers for both sites. Then, we’ll add a further promotion to that to see what uplift it generates. Using improved notifications and extended layout functionality, we’ll experiment to see how we can increase orders and value.”

Working with Empired
Empired and Force created a strong, collaborative relationship in which the Empired team felt like part of the Force team. This unified partnership was well-received by the Force team. Chris Sciortino said, “Working with Empired was a great experience. Having the right team in place meant we could deliver according to the timeline. Although the Force team had an understanding of customer requirements, Empired was very much an expert partner that provided significant value around the knowledge base and recommendations.”

Source: This article was originally sourced from Intergen

FURTHER READING

AT A GLANCE

• ChristchurchNZ

INDUSTRY

• Local Government

BUSINESS OBJECTIVE

• A more stable, reliable financial management solution with local support
• Cloud-based solution to ensure business continuity in earthquake-prone Christchurch

SOLUTION

• Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central

BUSINESS BENEFITS

• The implementation took less than four weeks due to the simplicity of the platform
• invaluable advice on financial processes and accounting
• New solution delivered the automation and control needed
• Improved stability and reliability.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Intergen
W: www.intergen.co.nz
E: enquiry@intergen.co.nz 
T: +64 9 966 3070 or +64 4 472 2021

ChristchurchNZ has established itself a resilient financial management platform after the successful installation of a new cloud-based ERP, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, helped by implementation partner Intergen.

ChristchurchNZ is the council agency that provides the vision and leadership to attract events, visitors, businesses, talent, students, investors and entrepreneurs to the city. It provides targeted initiatives to support innovation and business growth while also promoting the city nationally and internationally. Its goal is to grow the city’s reputation as a vibrant and exciting place where people experiment and test new ideas, and innovate in business, technology, and society.

Martin Brice, Business Systems Manager, ChristchurchNZ, said, “It was important to have a cloud-based solution for disaster recovery purposes. Since suffering a devastating earthquake in 2011, it was clear that business systems should be based in the cloud rather than on premises to avoid business continuity issues in the event of another major earthquake.”

Reliable solution with local support needed
Newly-formed from the amalgamation of two council-controlled organisations in 2017, the agency needed a core business system that would meet the complex needs of the new organisation.

ChristchurchNZ needed to automate its processes and put support for its financial management system on a better footing. Initially, the business had chosen a cloud-based solution that was supported by an Australian-based provider. Over time, that support proved inadequate and it became clear that it needed to work with a local provider who could guarantee improved uptime for the solution as well as work as a partner to help the business improve its financial analysis and accounting.

Cloud-based solution required for business continuity
With a clear, simple goal in mind, ChristchurchNZ engaged Intergen to help it determine the right solution for the business moving forward. The project was finance-led instead of technology-led, which meant Intergen was working directly with the solution’s end users from the start.

Intergen recommended Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, which is Microsoft’s first cloud-based financials solution aimed at small and medium businesses, and based on the popular Navision solution.

As it turned out, ChristchurchNZ was the first organisation in New Zealand to implement Business Central.

Being a recently refreshed built-for cloud solution also meant that Business Central would be relatively easy to implement. Deployment is based on a wizard-like process with very little development required. Intergen added significant value in its business consulting with advice around the functionality within Business Central that the business needed to deploy.

Martin Brice said, “Intergen had a small window for the implementation and the entire project was completed within three or four weeks. ChristchurchNZ was live in the new system at the beginning of October, which was good timing for us.

“The process was very straightforward and used the same architecture as our previous system, so it was a matter of extracting the data from the old system and loading it into Business Central. The hardest part was checking that the data was correct.”

“The system is more user-friendly and reliable now, as well as more flexible.”

Business Central is different to previous Microsoft financial solutions such as Dynamics NAV because its core remains stable and unchanged by customisations. To build enhancements, partners such as Intergen create them locally and layer them on top of the core architecture. This means they’re unaffected by upgrades, which are rolled out automatically by Microsoft.

Using this new approach, Intergen was able to create and deploy extensions in two days, proving that the implementation of even a very complex solution wouldn’t need to be lengthy or painful. Using the team’s extensive experience in financial management and accounting, Intergen was able to recommend improvements and different processes that would help streamline ChristchurchNZ’s operations without requiring bulky, burdensome customisations.

Control through automation
The agency has seen significant growth since it was set up, and the business operates with more complexity than before. The project-based nature of the work is well supported by Business Central.

Martin Brice said, “As the business has grown, it has been essential to gain more control over its finances. Previously, the business was small enough that every finance person knew where every dollar was. But now ChristchurchNZ is at a stage where the activity is too big for one person to manage so having controls in place is essential.”

Those controls have been achieved via automation of the purchase order creation and authorisation process, with further automation projects scheduled for the new year.

Future plans
ChristchurchNZ intends to investigate optical character recognition (OCR) capabilities to help with further automation of key processes. Furthermore, the business will likely look to integrate Business Central with its Microsoft Dynamics CRM solution to have a common platform, which will enable seamless integration in the future.

Working with Intergen
Martin Brice said, “The system is more user-friendly and reliable now, as well as more flexible. Importantly, Intergen is helping ChristchurchNZ think about how the system will work, which is something we don’t really have time to do. Intergen does the strategic thinking and offers us recommendations, which works well. The team is always helpful and we’ve made good progress with them. We’re entirely happy with Intergen and the ongoing support provided by the team.”

Source: This article was originally sourced from Intergen

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AT A GLANCE

• Marine Rescue

INDUSTRY

• Not for profit

BUSINESS OBJECTIVE

• VMRAQ required a system that would tie them all together and provide a single source of truth to every squadron.

SOLUTION

• Office 365
• SharePoint Online
• Power BI
• Azure Active Directory
• Azure SQL
• Azure web apps

BUSINESS BENEFITS

• Improved business operations, productivity and efficiency

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Intergen
W: www.intergen.co.nz
E: enquiry@intergen.co.nz 
T: +64 9 966 3070 or +64 4 472 2021

Volunteer Marine Rescue Queensland (VMRAQ) provides volunteer marine search and rescue services to the boating public across 2,700km of Queensland coast, with 25 affiliated squadrons located throughout the State of Queensland.

Mayday, mayday
Keith Williams, General Manager of Marine Rescue Queensland says, ”With only three and a half paid staff, two of whom are dedicated trainers, there are only one and a half people to manage an enterprise that consists of 25 locations, 50 vessels, 1460 volunteers, over 2500 rescues and more than 6000 rescue vessel operations a year. Add to that the burden of running a registered training organisation that is compliant to volunteers operating in a high risk environment and you can imagine that business processes, in particular the way they manage data, all have to be pretty spot on.”

“25 locations, 50 vessels, 1460 volunteers, over 2500 rescues and more than 6000 rescue vessel operations a year.”

VMRAQ had many challenges – disparate systems across squadrons which meant collaboration was non-existent, different logon practices, users from remote areas with marginal internet access, no backup files and users all across Queensland who specialise in marine rescue vessel operations, not in technology.

These challenges resulted in each squadron having no idea what was going on in the field and it being near impossible to ensure everyone across each squadron had up to date training when an outdated database system managed their training records. Add to that the reality that several volunteers across the region were writing the same procedure and another volunteer was modifying technology from another organisation to use at VMRAQ – whilst drowning in other roles within the organisation – and this technology was still not coping with a major change in the training package, released by the Commonwealth Government.

