Naubahar Bottling Company (Pvt.) Limited was established in 1981 to produce and market beverages of international Standards. Its main objective of the company is to achieve excellence i through the production and distribution of quality products. The company manufactures its products according to Pepsi Cola International’s (PCI) quality standards and requirements. At present, the company has five production lines with more than 300 spouts, with an average capacity of producing more than 100,000 cases daily on a three-shift basis.

Naubahar Bottling is involved in the business of syrup preparation, filling, packaging and selling of PepsiCo’s carbonated soft drinks for the Gujranwala franchise in Pakistan. In the previous system an enormous amount of paperwork was handled through spreadsheets. The company was using some Oracle modules, but did not have an integrated solution, and there were many shortcomings. Naubahar needed to eliminate redundant handling of data, and reduce business risk by replacing unsupported systems that were managing core processes at the company. It also needed real-time live lobster inventory figures.

The most compatible solution for Naubahar was proposed by MAISON Consulting & Solutions. The decision to go ahead with a new finance and database system using Microsoft Business Solution- Great Plains business software took place in 2005. Microsoft Great Plains offers integrated capabilities for financial management, supply chain, landed cost, human resource management and payable management.

The organization found that the software required less training, substantially reduced support costs, streamlined accounting processes, and improved reporting. Employees find the new financial management system easy to use and maintain. Because Naubahar can easily control the level of access for employees, limiting them to areas directly related to their jobs, the foundation has improved security. Staff works with, and views only the data that is relevant to their position.

Bravium Inc., a large health care organization in USA, wanted to automate and create a paperless doctor’s office. Its purpose was to allow electronic files to be shared by many resources such as hospitals, laboratories, the doctor’s office, insurance, employment, etc.

ESOLPK developed a desktop and web-based doctors' office automation system known as “myMDCentral” http://www.esolpk.com/MDCentralDemo.asp. This includes practice management, document management, medical records, and an ASP version. myMDcentral also includes biometric secure login. Patients can update demographic, insurance information, request prescription refill, or schedule an appointment from the privacy of home. They can also save life-saving demographic, medication, physician contact, and allergies’ information on a portable USB thumb drive, to be accessed in case of an emergency.

The software provides a robust, comprehensive and integrated solution, enabling better decision-making, increased efficiency in servicing customers’ demands, and promoting transparency. The technology used in deploying myMDCentral is ASP.NET and SQL Server. It is HIPPA and HL7 compliant.

1LINK (Guarantee) Ltd. is a consortium of major banks that own and operate the largest shared financial services network in Pakistan. Realizing its role to lead and provide direction to the banks by offering innovative services on its platform, 1LINK opted for the switching technology developed by TPS.

Phoenix is a flexible and powerful payment switch used to acquire, authenticate, route, switch and authorize financial transactions across multiple channels. Responding to the customers’ needs, TPS came up with service models and solutions which 1LINK’s member banks readily adapted.

Habib Bank Ltd. (HBL) Oman is one of HBL’s global initiatives to serve local and international customers in the Middle East. As HBL improved its customer base in Oman, the bank experienced a drastic increase in transaction volumes, and its existing transaction processing system could not handle this boost.

HBL selected TPS’s Phoenix switching middleware to handle the increasing transaction volume, and offer self-service banking services to its customers in Oman. Phoenix will replace the existing switch, offering reliability, flexibility, maturity and focused services at par with HBL’s commitment to excellence.

Group BPCE, France’s second-largest banking group, relies on two autonomous and complementary retail banking networks, those of the 17 Caisse d’Epargne banks, and the 20 Banque Populaire banks, strictly observing the pre-eminence of the two brands.

The group wanted a multi-institution and a multi-country platform that could host three banks on its platform, which would be centrally-based in Cameroon. Two of these banks are Group BPCE subsidiaries: BICEC, the first banking network in Cameroon, and the BCI in Congo; and the MUCODEC, also in Congo.

TPS’s IRIS fully met the group’s growth requirements. Its sophisticated and scalable technology, flexibility, reliability, cost-effectiveness, quick time to market, and its successful live implementation around the globe made it the bank’s first choice.

Habib Bank Ltd. (HBL), with an extensive local network of over 1425 local and 55+ international branches, has the largest branch network in Pakistan.

When HBL decided to replace its in-house developed distributed core banking system, MOBS, with a centralized banking solution, MISYS, the biggest challenge was to maintain the continuity of the bank’s ADC operations. TPS facilitated the smooth migration of all branches without interrupting operations, data duplication or corruption.

Tameer Micro Finance Bank (TMFB) needed a robust, reliable and flexible solution in order to provide new services quickly and efficiently to its 180 million Pakistani customers. It needed a switch that could cater to its aggressive growth plans without facing bottlenecks. The bank wanted true middleware and a platform that would allow it to offer these services via multiple channels and systems.

TPS’s modular architecture, robust and flexible platform has enabled TMFB to launch its branchless banking services, and gain momentum in a short span of time.

United Bank Ltd. (UBL) is one of Pakistan's largest commercial banks, with over 1,400 national and 19 overseas branches. It offers a multitude of e-banking services across various transaction touch points. In order to continue with its aggressive growth plans, the bank needed a switch that could cater to its expansion without facing bottlenecks.

IRIS at UBL is one of TPS’s most complex sites, driving the transactions of over 1.5 million debit and pre-paid card-based customers in Pakistan. It provides an enterprise transaction platform for the bank, and integrates its ATMs, branch hosts, branch tellers, phone banking and Internet banking services.

Faysal Bank Ltd. (FBL) is one of the fastest growing banks in Pakistan. It required an infrastructure-oriented environment to update its fragmented infrastructure, and make it easier to establish uniform settings across all workstations.

In June 2009, KalSoft deployed Active Directory Domain Services, Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 R2, and Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 at FBL to make the infrastructure more reliable, and to implement group policy across all clients within minutes. The complexity of the technology’s deployment was such that KalSoft clearly understood that this was not a standalone project, and demonstrated how Active Directory and the System Center solutions would lay the groundwork for future expansion, standardization and infrastructure optimization. KalSoft successfully fabricated the infrastructure stack by implementing a centralized Active Directory, replacing the standalone directories at each branch, and reducing the number of servers in use at FBL from 130 to 14.

The bank can now quickly install software, including software updates and screensavers for marketing campaigns across the business. Its systems are now more secure, troubleshooting has been simplified, and calls to the help desk have been reduced. FBL has improved its service level by 80%.

Maria B. (A leading designer and retail brand of garments) achieves dead stock reduction of 80% in 3 months by using LumenSoft Candela Retail Management System

Business Introduction

Maria B is the leading designer and retail brand for ladies bridal, formal and casual wear. The brand is more than 10 years old and has retail outlets across of Pakistan.

The Need and Business Challenge

Maria B. was initially using a software solution to handle its retail operations but it was not capable of effectively handling multi-location (chain store) retail business. The head-office and shops were running different modules which were not fully integrated. This resulted in “information silos” due to which timely and accurate business decisions could not be made.

Also operations were cumbersome resulting in reduced productivity. Stocks had gradually increased to alarming levels due to lack of required information. To make matters worse, inventory could not be moved to outlets in time thus resulting in loss of sales and customer dissatisfaction. Stock audits became a huge task requiring several people from the head office to go to the store and take up to 2 full days to complete a thorough audit. Understandably due to the effort, stock checks were delayed during peak season.

Like any traditional entrepreneurial venture, the business was people oriented with lack of processes and management systems. The business required a software solution which could not only be used to control and automate the operations but also have capability of implementing industry best practices, and robust business processes.