They needed an intuitive, easy to use technology solution so their staff and volunteers could focus on what was important – keeping Queenslanders safe on the water.

Keith also wanted more for VMRAQ. He says, “I wanted statistics, I wanted data and I wanted business intelligence. I need this for funding applications and indeed I need this to justify our very existence. I needed a top-level integrated product with single sign on to access everything from email, to documents to training records and vessel activity.”

Bailing out
Empired’s Dave Paylor, who is an integral member of VMRAQ, proposed a solution to Keith when they finally met.

Managing documents across their disparate systems was the top priority for VMRAQ. The solution was to use a hub design, providing each squadron a new, simple portal that lets skippers share content. Built on SharePoint, running on Office 365, this lets VMRAQ share knowledge amongst squadrons. Along with other Empired employees, who donated work, Dave and Empired built an Azure based system for VMRAQ’s email, website, administration records, training records and activity records so they are now fully integrated, with single sign-on.

“It is an innovative way of getting a job done that we are compelled to do. What the community will see out of that is safer operations and better risk management. We need to know our volunteers are safe as well, so it’s helping us meet that goal.”
Keith Williams, General Manager, Volunteer Marine Rescue Queensland

Keith says, “We can see what other squadrons are doing and implement best practice procedures. This type of knowledge sharing can literally save lives.”

This system also displays incidents on maps and shows how much fuel squadrons have so they can always ensure they have the resources and safety measures in place to save lives. Squadron’s headquarters have immediate access to information and visuals so they can see what is happening in real-time, discuss it and provide input and feedback immediately. The learnings that come from these are then built into trainings to be learnt from around the region.

Data capture was next on the priority list for VMRAQ. Now, every time a rescue vessel is launched details are captured in the new portal including, how much fuel was used, how many people were assisted and how long the vessel was at sea. It also keeps track of all volunteers and their training records.

As most crew members are more interested in being out on the water than behind a keyboard, data capture was always a challenge. Too often organisations demand people to provide data, only for it to disappear into a black hole, never to be seen again. Now, every page in the new portal contains statistics from the database relevant to that page of information. If someone adds new information they can see the statistics change instantly, knowing they are making a difference.

Plain sailing
Keith says, “Acceptance has been universal. Users are loving the fact that they now only need to remember one username and password. Everything is in one place. Forms to enter data are simple, fast and intuitive. The rollover happened in mid-January 2018. In terms of providing technical support, the workload is now as low as it has ever been. Data is easy to enter, easy to access and in a word is a manager’s dream”.

“What Office 365 has given us is the ability to put everybody on the same page, for starters,” Keith said. “But it also enables us to create group-based aliases, so I can just send an email to all volunteers in a region now, rather having to remember each individual person.”

The new system is enabling volunteers to keep on top of the latest legislative changes from anywhere, at any time, on any device. Volunteers use their own devices and now can access all the same information. They are also able to collaborate from different locations like never before. This was proven when new legislation was released that VMRAQ now needs to maintain a risk register as well as having standard policies. They can’t gather a thousand volunteers in one location to write and re-write these but they can now share and edit documents online easily with a single source of truth.

On the horizon
Keith says, “What will happen is that we’ll end up with a system where people will be able to do completely self-based learning. They’ll get the training material, they’ll be able to sign in and perhaps have a co-ordinator sign off that they’ve done practical training skills in that area. Then they’ll be able to do that exam in their own time at their own location, so SharePoint is bringing massive benefits to us.”

Source: This article was originally sourced from Intergen

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AT A GLANCE

• Genetic Technologies (GenTec)

INDUSTRY

• Primary Sector

BUSINESS OBJECTIVE

• Replace ageing ERP solution
• Combine Australian and New Zealand operations into single system
• Rationalise CRM integration
• Achieve organisational efficiency
• Accelerate planning, forecasting, reporting

SOLUTION

• Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations
• Microsoft Power BI
• Capion financial planning software

BUSINESS BENEFITS

• Single solution for trans-Tasman operations
• Improved visibility from the factory floor to the executive suite
• Efficiency gains through a consolidation system
• Elimination of ‘data islands’
• Single, integrated solution
• Budgeting and forecasting done ‘in system’, replacing spreadsheets
• Future benefits
• Growth unrestrained by business systems

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Intergen
W: www.intergen.co.nz
E: enquiry@intergen.co.nz
T: +64 9 966 3070 or +64 4 472 2021

When agricultural powerhouse Genetic Technologies needed an upgrade to an ageing enterprise resource planning solution, it looked to Intergen for answers. The subsequent introduction of Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations not only delivered a modern, more integrated solution, it also marked the first New Zealand-led and deployed solution. At the same time, the company has rationalised a Salesforce.com deployment across two territories, introduced a financial planning solution and the Microsoft Power BI analytics suite. Today, the complete system is delivering advantages which include increased efficiency, dramatically improved inventory control and improved budgeting, forecasting and planning capabilities.

Genetic Technologies (GenTec) is a family-owned New Zealand business founded in 1986 by Philip Yates. The company is the sole distributor for the DuPont Pioneer range of agricultural seeds locally and in Australia. The company employs some 90 people across New Zealand and has, since 2010, run the Microsoft Dynamics AX ERP solution.

[CONTINUES BELOW]

Situation
Genetic Technologies’ CFO Jason Morris says there were several drivers which led the business to seek an upgrade to its existing ERP system. “The first was, quite simply, that the Dynamics AX 2009 platform was showing its age. The second was that we’d acquired our sister company in Australia, where Pioneer had been operating a fully-owned subsidiary, and we wanted to bring that into a single, integrated solution. And finally, we; migrated to Salesforce CRM a few years ago and wanted to integrate that fully with an updated ERP.”

Morris says the Australian acquisition was running a similar setup to the Kiwi operations, also on Dynamics AX 2009 platform. That company, too, had a Salesforce system, but the configuration was quite different, with that entity using it as a marketing database where the local setup relied upon it for the CRM features. “With the two businesses coming together, we recognised the advantages in one common IT setup across all systems, servers, financials, CRM and so on.”

“They feel we have invested, listened to them, taken away pain points and made things efficient.”

There was a deadline of sorts, too – GenTec had agreements in place with Pioneer following the acquisition of the Australian subsidiary which allowed it to use the business systems for 18 months. This provided a useful window during which Intergen could implement the new Dynamics 365 solution with minimal disruption to daily operations.

Outside of the necessity for integrating the two separate entities, Morris says there were other issues which an upgraded system would address. “Pre-2010 we had a lot of database islands. We had a purpose-built CRM system, an old finance and accounting package, and a whole lot of spreadsheets which made for lots of little islands with remote kinds of information. When we put in AX 2009, we ran with its internal CRM, bringing those islands together. But when we migrated to Salesforce CRM, the islands started coming back.”

That’s an issue which is directly addressed by the introduction of the Dynamics 365 system: it is fully integrated with the Salesforce CRM package, providing the ‘single version of the truth’ so desirable to any organisation.