Choice of Solution

Maria B. looked for different available retail software solutions in the market. It was an easy decision to select Candela RMS for management of their retail operations. Candela had the largest customer base for retail chain stores in Pakistan and many top brands of the country were using this solution. Amongst the customer list, many were engaged in a similar type of business. LumenSoft Technologies engineers had required experience and expertise to provide training and implementation support.

The best part of the deal was it promised to implement industry best practices and put the business under the control of processes.

Benefits Achieved

Only in first three months of operations Maria B. was able to boost sales for certain brands by 50%. Also dead stocks were reduced by 80% in some outlets. During the same period the ROI was 100% and the investment break-even was achieved within two quarters of implementation. Therefore this proved to be one of the best investments for the business.

This became possible by integrating all the retail outlets with head-office. The information flow between the head-office and outlets was seamless (both ways). In the head office the information was rolled-up to create a complete business picture. Analysis was available on different designs, categories, and groups which helped in optimizing the stocks at different retail outlets. After system implementation accurate inventory was reflected in the system which enabled the management to take timely decisions. Stocks were shuffled between outlets according to shops sales trends.

Reconciliation of cash and stocks between head-office and retail outlets became very effective and leakages and pilferage was greatly reduced. Shop staff, instead of preparing reports, was able to pay more attention of customer and thus their productivity was increased.

Mr. Fazal Ashfaq, head of retail operations at Maria B., says

“We were surprised to see the results produced by LumenSoft Candela RMS in such a short time. We are in total control of our business. We know what are the best sellers and at which outlets. We have instant information about our retail outlets as profit centers and also we can go deep down and analyze on design levels”

Maria B. the founder and owner of the business says

“… I have never been a technology person but I knew enough to see that there existed tremendous room for growth by implementing a retail software solution. We were pleased to see that Lumensoft had a ready to implement product that needed barely any modification to run on our business. A few months after implementation I can get a current bird’s eye view of my business and can alter direction to focus on items that are selling well. I would definitely recommend Lumensoft to any retailer….“

Established in Saudi Arabia in 1995, International Dynamic Systems (IDS) supplies pipes, electrical items, electromechanical items, lifting solutions, scaffolding items, industrial power tools, hand tools, fasteners, safety items, valves, flow meters and numerous other vital industrial products worldwide. Its revenue in 2009 was approximately Saudi Riyals (SR) 30 million.

As a trading company, IDS dealt with multiple clients and vendors, but it used Excel sheets and manually generated accounts and purchase orders. Its office, store and warehouse were not connected, and it did not have a consolidated accounting, sales or distribution solution. This resulted in duplication of effort, loss of valuable time and resources, and delay in fulfilling clients' orders.

Gillani Middle East implemented its integrated software solution iERP at IDS. This included its General Ledger, Accounts Receivable, and Accounts Payable, sales, distribution, purchasing and inventory management modules. This connected its office, store and warehouse, and generated real-time on-demand data for all sales managers and the upper management. The Linux operating system provided low Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), fast transaction processing, improved transaction performance and enhanced productivity.

The iERP is built around the wholesale distribution model, designed to handle the entire distribution process. Its Order Entry module generates all sales orders. It creates quotes for customers. Any quote can be converted into a sales order for an inventory item or a rental item. Quotes can be sent to customers via e-mail, fax, Word document, Excel document, PDF document, or EDI format. The Purchasing module generates vendor returns. Its Inventory Management module handles inventory throughout the entire company. This includes inventory adjustments, maintenance of inventory catalogs (vendor catalogs), shelf-life maintenance (if applicable), maintenance of demo inventory/scrap inventory, and letdowns. A comprehensive human resource administration, hiring and payroll system is also integrated with Gillani Financials.

Strengthening Participatory Organization (SPO) http://www.spopk.org/ is a national civil society organization. It strengthens and supports community organizations and public interest institutions of Pakistan for the benefit of poor and disadvantaged sections of society for sustainable development through a participatory approach. SPO’s activities are spread across Pakistan’s four provinces and more than sixty districts.

ESOLPK developed SPO’s project monitoring and control system, which includes budget allocation, risk analysis, and various useful reports, etc. This has increased SPO’s efficiency in running current projects and its future forecasting abilities.

Emirates Technology Computers (EMITAC) is a leading sales and distribution company in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). When EMITAC's business expanded across multiple Middle East markets, the lack of an organized process workflow to manage increasing volumes of order processing resulted in lost opportunities and dissatisfied customers.

EMITAC recognized the need for a solution to help it automate and streamline its existing sales processes in order to make them more efficient, effective and profitable. It turned to Avanza’s CRM and sales' solution experience for the development of a customized sales order management system designed to achieve high levels of service and productivity.

This reseller portal has works at the heart of all operations, allowing the maximum profitability of incoming orders through automated, well-defined process workflows. It streamlines orders and data into the system to facilitate performance monitoring and sales tracking. It also brings EMITAC’s existing business processes online to enable customers to book and view orders, view their orders' status, obtain quotes, create requisitions, and track orders in a self-servicing environment.

Allowing EMITAC's customers authorized access to the business portal, its online ordering capability reduces internal support costs, grows repeat business and reorders, and improves customer satisfaction.

The Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS) in Karachi has geographically spread-out multiple constituent colleges. It had no single point of reference, no central data repository. In June 2007, the University of Engineering & Technology in Peshawar and the DUHS were selected to participate in a pilot project to automate their student administration and management processes using Oracle’s PeopleSoft Enterprise Campus Solutions.

Techlogix implemented this solution at the DUHS, which has resulted in centralization, uniformity and compliance with policies, and better monitoring. It has improved efficiency by automating the students’ administration process. A web-based system brings students up to speed regarding general information; enables them to view exam results, course and grade history; evaluate transfer credit, and pay fees online. It enables staff to track fee payments, create class assignments, calculate grades, and assess students’ progress online. Students can receive their degrees within days rather than in months.

Oracle’s PeopleSoft Campus Solutions proved adaptable enough to be effective for diverse educational systems. Techlogix’s campus solutions implementation methodology succeeded in absorbing the impact of abrupt mid-project policy changes, such as switching from the annual to the semester system. The university’s administration's drive to implement the system contributed to the project’s success.

With a customer base of over 25,000 accounts, Clary Business Machines provides audio-video conferencing equipment, paper machines, and shredders, etc., to local corporations, government and educational institutes to improve their operational efficiency and reduce costs. EVISION was asked to maintain its website, to increase its online reach to potential customers in the USA, and Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

EVISION utilized Google’s standard guidelines to get properly indexed in major search engines, price comparison engines, directories and local searches, which include webmaster tools, analytics and proper website optimization. It introduced Really Simple Syndication (RSS), podcasting, video distribution, PDF catalogue designing and distribution, updated articles and the news section. The website’s forums and blogs provided customers’ feedback.

Shredderwarehouse.com received more Internet traffic than Office Depot and Office Max. It was listed in Inc5000 and Fast100 in four years’ time. Geographic and demographic spread and customer satisfaction increased.

Electro Computer Warehouse (ECW) is a full-service technology solutions dealer. It is a re-marketer of Grade "A" refurbished/off-lease computer systems, with a large, constantly-updated catalog of laptops, LCD Monitors, and LCD systems, etc. The business had a physical presence in Canada with no plans to sell to American markets; its main focus was to promote its products in the Canadian market only.

EVISION promoted ECW’s business online on kijiji.ca and craigslist on a daily basis. The website offered computer sales in various Canadian cities, and some time was spent marketing to the USA as well. EVISION managed an online support center, wholesale and the orders’ processing; and also utilized the e-commerce solution VP-ASP, a premium e-commerce solution with a built-in payment processor, tax configuration and shipping integration.

This resulted in an increased online reach through all possible channels, increased conversion rates, more customers, their satisfaction, and a socially-active website to collect feedback and reach new customers. Today, ECW maintains a top position in Google, price comparison engines, MSN Store, Kaboodle, Yahoo!, etc., with 70% of its computers shipped out of Canada, round-the-clock after sales services and prompt delivery.

Pakistan’s first direct insurance company was seeking a significant increase in revenue, while providing promised customer service to tap into the burgeoning auto insurance sector. It needed to boost insurance policy sales through customer acquisition, lifecycle management programs, and enhance the customer experience through streamlined services, optimum response times, and swift claim processing. The existing back-office facilities were insufficient to meet customer care demands, and service levels were strongly threatened. The business requirement was to reduce operational expenses in the back-office; reduce the cost per inbound-service call; and achieve the shortest turnaround time in claims processing. The aim was to deliver measurable improvements in service quality; simplify and streamline operations processes in the back-office to improve efficiency; increase revenue through existing customers and, by generating a significant prospect base, enhance customer experience to build brand equity.
TRG ensured the maintenance of its client’s state-of-the art contact center facility to provide 24/7 customer service. It developed persuasive sales techniques to up-sell and cross-sell to targeted users; introduced direct insurance services to prospect consumers through a referral system, and targeted the corporate sector by generating hot leads with decision makers. It facilitated new products and offerings that service end-to-end auto management needs; real-time reporting of operational metrics for management control; maximized productivity of the staff through a proprietary monitoring mechanism, and analyzed daily business activities and underlying trends.
TRG’s support and services created a tangible impact in terms of operational and business value. This includes first resolution rate; higher fresh policy sales revenue with an improved up-sell/cross-sell rate; maximized lead management; penetration rate (the percentage of the call list that has been called); immediate back-office support to handle call traffic; an effectively leveraged existing customer base to increase conversion rate, and an improved rating in customer satisfaction and customer retention.

Possessing over 55 years of leadership and expertise in carpet production and finishing know-how, Lahore Carpet Manufacturing Company (LCMC) continuously works to develop new design collections, processes, and material; introduces new trends according to the requirements, and establishes existing ones.

LCMC required a solution that would bring about workflow automation, process uniformity and organizational transparency. In 2005, LCMC started the search for an automated and rational solution to fulfil its critical business needs as an enterprise. SigmaTec’s ERP solution, SigmaTec Unify, offered a comprehensive, affordable and adoptable solution. Extensive training sessions, both online and at LCMC’s premises, enabled users to get up to speed with the new system. Consultation was also provided as required regarding the effective usage and the business benefit of modules.

SigmaTec Unify has totally revolutionized information processing at LCMC. The whole organization is now on a signal data set. LCMC’s management can view all carpets at various stages of production at the single click of a button. SigmaTec Unify has made transparent the profitability of every single carpet in LCMC’s stock of over 35,000 carpets.

Habib Bank Ltd. (HBL) Oman is one of HBL’s global initiatives to serve local and international customers in the Middle East. As HBL improved its customer base in Oman, the bank experienced a drastic increase in transaction volumes, and its existing transaction processing system could not handle this boost.

HBL selected TPS’s Phoenix switching middleware to handle the increasing transaction volume, and offer self-service banking services to its customers in Oman. Phoenix will replace the existing switch, offering reliability, flexibility, maturity and focused services at par with HBL’s commitment to excellence.

Group BPCE, France’s second-largest banking group, relies on two autonomous and complementary retail banking networks, those of the 17 Caisse d’Epargne banks, and the 20 Banque Populaire banks, strictly observing the pre-eminence of the two brands.

The group wanted a multi-institution and a multi-country platform that could host three banks on its platform, which would be centrally-based in Cameroon. Two of these banks are Group BPCE subsidiaries: BICEC, the first banking network in Cameroon, and the BCI in Congo; and the MUCODEC, also in Congo.

TPS’s IRIS fully met the group’s growth requirements. Its sophisticated and scalable technology, flexibility, reliability, cost-effectiveness, quick time to market, and its successful live implementation around the globe made it the bank’s first choice.

Habib Bank Ltd. (HBL), with an extensive local network of over 1425 local and 55+ international branches, has the largest branch network in Pakistan.

When HBL decided to replace its in-house developed distributed core banking system, MOBS, with a centralized banking solution, MISYS, the biggest challenge was to maintain the continuity of the bank’s ADC operations. TPS facilitated the smooth migration of all branches without interrupting operations, data duplication or corruption.

Tameer Micro Finance Bank (TMFB) needed a robust, reliable and flexible solution in order to provide new services quickly and efficiently to its 180 million Pakistani customers. It needed a switch that could cater to its aggressive growth plans without facing bottlenecks. The bank wanted true middleware and a platform that would allow it to offer these services via multiple channels and systems.

TPS’s modular architecture, robust and flexible platform has enabled TMFB to launch its branchless banking services, and gain momentum in a short span of time.

United Bank Ltd. (UBL) is one of Pakistan's largest commercial banks, with over 1,400 national and 19 overseas branches. It offers a multitude of e-banking services across various transaction touch points. In order to continue with its aggressive growth plans, the bank needed a switch that could cater to its expansion without facing bottlenecks.

IRIS at UBL is one of TPS’s most complex sites, driving the transactions of over 1.5 million debit and pre-paid card-based customers in Pakistan. It provides an enterprise transaction platform for the bank, and integrates its ATMs, branch hosts, branch tellers, phone banking and Internet banking services.

Qalhat LNG LNG Producer Saves up to Two Days a Month of Employee Time with Collaboration Solution

Qalhat LNG, a producer of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in the Sultanate of Oman, experienced frequent downtime and high rental fees for its leased IT services. It worked with Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner KalSoft to deploy its own solution using Microsoft technologies. Now, Qalhat LNG no longer experiences delays—increasing employee productivity by up to two days a month—and has reduced IT operating expenses by nearly 30 per cent.
Business Needs

Qalhat LNG in the Sultanate of Oman started production of 3.3 million tonnes of LNG a year in December 2005 from a plant built alongside two existing LNG trains. The company’s largest single shareholder is the Government of Oman, with other shareholdings held by Oman LNG, Union Fenosa Gas of Spain, Itochu, Mitsubishi Corporation, and Osaka Gas of Japan.

The business has no operational staff of its own—most of its employees are Omani nationals working in fields such as management, marketing, and finance. Initially, the organisation worked at the same site as its partner company—Oman LNG—and used its IT services. But, as Qalhat LNG expanded, its employees’ offices were relocated 10 kilometres away.

Because of this, staff relied on a leased line connection to Oman LNG for all their IT needs. Saif Al Harthy, Technical Manager at Qalhat LNG, says: “To function, we relied on the connection to Oman LNG. From sending e-mail messages to creating and printing documents—everything operated on our partner’s IT systems.”

This created a number of issues. The leased line service charged a monthly rental fee that was expensive to maintain. Also, the connection was unreliable and would fail around twice a month. “If the leased line connection failed we couldn’t operate. Our employees were limited in the amount of work they could do because they couldn’t even send an e-mail message to the person sitting next to them,” says Al Harthy.