And finally, Morris says inventory management wasn’t as good as it could be with the existing ERP system. “In our production facilities in Gisborne and in Naramine, Australia where seed is produced, treated and bagged, visibility on inventory is crucial. AX 2009 wasn’t quite hitting the mark. We wanted to adopt process change; putting in a new system would mean we could refresh production hardware and our integrations with that.”

Doing so would provide the visibility GenTec desired.

Solution
Identifying the right solution for its business depended on first examining the available options in the market. Since it was already a ‘Microsoft shop’, it made sense to remain within the stack, Morris notes. “We did a very high-level review of the market which did include a quick look outside [the Microsoft ecosystem] to check the lie of the land. Our external consultants pretty much confirmed the view of sticking with Microsoft, with a recommendation that the Dynamics 365 solution would meet requirements from both a functionality and cost point of view. That made it a no brainer, particularly as we were familiar with the older version.”

Morris explains the rigour which goes into the selection and execution of enterprise software systems; from starting the journey February 2017 to going live took a full year, with the project being completed in the same month in 2018. “We had to bring together two businesses that were similar in that both sell seed through a merchant network. But one was in New Zealand, the other in Australia and each had several different processes. In hindsight, we might have done more in the first six months; the process was intense, more so in the last six months with business as usual activities.”

Given the demands of running the business while also conducting a major systems deployment, Morris adds that GenTec beefed up the project team with a specialist third party project manager. “Ourselves, the project manager and Intergen worked well together; there was a further complicating factor of our Salesforce integration, handled by our partner from Salesforce, which added to the mix. And, additionally, we upgraded some aspects of our hardware at the same time, so, we had multiple parties executing various tasks – but they weren’t afraid to all get around the phone to get the solution in place.”

Results
Before getting into the benefits of the new Dynamics 365 system, one of the first measures for success of any enterprise software project is the time taken and the money spent on the deployment. In this regard, Morris is unequivocal about the success of the exercise: “It all worked out really well; Intergen delivered a very good project. They had the knowledge, regular connects and the net result is we delivered on time and within budget,” he relates.

The true scope of the project is clear when Morris points out that it was more than just Dynamics 365. “There was the Salesforce rationalisation from two organisations down to one, but at the same time, we launched a Microsoft Power BI suite and introduced Capion financial planning software for budgeting, replacing a whole lot of spreadsheets and a very, very cumbersome process. This was just an add-on to Dynamics 365 which has the benefit of also handling some of our financial reporting.”

It is, says Morris, early days yet, but GenTec is already seeing the benefits of an integrated, companywide system which spans operations on both sides of the Tasman. “We are starting to see our first revenue figures coming through and the integrations are starting to work. The interface between our production hardware has saved two labour resources – those on the factory floor are not ones to shout from the rooftops, but they are enjoying the new systems. They feel we have invested, listened to them, taken away pain points and made things efficient.”

From a ‘macro’ view, Morris says GenTec is now confident in the system supporting the company’s ability to meet growth targets with streamlined and efficient technology platforms. “This allows us to achieve our growth targets as we seek to grow the market, using our market intelligence through CRM and produce/dispatch records, while seamlessly invoicing the products within the ERP system,” he notes.

And, adds Morris, there are no longer any data islands. “We will just get better at using the information and either data source [CRM or ERP]. That’s the key to getting the most out of this system.”

The future is bright for GenTec and its integrated business systems. “I’m really keen to develop a roadmap to ensure we continue to use the solution to its fullest going forward. It’s a bit like Excel [if you don’t put effort into it]. You only really touch 10-20 percent of the functionality of Excel each day, so I want to make sure we are aware of the functionality Microsoft is bringing down the pipe. We evaluate it, and if it’s got merits, we roll with it,” he concludes.

Source: This article was originally sourced from Intergen

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AT A GLANCE

• AsureQuality

INDUSTRY

• Healthcare

BUSINESS OBJECTIVE

• Bringing staff together to ensure easy collaboration and communication over different geographical locations was essential for AsureQuality as well as guaranteeing transparency across all business units.

SOLUTION

• SNAP 365
• Technology used – Office 365, Yammer and Skype for business

BUSINESS BENEFITS

• Information is more transparent throughout the business
• Staff can collaborate online with any documents and reports
• The search functionality is much faster and easier to use

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Intergen
W: www.intergen.co.nz
E: enquiry@intergen.co.nz
T: +64 9 966 3070 or +64 4 472 2021

AsureQuality provides food safety and biosecurity services to the food and primary production sectors worldwide. With 1700 experts based in over 100 locations throughout Australasia, Singapore, Saudi Arabia and China they assure the safety and quality of food being produced for millions of people. Placed in a very competitive industry AsureQuality need to stay ahead of the game and remain a strong competitor by increasing efficiency and driving costs down by 10-12 million dollars a year.

Facing the challenge of an aging intranet product which was end of life and difficult to use, AsureQuality was looking for a way to get the most out of their Office 365 investment and create greater collaboration and communication amongst their staff across different geographical locations.

The opportunity
AsureQuality faced a challenge of having very siloed teams and many silos of different knowledge meant that people within AsureQuality did not have visibility of what was happening in different parts of the organisation.

Darren Wilson, CIO at AsureQuality says, “This wasn’t really a technology project for us; it was a real people focused project”.

The intranet is dead: Long live the digital workplace
An out of date intranet which staff were not using, yet took dedicated people to keep functional, prompted AsureQuality to find a lighter, easily maintainable solution to run in conjunction with Office 365. Intergen proposed the use of their Office 365 accelerator, SNAP 365, which would enable AsureQuality to quickly and easily get a digital workplace portal up and running, allowing them to reap the benefits almost immediately.

Built on top of the array of capabilities provided by Office 365, SNAP 365 provides a single, unifying canvas – bringing contextualisation and personalisation to the Office 365 picture. Beginning with an extremely engaged stakeholder group at AsureQuality made it easy for Intergen to start a set of workshops introducing Office 365 and SharePoint and tailor these to their individual needs.

“Our people have a reason to go to OneAQ to get the latest news about our company. Our CEO is using Yammer for his weekly newsletter.”
Darren Wilson, CIO – AsureQuality

The result
Since go live, just 12 weeks after the first workshops were kicked off, AsureQuality has seen a spike in the usage of Yammer.

“Yammer has pretty much exploded over the last three months because it is a panel on the front page of SNAP 365 and it’s quite visible,” Darren says.

To aid in this spike their CEO has started real time, out in the field updates over Yammer and has also posted a video talking about the new digital workplace, OneAQ. Aptly named, OneAQ brings everyone together across AsureQuality, helping in their goals to make information more transparent throughout the business. Yammer has created a popular, informal channel for AsureQuality employees, filling a communication gap they had identified in their culture.

OneDrive and Office 365 Groups are being used more since the implementation and these tools have significantly increased collaboration online. Employees can co-author documents which saves time and negates the need to be bogged down by hundreds of attachments being sent over email. The search functionality in OneAQ is much faster and easier to use than the old intranet and documents are easy to get back to using the OneAQ homepage.

“It was a good kick start for actually driving the usage of Office 365 through the organisation. By bundling the release of the different Office 365 tools into the roll out of OneAQ, it has driven people to use more of the Office 365 tools we have invested in,” Darren says.

The future
AsureQuality is now rolling out Skype for Business, which will further increase collaboration across the organisation.

Next, they will be focusing on document management and their wider information management space and are currently in discussions with Intergen to complete these projects as well as migrate all documents off their file shares.

Since the implementation of SNAP 365, AsureQuality’s users now know they can use online tools and want to use more and more in their day to day lives.

Source: This article was originally sourced from Intergen

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AT A GLANCE

• Public Trust

INDUSTRY

• Public Sector and Financial Services

BUSINESS OBJECTIVE

• Modernisation of obsolete business systems
• Consolidation of multiple, disparate and siloed systems
• Reduction in paper dependency
• Introduction of company-wide electronic Content Management System

SOLUTION

• Microsoft Dynamics NAV
• NavOne Wealth Management (Touchstone)
• Cohesion, Intergen’s ECM as a Service
• A custom-built .NET external portal – Fee Protect
• Data Insights

BUSINESS BENEFITS

• A single view of the truth – vastly improved visibility of information and business processes
• Replaced manual, paper-based systems with a fully integrated, automated online solution
• Greater insights into processes and customer information
• Total modernisation of all aspects of Public Trust’s organisation
• Organisation positioned to be agile and evolve with technology, harnessing new market and revenue

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Intergen
W: www.intergen.co.nz
E: enquiry@intergen.co.nz
T: +64 9 966 3070 or +64 4 472 2021

Faced with the reality of a world where business is digital, but lumbered with obsolete legacy systems, Public Trust looked to Intergen for an enterprise-wide technology refresh built on the Microsoft solutions stack. The culmination of a demanding three-year project, the organisation is today fully equipped with a Microsoft Dynamics NAV platform and Cohesion ECM platform, enabling the organisation to perform to the highest expectations, and ready to tackle the future with confidence.

Public Trust is a Crown Entity, the independence of which is guaranteed under the Public Trust Act 2001. The Maori name, Te Tari Tiaki Iwi, translates as `the organisation that takes care of people’. Public Trust is the country’s largest and oldest trustee organisation, established in 1873 to provide a stable, independent and impartial trustee for the people of New Zealand. Public Trust manages fiduciary funds of some NZ$3.5 billion, has over 300 staff operating from 23 customer centres, and several part time offices looking after the interests of 240,000 New Zealanders.

The situation
Bob Smith, CEO, Public Trust says the main problem the organisation faced was that its technology systems belonged to another era. “We had IT platforms which were 25 years old and they were just not suitable to move our organisation forward in the digital age. They lacked integration and functionality, including around such important factors as business intelligence and client management.”

Adding further impetus, explains Smith, is the reality of a rapidly digitising environment in which customer expectations for service and access into any given organisation are changing. “We wanted to move the organisation into a modern architectural framework which would enable us to move forward and integrate digital strategies and initiatives into our core operating model. This was our primary objective, rather than any business case around efficiency or functionality.”

With such a sweeping project, Smith says there was a lot at stake, and hence the choice of technology and implementation partner was crucial to eventual success. “We’re a big little company; we have net revenues of around $55 million and a considerable amount of funds under management.”

In other words, the organisation’s technology requirements are complex and sophisticated. “On top of that, we wanted to select an architecture which, while immediately appropriate, would also provide for and enable growth.”

The solution
A ‘considerable amount of work’ went into identifying that Microsoft provided the breadth and depth of technology required to meet Public Trust’s needs.

Smith says that they went through the traditional RFI and RFP process to select a Microsoft systems integration partner, from which Intergen were selected. “We then worked with Intergen to determine if we would go with vanilla Dynamics NAV, or if we would put a specialist trustee package from Touchstone on top of NAV – ultimately, it was the latter option which was determined to be the best option.” Microsoft were actively involved with this decision-making process. In addition to the Microsoft/Touchstone stack he adds that Intergen’s own Cohesion Enterprise Content Management as a Service (ECMaaS) was selected.

The results
In the past doing business was too complex, said Smith. “So in parallel with the system implementation we simplified the organisational design of the business. This design underpinned by NavOne allows us now to scale the business.”

Notably, he says important aspects such as accuracy of information and the ability to access information and produce financial figures has become considerably easier.

“Along with NAV we now have an integrated business intelligence environment. While that is quite basic at this stage, there are no data integrity issues.”

Smith singles out the strength of NAV’s timesheeting module. “That’s been a real benefit. We make revenue from selling time, so strength in this area translates to business improvement for us.”

The amount of change implied in such a large scale systems implementation means we did take a dip in productivity in the first two to three months after go-live, but that has steadily improved. We are at higher levels and continue to see an increase as the system beds down and as our people become more familiar with it.” Smith adds that Public Trust is in ‘the relationships business’.

“So, while we now have a digital platform which does everything we had hoped it would do, I don’t see a big shift in amount of business that we can conclude online. What I do see is the digital tools and touchpoints facilitating the end-to-end process and integrating into our existing channels. That will make Public Trust far more accessible, easier for customers to interact with, and will augment our capability to deliver to customer expectations.”

The project, Smith says, is a definite success. “This exercise is crucial to Public Trust moving forward in the modern world, something we couldn’t do without this project. The architectural model we have selected will provide flexibility to adopt new technology as we go forward. We have the benefit of an integrated system for managing our revenue lifecycle and the processes around; this system will be a key facilitator for our growth aspirations; and it is essential for providing customer experiences which seamlessly move between the digital and physical worlds,” he concludes.

“Providing customer experiences which seamlessly move between the digital and physical worlds.”

Source: This article was originally sourced from Intergen

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AT A GLANCE

• Education New Zealand

INDUSTRY

• Education

BUSINESS OBJECTIVE

• Introduce improved information management, collaborative capabilities
• Eliminate multiple ‘network drives’ and disorganised data storage
• Free information for use by authorised personnel

SOLUTION

• Cohesion Enterprise Content Management as a Service
• InterConnect: Change Management as a Service
• Information Management as a Service

BUSINESS BENEFITS

• Single version of the truth
• Consolidated data storage improves information accessibility
• Elimination of dispersed, difficult-to-manage infrastructure
• Improved information use and collaboration
• Productivity improvements

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Intergen
W: www.intergen.co.nz
E: enquiry@intergen.co.nz
T: +64 9 966 3070 or +64 4 472 2021

Faced with a situation where organisational information was being stored here, there and everywhere, Education New Zealand (ENZ) recognised the security and operational limitations of unstructured data retention. It looked to Intergen for a solution – and with the introduction of the Cohesion cloud enterprise content management (ECM) solution, the organisation has revolutionised not only information storage, but its use, too.

ENZ is New Zealand’s first government agency for international education, which is the country’s fourth largest export earner. Essentially an ‘umbrella marketing organisation’, ENZ provides a pivotal link between government and industry and is tasked with raising awareness of New Zealand as a study destination, supporting education providers and businesses to export their services and products.

Situation
ENZ is a knowledge organisation with a global remit with 90 staff members spread across 17 locations worldwide. As the ambassador for the promotion of New Zealand as a world-leading destination for education, achieving organisation-wide collaboration and information finding and sharing was an absolute imperative for ENZ.