“We needed an advanced IT environment that could support our employees 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It also needed to accommodate the expansion of our company quickly and easily without incurring too much cost,” he adds.
Solution

Al Harthy examined the market and assessed the options. “We originally considered other software solutions, but found them to be too expensive and difficult to operate,” says Al Harthy. “We then approached KalSoft, a company with experience and competencies in deploying advanced infrastructure solutions based on Microsoft technologies.”

Together, they began a phased deployment of a suite of Microsoft products. In June 2007, the first stage—which was to implement a robust IT infrastructure in the new premises—began. The solution comprised:

Windows Server® 2003—as the operating system
Microsoft Exchange Server 2007—for hosted rich e-mail services, including calendaring, scheduling, and synchronisation with mobile devices using Windows Mobile® 6.0 software
Microsoft Forefront™ Security for Exchange Server—which protects the Exchange Server 2007 messaging environment from viruses, worms, and spam
The 2007 Microsoft Office suite—which provides all the fundamental business applications such as Microsoft Office Word 2007 and Microsoft Office Excel® 2007 spreadsheet software

The next stage was to migrate the existing electronic mailboxes and users from Oman LNG to the new infrastructure. Akhter Zaib, Sales Manager at KalSoft, says: “To minimise inconvenience, we migrated a small selection of users at a time and carried out most of the work at weekends.”

The system went live in March 2007 and immediately had a positive impact on employee productivity. But, Al Harthy was keen to improve this further. “I wanted to increase the amount of collaboration between our employees. To do this, we deployed Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 collaboration technology, and because we already had a Microsoft environment integration was easy,” says Al Harthy. “We now have a personalised intranet, separated into dedicated Web sites for each department. On top of that, it provides us with extensive document management capabilities, including version tracking,” he adds.
Benefits

By creating a collaborative infrastructure based on Microsoft technologies, Qalhat LNG has experienced a rise in performance and profitability. Also, because the company no longer pays for IT services through a leased line, it has reduced its total cost of ownership for IT infrastructure. Al Harthy says: “Using Microsoft technologies has given us the opportunity to improve the quality and quantity of our work. Not only that, but the solution has reduced our company’s IT expenditure by almost 30 per cent.”

High performance, continuity, and stability. Employees no longer rely on an unstable connection to their partner company’s IT system. This improved availability has increased productivity by up to two days a month.

Lower total cost of ownership. Qalhat LNG has reduced its IT expenditure by almost 30 per cent because it no longer rents its IT services through a leased line.

User-friendly interface for remote working. Staff can remotely access their e-mail accounts and documents, at any time, by using Windows Mobile devices. This has improved productivity and will cut carbon emissions by reducing the need for employees to travel.

Local support 24 hours a day, seven days a week. KalSoft provides valuable expertise to Qalhat LNG, whether it relates to technical issues or improving their existing infrastructure.

Promotes internal collaboration and teamwork. Employees can easily share documents and information through the Office SharePoint Server 2007 portal. They use workflows to track documents efficiently, and post notices on departmental sites for internal communication.

Business partnership with Microsoft. Al Harthy receives assistance and advice from Microsoft on the latest technologies and products. He’s now planning to upgrade to the Windows Server 2008 Standard operating system.

Ease of use. Employees quickly adopted the technology due to support offered by KalSoft and the intuitiveness of the products.

One of World’s Most Luxurious Hotels Employs New IT System to Enhance Guest Experience

Burj Al Arab in Dubai, one of the most luxurious hotels in the world, wanted to offer its guests early access to world-leading IT. In accordance with its mission—to “Stay Different”—the hotel management team equipped each of the Burj Al Arab’s 202 suites with laptop computers running Windows Vista™ Enterprise Edition and the 2007 Microsoft® Office system. Implementation took just three weeks, and the hotel’s guests are now enjoying a streamlined computing experience, easier navigation, and instant access to e-mail messages, the Internet, and multi-media entertainment channels
Business Needs

Burj Al Arab is part of the dynamic and fast-growing luxury hospitality group Jumeirah. It is one of the most luxurious hotels in the world, catering to sophisticated business and private customers. Located on the Dubai coastline in the heart of the Gulf’s hospitality industry, Burj Al Arab is known worldwide for its exceptionally high standards of service. Many of its guests are repeat customers who appreciate the hotel’s commitment to providing a unique experience on each visit. In line with parent company Jumeirah’s “Stay Different” slogan, Burj Al Arab wanted to offer guests early access to world-leading IT facilities.

Frederick Sabty, Director of IT at Burj Al Arab, says: “Our aim is to be different and to remain at the cutting edge of technology. We offer some of the world’s best service, best food and beverages, most luxurious accommodation, and most advanced IT resources for guests. We wanted to make it even easier for our guests to access their e-mail messages, the Internet, and multi-media content.”

Burj Al Arab has already started the migration to a new operating system for back-of-house operations, but the 202 suites—there are no rooms at Burj Al Arab—have come first. Sabty says: “Our guests are our top priority. Having made the decision to switch to the best and latest technologies, including the 2007 Microsoft Office system and Windows Vista, we wanted to be up and running with the new system within three weeks. By becoming an early adopter of Vista, we are equipping our guests with a technology they will soon use for both business and leisure.”
Solution

Burj Al Arab chose Windows Vista and the 2007 Microsoft Office system. It invited Microsoft Gold Certified Partner KalSoft to implement the technology on 206 laptops for all 202 suites. The deployment tool used was Microsoft Solution Accelerator for Business Desktop Deployment (BDD) 2007, which provides tools and guidance for deploying Windows Vista and the 2007 Microsoft Office system.

Shahid Roofi Khan, Solution Architect at KalSoft, says: “The deployment takes just 18 minutes at the end machine and only two clicks of the mouse to get the laptop ready for the end user. Working with the hotel, we have provided full back-up for the live environment with excellent connectivity.”

Fast time to market was also a concern for Burj Al Arab. “If we had used manual deployment techniques, it would have taken a lot more time,” says Khan. “There were, of course, lessons learned, as there are with any new technology, but we were well supported by Microsoft Services in the event of any escalation issues. After the implementation in late October, the system was ready to go live in just 23 days.”

The BDD solution is indispensable for Burj Al Arab. Khan says: “Considering the number of machines that need to be deployed and maintained and the changes to configurations, deployment was very fast.”

The applications deployed alongside Windows Vista and the 2007 Microsoft Office system provide guests with a wide range of solutions for business and leisure use. The project required KalSoft and Microsoft to transfer knowledge about the new technology to the Burj Al Arab IT support team, ensuring guests benefited from the new around-the-clock functions as soon as possible.
Benefits

The Burj Al Arab’s guests are discerning travellers, accustomed to the latest and best in hospitality services. The visual sophistication of Windows Vista helps streamline guests’ computing experience by refining common Windows functions so the user can focus on the screen’s content, rather than on how to access it. Sabty says: “We have always been an innovator. We were early adopters of Microsoft Windows® XP Home Edition for our guests. Soon, we will be the first hotel to offer Windows Vista and the 2007 Office system, enhancing the experience of staying at the hotel still further.”

Other benefits of the new system for guests include:

A more informative and intuitive desktop experience.
Greater clarity of information on the computer, allowing users to see the contents of files without having to open them.
An improved search function for files and applications.
More efficient navigation and easier-to-use functionality.
New deployment tools for rapid implementation in guests’ suites.
Built-in entertainment features.
Improved Internet browsing for guests through the new Internet Explorer 7.