ENZ IT Manager Mat Drake outlines the challenge it faced: “We had numerous shared drives that were named after most of the letters of the alphabet. The upshot of this was that people were doing their own thing. There were a lot of barriers to sharing and people working in silos. It was becoming impossible to find anything.”

Chief Financial Officer Matt Penney describes the opportunity this challenge presented: “We are a knowledge organisation with a strong customer focus. We needed to do more than just record and store our information. We needed a platform that would allow us to really use our information and get the most out of it.”

As a relatively new organisation, ENZ was in the fortunate position of starting with a clean sheet of paper. It saw the opportunity to quickly establish a strong, integrated enterprise content management platform for the future.

ENZ needed a solution that would:

• Work from anywhere and with external education partners
• Seamlessly integrate with its existing SharePoint intranet
• Provide a future-proof platform that would help get the most from functionality in Office 365 and Dynamics 365

Put quite simply, says Penney, the organisation wanted something which would “Allow people to find stuff – search was a really big one for us.”

Solution
The company found the ideal solution in Empired and Intergen’s Cohesion, a Microsoft-based, cloud-delivered ECM as a service offering, designed to help organisations communicate, collaborate and meet their records management requirements. Cohesion was originally created for New Zealand government agencies as one of three offerings available through the New Zealand all-of government enterprise content management services panel, established in November 2013.

Cohesion appealed to ENZ, Penney explains, but there were some initial reservations. “We really liked the idea of inter-agency collaboration and the ability for us to share workflows with other agencies using Cohesion. As a smaller agency one of our bigger concerns was that Cohesion wouldn’t be suitable for us. However, we worked with Intergen to tailor Cohesion to our needs as a smaller agency and it added up.”

Cohesion’s catalogue approach really appealed, Penney added, and helped get a right-sized solution. “It was a case of finding not just the right solution, but also the right partner.”

Working with Intergen to implement Cohesion, ENZ tackled the project with a series of well-structured sprints spanning a total of just four months to get the platform live and in use by its global team.

“As a smaller organisation that doesn’t have dedicated information or change management expertise in-house, we were also particularly pleased to be able to access these services from Intergen,” Penney adds.

He explains that strong change and information management took the complexity out of the project and ensured a best practice implementation. “It was the single biggest reason for the success of the project.”

Hand in hand with this, training was key. “One of the best things we did was create a project team of super users within ENZ, and then draw on Intergen’s change and information management expertise to make sure we had the right level of support along the way.

“Getting critical mass, getting people to spread the message, getting extra training has all helped us drive to the finish much more quickly than we would have been able to otherwise. It has saved us a huge amount of time and effort in the long run.”

Results
With Cohesion in place, ENZ is enjoying multiple business benefits. With a fully extensible, evergreen organisation-wide enterprise management platform that provides a robust, easy to use information backbone to enable ENZ to successfully market New Zealand education to the world, the organisation can share information and collaborate, internally and externally. Cohesion delivers a single source of truth, reducing silos and duplication of information, ensures ‘findability’ of information across the business, which contributes to improved productivity and performance.

Penney says the solution has also delivered time savings, using co-authoring capabilities and best practice, standardised templates and workflows as an example: “The ability to co-author and have watertight version control in Cohesion has been a massive win for us. It saves us a significant amount of time and effort and gives us unprecedented transparency and visibility across our processes and information,” he says.

A strong organisational commitment to change and information management ensured the swift, successful implementation and uptake of Cohesion, while Penney highlights the fast time to value achieved through catalogue approach, allowing ENZ to get a ‘right-sized’ solution and implement it quickly. He puts it colourfully: “The catalogue offered us a vanilla ice-cream approach and then we could choose a few chocolate sprinkles to ensure things moved along quickly.”

Source: This article was originally sourced from Intergen

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AT A GLANCE

• Hawkins

INDUSTRY

• Construction

BUSINESS OBJECTIVE

• Transform reporting from weeks to days
• Improve information accessibility to a wide range of business users
• Mitigate the inherent risk of large scale construction projects

SOLUTION

• Microsoft Power BI

BUSINESS BENEFITS

• Immediate improvement in reporting
• Issues in the field immediately drawn to management attention
• Reactive response with limited results shifting towards proactive interventions
• Standardised approach for ‘single version of the truth’
• Access to actionable information vastly improved, contributing to a more competitive and sustainable company

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Intergen
W: www.intergen.co.nz
E: enquiry@intergen.co.nz
T: +64 9 966 3070 or +64 4 472 2021

Realising that accurate, up to date information is the key to success to optimise margins when managing large, complex and difficult projects involving multiple parties, Hawkins has implemented an analytics solution that provides rapid insights into key performance areas. With its investment in the Microsoft technology stack, the company has selected PowerBI, implemented by Intergen – and while it is early days for analytics at Hawkins, the company expects a substantial return on investment.

Founded in 1947 by Hamilton builder and entrepreneur Fred Hawkins, construction company Hawkins has earned a reputation for being ‘big enough to tackle anything, but small enough to be agile’. The company specialises in the delivery of transformational projects across New Zealand, including stadiums, hospitals, event centres, art galleries and more.

On 1 April of this year, Hawkins was acquired by the Downer Group, an ASX-listed provider of services to customers in markets including: Transport Services, Technology and Communications Services, Utilities Services Engineering, Construction and Maintenance, Mining and Rail.

The situation
Large-scale construction projects constitute the biggest part of Hawkins’ business and in this line of work, margins have to be managed expertly and with a keen eye for detail, explains Hannes van Zyl, Hawkins CIO.

With all reporting done manually, it took a lot of time and effort to produce insights that would give managers the ability to know how projects were performing on the ground. “Effectively, we’d spend a large portion of the month getting the reports done; by the time that exercise was finished, the information was outdated and there was no time for in-depth analysis,” says van Zyl.

The solution
Initially, the business came across a market solution that, while capable, was expensive and not an ideal fit for Hawkins. Van Zyl explains that this solution, while targeted specifically at the construction industry, was too narrow in focus and did not fit with the Hawkins IT strategy. But it did help to demonstrate the value of BI. “As an all-Microsoft shop, we’ve done a lot of work focusing on one vendor for ease of integration and interfaces,” he confirms.

After conducting a five-year Total Cost of Ownership study on several products which fit well within the Microsoft stack (all of which were on Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for BI vendors), van Zyl says it was a no brainer to go with Power BI. “That was not only the most affordable, owing to existing investments in Microsoft technology, but also the most capable of meeting our needs.”

A similar assessment of implementation partners saw Intergen ‘come out tops’. “We wanted a complete cloud service across the Microsoft board; not just the BI platform, but the whole information flow.”

The results
With the project recently completed, the immediate results show that reporting is far better for Hawkins than it has ever been: accurate, insightful and delivered on-time.

The potential performance improvements and business benefits are substantial. “We’ve only just signed it off, so right now I can only speculate, but I believe the return on investment will be substantial,” says van Zyl.

He explains that this will be due to improved and standardised reporting, underpinned by consistent data and definitions. “In the construction industry, the risk of getting things wrong is high – that will now diminish as we will have near-real time information, presented in a format that everyone from an executive, to a manager, to a quantity surveyor can understand.”

In the construction industry, the risk of getting things wrong is high – that will now diminish as we will have near-real time information, presented in a format that everyone from an executive, to a manager, to a quantity surveyor can understand.
Hannes Van Zyl, CIO, Hawkins

With information available immediately, and in some cases now updated as often as three times per day, anomalies or issues immediately stand out and can be actioned. “The project managers can’t ignore it, as the system makes sure it stands out. The user can drilldown and find out exactly what the issue is – whether it be a supplier who hasn’t delivered materials, or a subcontractor who is falling behind. Issues can be identified by region, or by project, and in a matter of four or five clicks, the problem can be pinpointed.” This defuses the risks of large, complex and difficult projects involving multiple parties.

This is a competitive differentiator for Hawkins; Van Zyl adds that future plans for its analytics could include predictive analysis. “In time to come, yes, we could have the ability to move towards predictive analytics to assess project costs based on successes of similar ones in the past,” he concludes.

Source: This article was originally sourced from Intergen

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AT A GLANCE

• Abano Healthcare

INDUSTRY

• Healthcare

BUSINESS OBJECTIVE

• Upgrade three business units from Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 to Dynamics NAV 2015
• Eliminate unsupported software risk
• Position business units for continued growth
• Prepare for the introduction of new software features including cloud readiness

SOLUTION

• Latest versions of Microsoft Dynamics NAV ERP

BUSINESS BENEFITS

• Appropriately supported enterprise software
• Greater business efficiency
• More targeted messaging to members
• Improved data integrity

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Intergen
W: www.intergen.co.nz
E: enquiry@intergen.co.nz
T: +64 9 966 3070 or +64 4 472 2021

Long-time Microsoft Dynamics NAV user Abano Healthcare Group required an upgrade of its core business systems from an outdated version to the latest available. But this was no ordinary project: because the system was working so well for its Lumino the Dentists, Maven Dental Group and Bay Audiology, three full versions were skipped since the original implementation of NAV 2009.

Thus, bringing the three businesses owned by Abano Healthcare Group up to the most recent version presented a less than usual challenge.

Abano Healthcare Group is a New Zealand owned company listed on the New Zealand Stock Exchange. It is an active investor in and operator of healthcare and medical services businesses located in New Zealand and Australia.

The business was established in its current form in 1999 and its current investment focus is the $11-billion revenue trans-Tasman dental market and the Auckland radiology market.

The opportunity
Peter Radich, Abano Group CIO, explains that Dynamic NAV has been used by the company for some time. “Initially Abano’s audiology businesses used NAV. It made sense to put Dynamics NAV into the dental businesses, Lumino and Maven, to make the software pretty much standard across the group.”

Radich adds that with standardisation, there is the further advantage that technical expertise can be easily shared across the businesses, while, from a group standpoint, financial and other information can be readily reported.

The goal of the original deployments of Dynamics NAV in each of the Abano companies to create ‘as vanilla as possible’ an implementation, Radich explains; the quality of these implementations was such that there wasn’t any pressing need to upgrade – the system was doing what it needed to do – but time doesn’t stand still.

“Upgrading began to be a pressing issue for ‘hygiene’ reasons. Microsoft was dropping support for NAV 2009, which presents risk to the business. And, while the system was working pretty well, advancements in business requirements as well as new developments of features in the more recent versions of NAV were attractive, particularly in terms of being web-based for a potential future shift to the cloud, and for better reporting features,” Radich says.

The technology and the vision
Being a ‘triple’ upgrade meant Intergen had to take each company from Dynamics NAV 2009, to 2013, and finally to the 2015 version. Radich describes it as ‘the big bang of upgrades’. “This was like a 100,000km car service. Being such a chunky upgrade, it required a bit more management; that’s three versions for three businesses in one project,” he says.

“Being such a chunky upgrade, it required a bit more management; that’s three versions for three businesses in one project.”

The first cab off the rank was Lumino, notes its CFO Allan Wong Kam. “We were the crash test dummy, in that we were going to probably experience any potholes with implementation and understand why and how to avoid them before we rolled out the upgrade to the other businesses.”

The group looked to Intergen for the necessary expertise, support and project management. “Having a really well-engaged team was necessary for the success of the initiative. That makes a big difference; you have to think about what could go wrong and you need a bit of flexibility, because being an enterprise software project, there are always going to be challenges and surprises,” Wong Kam notes.

He says it is valuable to be selective in the way things are timed when executing a complex project of this nature, while allowing business units to continue with their operations uninterrupted.

From Radich’s perspective, getting it right at Lumino was important as it set a precedent for the subsequent upgrades at the other two businesses. “You need to be iterative in approach and we made a point of learning from the Lumino implementation so we didn’t need to worry about making the same mistakes with the other two business units. A lot of that is thanks to strong project management from Intergen; across the six months that this took, the same project team was running all three upgrades,” he points out.

Keeping the team together, Radich says, played a key role in the success of the initiative. “The intellectual property and experience was consistent with the same project manager; the biggest part of the effort, outside of the planning and management, was handling the technical data in jumping through the three versions. That necessitated multiple dummy runs to make sure everything was working properly and that the integration with the data warehouse was sound.”

The result
With careful planning and considered execution, Intergen delivered the upgrade within budget and on schedule, allowing the three companies to get on with business as usual.

As a company determined to continue its steep growth trajectory, Lumino the Dentists – and the other business units within Abano Group – is positioned with a modern system capable of rapidly rolling out to additional locations. “With the number of practices in the Lumino network well over 100 nationwide, we also have a system which is better able to scale to meet our continued growth,” Wong Kam confirms.

Thanks to the successful execution of this unusually demanding upgrade project, Wong Kam says the major advantage for Lumino is a fully supported, current version of their enterprise software. “We depend on Dynamics NAV to run our businesses and it does a good job of it. Now we have the surety of a stable platform, risk is mitigated and we enjoy the benefits that come with the most recent software.”

Those benefits extend to other companies within the group, confirms Radich. “The insistence in not customising the company’s finance system has delivered a notable advantage in the upgrade, as it makes the project something of a ‘technical lift, shift, train and familiarise’ exercise. However, it did involve other parties, notably the data warehouse guys with schema changes. We got them involved early and that, too, has helped this project go well.”

Source: This article was originally sourced from Intergen

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AT A GLANCE

• Airways

INDUSTRY

• Aviation

BUSINESS OBJECTIVE

• Move collaboration and productivity applications to the cloud
• Optimise licensing/software assurance
• Improve resilience
• Introduce mobile device management

SOLUTION

• Microsoft Office 365 (including SharePoint and Skype), Microsoft Exchange Online
• Azure
• Enterprise Mobility + Security

BUSINESS BENEFITS

• Reduced costs through license optimisation
• Improved visibility of costs for better budgeting and control
• Business resilience boosted with cloud applications
• Remote working made easy
• Benefits of cloud demonstrated, driving confidence in ‘cloud first’ approach.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Intergen
W: www.intergen.co.nz
E: enquiry@intergen.co.nz
T: +64 9 966 3070 or +64 4 472 2021

As it looked to modernise operations, a business which works in the regulation-heavy aviation industry looked for a trusted partner to help navigate the path as its cloud-first approach continued to take off. And, with its choice of Intergen to provide the necessary expertise, applications and services, Airways has seen incremental advantages from shifting more elements of its business systems into the cloud in a carefully managed process.