Arabian United Float Glass Company 600 tons of high-quality float glass. The purchase of modern business management software to ensure that the state-of-the-art unit operates to the highest levels of efficiency was a top priority for the management. The company had outgrown its Peachtree accounting system. In assessing the market, the company considered many different ERP solutions, but disregarded them based on performance and total cost of ownership.

Working with Microsoft Gold Certified Partner MAISON-Naizak Global Engineering, the company deployed Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 with Process Industries for Microsoft Dynamics AX software to gain even deeper insight into the business. Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009, which offers a service-oriented architecture and tight integration with web services, is designed to manage the complexities of an organization involved in global markets. It helps consolidate and standardize processes and provides visibility across all departments. MAISON-Naizak was also responsible for training and personal development of users, many but not all of whom were familiar with the look and feel of Microsoft technology.

Microsoft Dynamics AX has given the company full control over its procurement process, which was previously done manually, and was therefore, prone to human error. The manufacturer saves time and effort with workflows that enforce and enhance controls based on specific risk and compliance scenarios. The software has helped manufacturers increase the speed and efficiency of its manufacturing operations, and communicate more effectively with its extended supply chain. The technology builds and quickly modifies work streams to take advantage of new opportunities, and adapts quickly to changing industry and customer demands. The company now finds it less of a major task to monitor and control its inventory, thereby helping to streamline its cash flow.

Company Background

Office National is an Australia’s largest independent office products group, spread over 170 outlets.
• Office National not only supports major brands, but also offers their own range of office products.
• Office National IT products are at the leading edge of technology including the latest in computer hardware, software, and networking solutions.
• Office National has over 1150 employees who operate extent to 170 metropolitans and regional locations and delivering exceptional services to their customers.
• Office National websites are based on both B2B and B2C, to interact with their customers based in Australia and New Zealand, they have built respective website for better communication with the regional customers.
• Succession to their proven growth in business, they will soon be launching new Office National Website for South African region.

Business Needs

To implement easy to use Store Locator for visitor’s/client’s convenience.
• To improve the existing infrastructure to provide failover support, and proper testing and development environment.
• To resolve current issues in the Production Environment and make the environment stable.
• To improve site performance by Migrating the Database from unsupported version DB2 8.1 to DB2 9.5 and applying operational data cleanup activities.
• To increase sales launch new stores for New Zealand and South African region and improve navigation, look and feel of the stores.
• To gain available new market share and become market leaders by providing better buying experience for their customers.
• To install and configure a middleware to share catalog, invoice, contract, and image information among their various applications.

Key Technologies Used

• WebSphere Commerce 6.0 Extended Sites
• B2B and B2C business models
• WebSphere Application Server 6.0 ND
• Rational Application Developer
• JBOSS ESB
• DB2 9.5

Solution and Achieved Project Milestones

-Store Locator Integration for Simple Navigation
Store locator is integrated with every stores of the office national, so that visitors can find out the nearest store located to their location. It is integrated with Google maps API which makes easy for visitors to get to the nearest location and complete the shopping process

-Store Locator Interface & Functionality
Now it is very easy for visitors to access location of Office National stores after the Integration of new store locator.
Now the visitors only need to follow the following steps to land to their desired stores.
1. You need to select your desire product; you want to buy “Type of Store” for e.g. Toys, books.
2. In order find nearest location of the store all you need is to select the distance range, which is shown in kilometers, from the “Within” dropdown.
3. Then you need to select your State, form the dropdown.
4. In the last you only need to type your “zip code” or “Street address” on the respective mentioned field.
5. When you will click on the “Go” button, it will show you all the stores in that selected distance range, now you can easily make purchases online.
When you will select any of the mentioned stores, it will show you more details about that store. For e.g. its opening and closing hours, address, phone number, fax number, its directions from your current location etc.

-Steps Taken to Enhance System Performance
• Implementation of Load Balancer, WAS Clustering, and Database Migration helped totally reduce downtime of the website during busy hours and ultimately improves the performance of the website.
• New attractive website design tempts customers to stay long on the website for the purchasing and helped them to complete the buying process with minimal time.
• Store Locator helps customers locate nearest store and reserve products in the store.
• Precision Targeted Marketing features and custom promotions help business users to retain customers.
• Numerous visitors have been increased and hits on the site almost doubled after utilizing Search Engine Optimization features.
• Scripts to automate the cleanup of Operational Data help reduce potential future performance and downtime risks.

-(In Process) Activities in Collaboration with WebSphere Commerce Gurus
• ESB integration with WebSphere Commerce will help update all applications including WebSphere Commerce in a timely manner.
• Become competitive by Migrating All Australian and New-Zealand stores to WebSphere Commerce 7.0 environment.
• Become Market leaders within Office Products domain by adopting Web 2.0 feature rich starter stores such as Elite and Madison for their B2B and B2C model stores.
• Increase Sales by starting new stores within South African region
• Since Office national visitors have been increasing very fast, now it has become very difficult for them to manage the entire infrastructure independently, therefore our outstanding performance impressed them to hire us for
Providing 24/7 support for their development and infrastructural environment for better performance.

Client’s Introduction

Legislative Department of Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania General Assembly is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Pennsylvania.
The General Assembly has 253 members, making it the second-largest state legislature in the nation (behind New Hampshire) and the largest full-time legislature.

Business Case

Legislative Department of Pennsylvania wanted WebSphere administration support for their clustered environment. They have numerous J2EE applications deployed on their environment.
Legislative Department of Pennsylvania contacted Royal cyber Inc. WebSphere Support team to provide WebSphere support during the migration process and afterwards.

Solution

Following are the support and integration services providing by Royal Cyber
• Troubleshooting of memory issues
• Monitoring and tuning the servers
• Automating all the manual process
• Installation and Configuration of plug-ins and support applications
• Server clustering for load balancing and failover support
• Generation of operational reports on WAS servers using appropriate metrics and system benchmarks
• Maintenance of applications in a three-tier model – troubleshooting various components
• Security of applications
• Royal Cyber provides 24 hours around the clock support to make sure that all the applications run smoothly and up always

Maria B. (A leading designer and retail brand of garments) achieves dead stock reduction of 80% in 3 months by using LumenSoft Candela Retail Management System

Business Introduction

Maria B is the leading designer and retail brand for ladies bridal, formal and casual wear. The brand is more than 10 years old and has retail outlets across of Pakistan.

The Need and Business Challenge

Maria B. was initially using a software solution to handle its retail operations but it was not capable of effectively handling multi-location (chain store) retail business. The head-office and shops were running different modules which were not fully integrated. This resulted in “information silos” due to which timely and accurate business decisions could not be made.

Also operations were cumbersome resulting in reduced productivity. Stocks had gradually increased to alarming levels due to lack of required information. To make matters worse, inventory could not be moved to outlets in time thus resulting in loss of sales and customer dissatisfaction. Stock audits became a huge task requiring several people from the head office to go to the store and take up to 2 full days to complete a thorough audit. Understandably due to the effort, stock checks were delayed during peak season.

Like any traditional entrepreneurial venture, the business was people oriented with lack of processes and management systems. The business required a software solution which could not only be used to control and automate the operations but also have capability of implementing industry best practices, and robust business processes.

Choice of Solution

Maria B. looked for different available retail software solutions in the market. It was an easy decision to select Candela RMS for management of their retail operations. Candela had the largest customer base for retail chain stores in Pakistan and many top brands of the country were using this solution. Amongst the customer list, many were engaged in a similar type of business. LumenSoft Technologies engineers had required experience and expertise to provide training and implementation support.

The best part of the deal was it promised to implement industry best practices and put the business under the control of processes.

Benefits Achieved

Only in first three months of operations Maria B. was able to boost sales for certain brands by 50%. Also dead stocks were reduced by 80% in some outlets. During the same period the ROI was 100% and the investment break-even was achieved within two quarters of implementation. Therefore this proved to be one of the best investments for the business.

This became possible by integrating all the retail outlets with head-office. The information flow between the head-office and outlets was seamless (both ways). In the head office the information was rolled-up to create a complete business picture. Analysis was available on different designs, categories, and groups which helped in optimizing the stocks at different retail outlets. After system implementation accurate inventory was reflected in the system which enabled the management to take timely decisions. Stocks were shuffled between outlets according to shops sales trends.

Reconciliation of cash and stocks between head-office and retail outlets became very effective and leakages and pilferage was greatly reduced. Shop staff, instead of preparing reports, was able to pay more attention of customer and thus their productivity was increased.

Mr. Fazal Ashfaq, head of retail operations at Maria B., says

“We were surprised to see the results produced by LumenSoft Candela RMS in such a short time. We are in total control of our business. We know what are the best sellers and at which outlets. We have instant information about our retail outlets as profit centers and also we can go deep down and analyze on design levels”

Maria B. the founder and owner of the business says

“… I have never been a technology person but I knew enough to see that there existed tremendous room for growth by implementing a retail software solution. We were pleased to see that Lumensoft had a ready to implement product that needed barely any modification to run on our business. A few months after implementation I can get a current bird’s eye view of my business and can alter direction to focus on items that are selling well. I would definitely recommend Lumensoft to any retailer….“

Maria B. (A leading designer and retail brand of garments) achieves dead stock reduction of 80% in 3 months by using LumenSoft Candela Retail Management System

Business Introduction

Maria B is the leading designer and retail brand for ladies bridal, formal and casual wear. The brand is more than 10 years old and has retail outlets across of Pakistan.

The Need and Business Challenge

Maria B. was initially using a software solution to handle its retail operations but it was not capable of effectively handling multi-location (chain store) retail business. The head-office and shops were running different modules which were not fully integrated. This resulted in “information silos” due to which timely and accurate business decisions could not be made.

Also operations were cumbersome resulting in reduced productivity. Stocks had gradually increased to alarming levels due to lack of required information. To make matters worse, inventory could not be moved to outlets in time thus resulting in loss of sales and customer dissatisfaction. Stock audits became a huge task requiring several people from the head office to go to the store and take up to 2 full days to complete a thorough audit. Understandably due to the effort, stock checks were delayed during peak season.

Like any traditional entrepreneurial venture, the business was people oriented with lack of processes and management systems. The business required a software solution which could not only be used to control and automate the operations but also have capability of implementing industry best practices, and robust business processes.

Choice of Solution

Maria B. looked for different available retail software solutions in the market. It was an easy decision to select Candela RMS for management of their retail operations. Candela had the largest customer base for retail chain stores in Pakistan and many top brands of the country were using this solution. Amongst the customer list, many were engaged in a similar type of business. LumenSoft Technologies engineers had required experience and expertise to provide training and implementation support.

The best part of the deal was it promised to implement industry best practices and put the business under the control of processes.

Benefits Achieved

Only in first three months of operations Maria B. was able to boost sales for certain brands by 50%. Also dead stocks were reduced by 80% in some outlets. During the same period the ROI was 100% and the investment break-even was achieved within two quarters of implementation. Therefore this proved to be one of the best investments for the business.

This became possible by integrating all the retail outlets with head-office. The information flow between the head-office and outlets was seamless (both ways). In the head office the information was rolled-up to create a complete business picture. Analysis was available on different designs, categories, and groups which helped in optimizing the stocks at different retail outlets. After system implementation accurate inventory was reflected in the system which enabled the management to take timely decisions. Stocks were shuffled between outlets according to shops sales trends.

Reconciliation of cash and stocks between head-office and retail outlets became very effective and leakages and pilferage was greatly reduced. Shop staff, instead of preparing reports, was able to pay more attention of customer and thus their productivity was increased.

Mr. Fazal Ashfaq, head of retail operations at Maria B., says

“We were surprised to see the results produced by LumenSoft Candela RMS in such a short time. We are in total control of our business. We know what are the best sellers and at which outlets. We have instant information about our retail outlets as profit centers and also we can go deep down and analyze on design levels”

Maria B. the founder and owner of the business says

“… I have never been a technology person but I knew enough to see that there existed tremendous room for growth by implementing a retail software solution. We were pleased to see that Lumensoft had a ready to implement product that needed barely any modification to run on our business. A few months after implementation I can get a current bird’s eye view of my business and can alter direction to focus on items that are selling well. I would definitely recommend Lumensoft to any retailer….“

By using the OneView solution from ZRG, Bank Alfalah is able to cater to the needs of an increased number of customers through more capacity, efficient routing and faster and accurate data posting. At the same time, it improved customer satisfaction, thanks to intelligent profile based handling of each caller that ensures that the customer gets the best service in a most effective way. The comprehensive quality management, supervision and MIS reporting tools provide detailed and summarized information on the traffic trends, agent performance and activity analysis. With OneView solution in place, Bank Alfalah can also keep maintenance costs at a minimum, due to simplified architecture and optimum reliability.

Bank of Khartoum (BOK), the largest bank in Sudan was planning on rolling out a wide range of innovative products and services. BOK goal was to create an edge by offering innovative ways of delivering the services resulting in higher customer satisfaction. At the time, the banks call centre was using a basic setup that was developed to serve a few traditional products to a much smaller branch network. This call centre setup could not be expanded to support BOKs rapidly expanding needs and hence, the new banking products and services could not be launched right away.

Warid Telecom, a venture of Abu Dhabi Group, is a leading cellular service provider in the region. The company was facing some challenges: the growing subscriber base was experiencing congestions while trying to get service or place new orders and the company was unable to launch and support advanced services. With a nation-wide subscriber base of 32+ million and an eye on expanding its operations - the company needed to find a better way of managing the more than 250,000 calls coming in daily for status inquiry and service activation.

UFone GSM provides a full range of corporate and retail based cellular phone services to over 20+ million subscribers. The company has a nationwide network of signaling tower sites and office locations in all the major cities in the country. A significant proportion of UFone GSM sales and services business is done over the phone. Three contact center locations are staffed with groups of representatives to assist the customers in service ordering, complaint handling and account related customer services.

Pakcom Ltd. and Paktel Ltd. wanted to automate their entire customer care and billing operation in order to reduce the cost spent on time and resources, prevent revenue loss, and run a smooth operation at the country-level.

Computer Research (Pvt.) Ltd. (CRPL) had previously deployed an end-to-end billing solution at Pakcom. Its customized eCellPlus Common Billing System (eCBS) now includes Web-enabled cellular billing software developed in Oracle. It offers complete billing, customer care, collections, accounts receivable, switch provisioning, credit monitoring, auto barring, account settler and various other solutions integrated in a single package.

United Bank Ltd. (UBL) is one of Pakistan's largest commercial banks, with over 1,400 national and 19 overseas branches. It offers a multitude of e-banking services across various transaction touch points. In order to continue with its aggressive growth plans, the bank needed a switch that could cater to its expansion without facing bottlenecks.

IRIS at UBL is one of TPS’s most complex sites, driving the transactions of over 1.5 million debit and pre-paid card-based customers in Pakistan. It provides an enterprise transaction platform for the bank, and integrates its ATMs, branch hosts, branch tellers, phone banking and Internet banking services.