Airways provides air traffic control and infrastructure to keep New Zealand’s skies safe. Responsible for controlling all air movements across 30 million square kilometres of airspace in New Zealand and over the Pacific, the company handles over 1 million air traffic movements a year. With safety as its top priority, Airways is also an innovative business making a real difference on the global stage. It partners with airlines, airports, governments, and other air navigation service providers developing future ready innovative procedures and technology to reduce the environmental footprint of the aviation industry.

Situation
Like many other organisations which have been in operation over the course of several decades, Airways had tried and trusted business systems in place. But changes in the way necessary IT services can be delivered were increasingly coming to the company’s attention.

Sean Kennedy, Manager Enterprise Business Systems at Airways, says among the key attractions in considering a move to the cloud for its Microsoft productivity and collaboration solutions was improved cost structures where application licensing was concerned, as well as resilience and business continuity aspects. “Before the move, we had services spread across three data centres with Microsoft Exchange servers in each of them; we were also serving up Microsoft Office from these locations.”

The structure of its workforce makes software assurance somewhat challenging, adds Kennedy. “We’ve got an interesting workforce of around 800 users, but of those, perhaps 300 log in every day while a further 500 are shift workers who may or may not log in every day.”

As a result, keeping track of licensing agreements across these centres, and managing costs across employees, was proving onerous. Moreover, says Kennedy, the Christchurch, Seddon and, more recently, Kaikoura earthquakes had reinforced the importance of business continuity and disaster recovery. “Those quakes highlighted the potential disadvantages of our Christchurch and Wellington data centres, so we were looking for more certainty for the future. And if we could do that while also benefiting from software assurance, so much the better.”

Solution
As an organisation which has safety as an absolute priority, and which depends on its business systems to execute operations effectively daily, Kennedy says it sought a partner which ‘had been on the journey before’. “We have worked with Microsoft before, so there was a well-trodden track there, but we tested the market for a partner to assist in the migration of our applications to the cloud. Intergen were the winners on that day.”

Kennedy says the implementation process has several aspects, key among which were the establishment of secure cloud identity management and the implementation of Microsoft Office 365 itself. “That aspect is quite straightforward, with just a little training required as Word is still Word and Excel is still Excel apart from gaining a few additional features,” he notes. “The big one, however, was moving Exchange to the cloud and introducing Mobile Device Management. We saw a need to introduce that to improve security and further delineate between personal and work data on personal devices.”

Migrating Exchange, continues Kennedy, was the most challenging aspect, as Airways was some versions behind, which required a ‘stepped’ approach to bring its systems up to date before migrating into the cloud one. “That required a lot of scripting and this is where Intergen’s experience really proved invaluable, along with advice and guidance for the process.”

Like all enterprise projects, Kennedy acknowledges that ‘it didn’t always go smoothly’; again, he stresses the value of a proven partner. “Intergen were always quick to sort out challenges and crack on again. Problems are to be expected, but getting it right is what counts.”

The process of moving productivity and collaboration applications into the cloud, he notes, was completed over a period of several months.

Results
The most obvious benefit of the shift into the cloud are simply that Airways now has an optimised environment, where licensing costs are accurately matched to business requirements. A perhaps less obvious, but important benefit is that the successful move of common, but mission-critical, business services is reinforcing the value and benefit of a ‘cloud first’ approach. Confidence is building, in other words; meanwhile, hard-hitting upgrades, which would cause interruptions and angst, are a thing of the past.

“With the cloud, the reliability is up there. Availability from anywhere is another key factor which our people appreciate; where previously we had Outlook web access and a VPN, it was reliant on the internal network. Now it works all the time and as a company which has people all around the world, being able to connect straight into the data centre in Australia is great,” says Kennedy.

He adds that, using ExpressRoute, the performance of those connections is as good as access over a Local Area Network. “It isn’t impacted by distance.”

Expenditure on IT services, he continues, has improved not only on the bottom line, but in terms of visibility of costs against licensing. “That means we can budget better, know what the costs are and what we’re getting for the money.”

The biggest eye-opener, however, is the advantage of improved reliability and resilience. “This project has shown that, for example in the wake of the Kaikoura quake, our people can simply log in from home if they have a connection, and do their work. It’s shown that the more we put in the cloud, the better it will be.”

He says the success of moving Microsoft productivity and collaboration to the cloud has provided impetus to move other applications where possible, in line with Airways’ intention to do so. “This is the first steps into the cloud. There are next steps to come, such as potentially the financial systems; that said, there will always be some on premise systems such as our operational ones. But for now, the cloud has proven that for some systems, it delivers the promised benefits.”

Source: This article was originally sourced from Intergen

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Published on the 06/10/2016 | Written by Intergen

AT A GLANCE

• Pavé Group Limited

INDUSTRY

• FMCG and Distribution

BUSINESS OBJECTIVE

• Implement ERP solution to replace overextended accounting system
• Establish foundation for business growth
• Eliminate ‘out of system’ reporting and data gathering
• Consolidate and expedite reporting

SOLUTION

• Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2015

BUSINESS BENEFITS

• Single, stable system addresses all aspects of operations
• Greater business efficiency by eliminating manual data entry
• Platform for growth
• Easy access to complex accounting and reporting data.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Intergen
W: www.intergen.co.nz
E: enquiry@intergen.co.nz
T: +64 9 966 3070 or +64 4 472 2021

When rapidly growing FMCG company Pavé Group reached the limits of the capabilities of an accounting software package, it looked to Intergen and Microsoft’s Dynamics NAV enterprise resource planning solution. After a challenging implementation, the company today has an efficient modern solution which sets the scene for driving improved business performance through leveraging the power of information.

Pavé Consumer Brands is an Australasian company headquartered in Auckland, New Zealand.  The company was established in 2006 by the founders who shared complementary skill sets and shared vision on the changing nature of import and distribution.

Recognising that in today’s fast-paced business environment, it is not enough to be just an importer and distributor, the founders set about building a unique business model based on lean and cost-effective product, sales and distribution solutions. Brands associated with Pavé include Dole pineapple, Rejuva, Sushi Co. and Tough Guy

Situation
Christopher Wong, Pavé Group Limited director, explains that when the company commenced operations, the MYOB accounting package it was using was quite up to the task. “However, as business quickly ramped up, the system was no longer fit for purpose. While we don’t manufacture or warehouse any goods, we have quite complex Supply Chain Management and FMCG retailer servicing requirements, with the necessity to keep a close eye on goods as they move through the supply chain.”

In particular, explains Wong, the substantially expanded company had a variety of modes in which it purchased products, with added complexity in how goods were moving around. “As we reached the limits of the MYOB system, a lot of tools were being used outside of the system. That made things slow and painful, while also lacking the checks and balances which come with a consolidated information source.”

He notes that the MYOB system was seeing volumes of data in excess of a gigabyte being pushed through every day. “The requirement became clear for one system which would reduce admin time, give better reporting and better visibility, particularly in areas such as demand planning and mapping, temporary price reductions and rebate structures.”