The case study focuses on how a very important player of the Healthcare industry uses IT development to its own advantage. Between retailers and manufacturers, the distributors, whose role in any industry can only be underestimated, provide the one important link: juggling inventories with areas and trends in check, making their task a very sensitive one with a heavy flow of information that thrives on timeliness and accuracy.

Pharmalink is a major local distributor of pharmaceutical products for many leading manufacturers, including Sanofi Aventis and Efroze Chemical Industries (Pvt.) Ltd. Faced with the inventories, pricing and discount policies, seasonal bonuses, invoicing and the major need for timely alerts made it necessary for Pharmalink to look for a solution that could help it make the best of the volatile environment in which they operated.

DMaX, an extensive distribution and sales management system by EfroTech, fulfilled Pharmalink’s objectives.

DMaX offers:
Principal-wise reports.
Pricing manual and principal/period/product-wise discount policies.
Invoice creator and recovery manager.
Bonus on combo-products (as per the distributor’s specifications).
Expiry alerts.
Handheld and PDA device integration for automated order processing.
Multi-User / multi- company support.
Inventory and purchase management.
Multiple warehouse support.
Order processing and delivery.
Sales analysis and reporting.

With this one-stop solution, Pharmalink was able to achieve greater accuracy, timeliness and more informed decision making.

Qalhat LNG LNG Producer Saves up to Two Days a Month of Employee Time with Collaboration Solution

Qalhat LNG, a producer of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in the Sultanate of Oman, experienced frequent downtime and high rental fees for its leased IT services. It worked with Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner KalSoft to deploy its own solution using Microsoft technologies. Now, Qalhat LNG no longer experiences delays—increasing employee productivity by up to two days a month—and has reduced IT operating expenses by nearly 30 per cent.
Business Needs

Qalhat LNG in the Sultanate of Oman started production of 3.3 million tonnes of LNG a year in December 2005 from a plant built alongside two existing LNG trains. The company’s largest single shareholder is the Government of Oman, with other shareholdings held by Oman LNG, Union Fenosa Gas of Spain, Itochu, Mitsubishi Corporation, and Osaka Gas of Japan.

The business has no operational staff of its own—most of its employees are Omani nationals working in fields such as management, marketing, and finance. Initially, the organisation worked at the same site as its partner company—Oman LNG—and used its IT services. But, as Qalhat LNG expanded, its employees’ offices were relocated 10 kilometres away.

Because of this, staff relied on a leased line connection to Oman LNG for all their IT needs. Saif Al Harthy, Technical Manager at Qalhat LNG, says: “To function, we relied on the connection to Oman LNG. From sending e-mail messages to creating and printing documents—everything operated on our partner’s IT systems.”

This created a number of issues. The leased line service charged a monthly rental fee that was expensive to maintain. Also, the connection was unreliable and would fail around twice a month. “If the leased line connection failed we couldn’t operate. Our employees were limited in the amount of work they could do because they couldn’t even send an e-mail message to the person sitting next to them,” says Al Harthy.

“We needed an advanced IT environment that could support our employees 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It also needed to accommodate the expansion of our company quickly and easily without incurring too much cost,” he adds.
Solution

Al Harthy examined the market and assessed the options. “We originally considered other software solutions, but found them to be too expensive and difficult to operate,” says Al Harthy. “We then approached KalSoft, a company with experience and competencies in deploying advanced infrastructure solutions based on Microsoft technologies.”

Together, they began a phased deployment of a suite of Microsoft products. In June 2007, the first stage—which was to implement a robust IT infrastructure in the new premises—began. The solution comprised:

Windows Server® 2003—as the operating system
Microsoft Exchange Server 2007—for hosted rich e-mail services, including calendaring, scheduling, and synchronisation with mobile devices using Windows Mobile® 6.0 software
Microsoft Forefront™ Security for Exchange Server—which protects the Exchange Server 2007 messaging environment from viruses, worms, and spam
The 2007 Microsoft Office suite—which provides all the fundamental business applications such as Microsoft Office Word 2007 and Microsoft Office Excel® 2007 spreadsheet software

The next stage was to migrate the existing electronic mailboxes and users from Oman LNG to the new infrastructure. Akhter Zaib, Sales Manager at KalSoft, says: “To minimise inconvenience, we migrated a small selection of users at a time and carried out most of the work at weekends.”

The system went live in March 2007 and immediately had a positive impact on employee productivity. But, Al Harthy was keen to improve this further. “I wanted to increase the amount of collaboration between our employees. To do this, we deployed Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 collaboration technology, and because we already had a Microsoft environment integration was easy,” says Al Harthy. “We now have a personalised intranet, separated into dedicated Web sites for each department. On top of that, it provides us with extensive document management capabilities, including version tracking,” he adds.
Benefits

By creating a collaborative infrastructure based on Microsoft technologies, Qalhat LNG has experienced a rise in performance and profitability. Also, because the company no longer pays for IT services through a leased line, it has reduced its total cost of ownership for IT infrastructure. Al Harthy says: “Using Microsoft technologies has given us the opportunity to improve the quality and quantity of our work. Not only that, but the solution has reduced our company’s IT expenditure by almost 30 per cent.”

High performance, continuity, and stability. Employees no longer rely on an unstable connection to their partner company’s IT system. This improved availability has increased productivity by up to two days a month.

Lower total cost of ownership. Qalhat LNG has reduced its IT expenditure by almost 30 per cent because it no longer rents its IT services through a leased line.

User-friendly interface for remote working. Staff can remotely access their e-mail accounts and documents, at any time, by using Windows Mobile devices. This has improved productivity and will cut carbon emissions by reducing the need for employees to travel.

Local support 24 hours a day, seven days a week. KalSoft provides valuable expertise to Qalhat LNG, whether it relates to technical issues or improving their existing infrastructure.

Promotes internal collaboration and teamwork. Employees can easily share documents and information through the Office SharePoint Server 2007 portal. They use workflows to track documents efficiently, and post notices on departmental sites for internal communication.

Business partnership with Microsoft. Al Harthy receives assistance and advice from Microsoft on the latest technologies and products. He’s now planning to upgrade to the Windows Server 2008 Standard operating system.

Ease of use. Employees quickly adopted the technology due to support offered by KalSoft and the intuitiveness of the products.

Challenge
Server4Sale was given a major challenge by Habib Bank Limited (HBL) to implement HRMS Human Resource Management System in all of their banking branches to increase efficiency of its workforce. They sought to leverage the wealth of experience and skill sets of their teams and wanted an upgrade to add internet banking, and streamline the processes into their existing website including pages for Corporate Banking, Commercial Banking, Global Treasury, Investment banking and Cash Management; they also want to update all their branches information of their local and international branches on their website. Furthermore they want to have a portal with complete information about cars for car financing where the people can compare cars by selecting it from a wide range of car companies and their models and can compare car engine capacity, transmission, warranty, reliability, fuel efficiency and other features including prices and car financing information so that they can make a better choice.
Solution
Based on our former experiences it became quite evident that the applications in which data had to be entered had to be dynamic therefore we have built several applications for the data entry phase to avoid any conflicts in the data entry process. The data was selected, verified, conformed in English, and maintained using rigorous, documented processes and procedures. We have reorganized the content giving it a less cluttered look and entered all the relevant information of HBL branches including its name, address, phone number, ATM locations and lockers availability etc on their website very carefully to ensure visitors get verified information. In each pages that we have built for HBL we have added meta tags and used optimized coding by using keyword enriched content well ahead of reconstruction. We have also redirected all old pages to new pages to ensure that no link juice gets lost. HBL already has the international credibility and acceptance and we’ve just ensured that visitors to the HBL website knew about it and that’s why we created a well designed landing page where we have put the location finder on the right top space where it would be easily visible and increased conversions. We have also developed and embedded several applications to enable users to compare cars and their prices online where they easily can compare cars by selecting it from a wide range of car companies and their models using car calculator and can compare car engine capacity, transmission, warranty, reliability, fuel efficiency and other features including prices and car financing information.