Solution
Initially, Pavé Group had its eye on the Microsoft Dynamics AX product. “We had a good idea of what we were looking for in an ERP system and, being pretty familiar with the range of products available on the market, thought AX was probably the best bet. That was largely due to a number of good references sites across Australia and New Zealand,” relates Wong.

However, with Microsoft driving AX towards Tier One, the implication was that a deployment of this technology would come at a prohibitive cost; while Pavé Group’s requirements are complex, Wong notes that it is a firmly mid-market company.

“On exploring Dynamics NAV, this proved to be the best option,” he confirms, with Intergen selected as the partner to implement the software.

Wong was very clear on what he sought from the software; capabilities for Demand Planning/Supply Chain management; Imported Product Costings; Complex Pricing and Discounting (as Pavé Group deals with complex retailers across two countries, including Foodstuffs, Progressive Enterprises, Woolworths, Coles and Metcash); Trade Spend Management (allocation of budget and spend to specific promotions); and net margin performance.

He describes the implementation as rocky, albeit with a good outcome. “Having done two implementations before, I knew what I wanted. We started with a rapid implementation programme, but it soon emerged that this would not deliver against the complex business process requirements which were necessary to equip the business to perform as it should.”

Instead of continuing with a ‘vanilla’ implementation which would require revisiting to adjust the system after the fact, Wong insisted on getting it right the first time. “This did result in a longer timeframe and budget implications – but, you can’t be half pregnant. It was necessary to identify gaps in the system and the plan and address those before commencing user acceptance testing and even considering going live on the system.”

However, he says Intergen responded well to realities emerging in the implementation phase. “In retrospect, we’re probably not a typical client,” he smiles.

Results
Wong is enthusiastic about the capabilities of the by-now bedded down Dynamics NAV solution. “Absolutely, we chose the right Dynamics for our business; NAV is a great system which is today doing just what it needs to do. While there are some customisations for our business, the general functionality and analytics it offers is brilliant.”

Absolutely, we chose the right Dynamics for our business; NAV is a great system which is today doing just what it needs to do. While there are some customisations for our business, the general functionality and analytics it offers is brilliant.
Christopher Wong, Director, Pavé Brands

He says it took around three months’ post-implementation for the system to be refined and kinks ironed out. “You’ll always find issues after you go live – but now, it is really flying. As the knowledge of our teams working with it increases, we’re expecting to get even more out of it. But already, information access is so much easier than it was before.”

In particular, he points to the obvious benefit of having nearly all information within a single system (the company does use a third party product called To-Increase). “What that means operationally is that order entry happens in half the time – actually, generally the team spends a lot less time on data entry, giving them more time to focus on more important aspects of their jobs. And the ability to instantly review the status of orders, rebates, pricing and many other metrics is invaluable.”

The company now enjoys a solid foundation which it expects to serve its business in the near to mid term. “We’ll be looking at how we can further mine the data than Dynamics NAV creates, collects and retains. We’ll use that to improve how we manage costs, profitability, the supply chain and operations, against our Key Performance Indicators.”

Right now, Wong says a well-functioning system is the tip of the iceberg; he anticipates improved information-based decision to change the game further. “A good ERP system is the key to managing operations – but the key thing for success is mining and using the data from operations to your competitive advantage,” he concludes.

Source: This article was originally sourced from Intergen

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AT A GLANCE

• Competenz

INDUSTRY

• Education and training

BUSINESS OBJECTIVE

• Consolidate disparate tools
• Establish online portal
• Consolidate website and operate independently from portal.

SOLUTION

Intergen-developed portal and website leveraging

• SmartTMS
• Kendo UI
• HTML5
• Responsive Design

BUSINESS BENEFITS

• Specific user types (trainees, staff members, clients) can log on and access information relevant to them

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Intergen
W: www.intergen.co.nz
E: enquiry@intergen.co.nz
T: +64 9 966 3070 or +64 4 472 2021

Faced with disparate systems which meant difficulty in accessing the variety of applications and information required for its smooth operation, a major training provider turned to Intergen for a better solution. Thanks to the delivery of a portal which combines all its applications and information into a single view, today Competenz staff members are able to easily access and use the information they need to get their jobs done.

One of New Zealand’s largest industry training organisations, Competenz serves more than 3,500 companies and 20,000 learners across 37 industries. It develops courses and qualifications, manages workplace training, training materials, e-learning and off-the-job training, conducts assessments and registers trainee successes with the New Zealand Qualifications Authority.

Situation
The tertiary education market is competitive and customers expect ready access to whatever information they need, as well as simplicity and ease in managing their participation in training courses. Additionally, Competenz, its administrators, trainees, assessors and contractors need smooth access to a wide range of information to do their jobs effectively.

Prior to engaging with Intergen, Competenz had a collection of disparate web apps to manage various users, tasks, courses and classes of information; essentially, a jigsaw of legacy components. As the company grew, it became increasingly apparent that this system was not up to managing the complex, often interwoven, tasks and information that users needed from it.

For example, any given user would have to use different portals to access different functions. That also made security complex and difficult. Those users could be employers, trainees, assessors and administrative staff, all of whom require accurate, up-to-date information about them, their students, and a multitude of programmes.

With such a wide range of administrative tasks and users, an efficient portal was needed, with single sign-on to a front end which would allow for the easy ‘drill down’ into relevant applications and information depending on the specific user’s requirements.

Solution
Intergen developed a single portal where users register by invitation. Once logged in, users can see links to the various sites and applications that either SmartTMS – an Industry Training Organisation trainee and CRM solution – or administrators have given them access to.

What each user has access to is determined largely by their user type: administrator, tradesperson, assessor or trainee.

At the same time as it established the portal, Intergen moved Competenz to a single dedicated website, which equips Competenz staff to authenticate and manage users with a minimum of administrative overhead. Keeping this site separate from the user portal provides greater security and also means it can be updated on a separate release cycle from the portal.

Intergen also managed Competenz’s training throughout the portal consolidation project and assisted in moving key portal-related infrastructure to the cloud, providing cost-effective scalability and redundancy.

Results
With various users now able to easily access the information they need easily through the new portal – either online or through mobile devices, a wealth of information is made easily accessible: trainees, for example, can view their personal details, courses they are enrolled in, qualifications achieved to date, training plans, course qualifications, training plan unit standards, and incomplete unit standards.

Competenz staff can view up-to-date information about learners’ enrolments, training plans, and records of learning through a single site. They can also run training plan or record of learning reports by learner/employee, or in bulk by company. These functions can be carried out on either a desktop or mobile device.

Other users can easily access whatever information they need to through a single sign-on; the technology is user friendly, and allows users to login via Facebook, Google, Microsoft or other social providers.

Future development will allow users to also conduct transactions, send communications, book appointments, and even conduct assessments online.

Erik Bast, Head of ICT, Competenz, sums up the success of the project: “Intergen has proved to be not just a solutions provider, but also a strategic technology partner. They consistently ask ‘what’s the right approach, given the long term picture?’ Their ability to meet project milestones better than most also helps – and is one reason we’re calling on them to help with other ICT functions as well, including infrastructure, BI and SharePoint.”

Source: This article was originally sourced from Intergen

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