Challenge
After performing an extensive research and evaluation, Pakistan Ordanance Factories (POF) chooses Server4Sale for their network security and support. With extensive experience in providing dedicated server and internet security solutions we have earned a reputation of being reliable, cost effective and stable web solutions provider. Our state-of-the-art data centers with ability to provide a full range of managed services other than straight collocation are the most important factor that gave POF rock-solid assurances that its network would stay up and will be secure even during the highest-volume periods.

Solution
Our services to Pakistan Ordanance Factories (POF) includes providing expertise for the infrastructure supporting of different operating system and application platforms, as well as storage, backup, security, and overall program management services for their personnel’s. It was a challenge to provide internet security to such a sensitive organization but Server4Sale keeps up with this challenge. Our team conducted thorough research with a number of large end-users to determine where they were experiencing any difficulties with their server security posture. To manage security, a modular and purpose-built Cisco Firewall was installed, which provides enterprise-class security. We provided them with analysis of the addressable market and then set up meetings with potential end-users and partners. Our support center staff works 24 hours a day, 7days a week and 365 days a year to ensure reliable, high performance and quality services to POF. We are committed to assist them in resolving their different IT related issues and queries. Today, POF depends on Server4Sale for all of its wireless & network security needs as well as a comprehensive bundle of other advanced web services solutions including managed network, managed web applications, and managed security. POF has also been able to harness its skilled IT workforce more productively with our efficient and secure networks and also able to Reduced costs and improved ROI. Another major benefit has been transparency into IT operations; our staff effectively resolves their queries about any component in their infrastructure or any other aspect of service excellently. POF has been impressed with our services.

Company Background

Office National is an Australia’s largest independent office products group, spread over 170 outlets.
• Office National not only supports major brands, but also offers their own range of office products.
• Office National IT products are at the leading edge of technology including the latest in computer hardware, software, and networking solutions.
• Office National has over 1150 employees who operate extent to 170 metropolitans and regional locations and delivering exceptional services to their customers.
• Office National websites are based on both B2B and B2C, to interact with their customers based in Australia and New Zealand, they have built respective website for better communication with the regional customers.
• Succession to their proven growth in business, they will soon be launching new Office National Website for South African region.

Business Needs

To implement easy to use Store Locator for visitor’s/client’s convenience.
• To improve the existing infrastructure to provide failover support, and proper testing and development environment.
• To resolve current issues in the Production Environment and make the environment stable.
• To improve site performance by Migrating the Database from unsupported version DB2 8.1 to DB2 9.5 and applying operational data cleanup activities.
• To increase sales launch new stores for New Zealand and South African region and improve navigation, look and feel of the stores.
• To gain available new market share and become market leaders by providing better buying experience for their customers.
• To install and configure a middleware to share catalog, invoice, contract, and image information among their various applications.

Key Technologies Used

• WebSphere Commerce 6.0 Extended Sites
• B2B and B2C business models
• WebSphere Application Server 6.0 ND
• Rational Application Developer
• JBOSS ESB
• DB2 9.5

Solution and Achieved Project Milestones

-Store Locator Integration for Simple Navigation
Store locator is integrated with every stores of the office national, so that visitors can find out the nearest store located to their location. It is integrated with Google maps API which makes easy for visitors to get to the nearest location and complete the shopping process

-Store Locator Interface & Functionality
Now it is very easy for visitors to access location of Office National stores after the Integration of new store locator.
Now the visitors only need to follow the following steps to land to their desired stores.
1. You need to select your desire product; you want to buy “Type of Store” for e.g. Toys, books.
2. In order find nearest location of the store all you need is to select the distance range, which is shown in kilometers, from the “Within” dropdown.
3. Then you need to select your State, form the dropdown.
4. In the last you only need to type your “zip code” or “Street address” on the respective mentioned field.
5. When you will click on the “Go” button, it will show you all the stores in that selected distance range, now you can easily make purchases online.
When you will select any of the mentioned stores, it will show you more details about that store. For e.g. its opening and closing hours, address, phone number, fax number, its directions from your current location etc.

-Steps Taken to Enhance System Performance
• Implementation of Load Balancer, WAS Clustering, and Database Migration helped totally reduce downtime of the website during busy hours and ultimately improves the performance of the website.
• New attractive website design tempts customers to stay long on the website for the purchasing and helped them to complete the buying process with minimal time.
• Store Locator helps customers locate nearest store and reserve products in the store.
• Precision Targeted Marketing features and custom promotions help business users to retain customers.
• Numerous visitors have been increased and hits on the site almost doubled after utilizing Search Engine Optimization features.
• Scripts to automate the cleanup of Operational Data help reduce potential future performance and downtime risks.

-(In Process) Activities in Collaboration with WebSphere Commerce Gurus
• ESB integration with WebSphere Commerce will help update all applications including WebSphere Commerce in a timely manner.
• Become competitive by Migrating All Australian and New-Zealand stores to WebSphere Commerce 7.0 environment.
• Become Market leaders within Office Products domain by adopting Web 2.0 feature rich starter stores such as Elite and Madison for their B2B and B2C model stores.
• Increase Sales by starting new stores within South African region
• Since Office national visitors have been increasing very fast, now it has become very difficult for them to manage the entire infrastructure independently, therefore our outstanding performance impressed them to hire us for
Providing 24/7 support for their development and infrastructural environment for better performance.

Client’s Introduction

Legislative Department of Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania General Assembly is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Pennsylvania.
The General Assembly has 253 members, making it the second-largest state legislature in the nation (behind New Hampshire) and the largest full-time legislature.

Business Case

Legislative Department of Pennsylvania wanted WebSphere administration support for their clustered environment. They have numerous J2EE applications deployed on their environment.
Legislative Department of Pennsylvania contacted Royal cyber Inc. WebSphere Support team to provide WebSphere support during the migration process and afterwards.

Solution

Following are the support and integration services providing by Royal Cyber
• Troubleshooting of memory issues
• Monitoring and tuning the servers
• Automating all the manual process
• Installation and Configuration of plug-ins and support applications
• Server clustering for load balancing and failover support
• Generation of operational reports on WAS servers using appropriate metrics and system benchmarks
• Maintenance of applications in a three-tier model – troubleshooting various components
• Security of applications
• Royal Cyber provides 24 hours around the clock support to make sure that all the applications run smoothly and up always

DG. Khan Cement Company Limited (DGKCC), a unit of Nishat group, is the largest cement-manufacturing unit in Pakistan with a production capacity of 5,500 tons clinker per day. Countrywide distribution network and its products are preferred on projects of national repute both locally and internationally due to the unparallel and consistent quality. It is list on all the Stock Exchanges of Pakistan.

Benefits
After the Implementation of Fuel Management System at DG Khan Cement it was found out that there was error in reading up to 1000 liters during each filling because both Tanks were not properly calibrated and DG Khan Cement was using these dip charts for past 10 years.

Fuel Management System Go Live at DGKCC on 17th March 2011
Infrastructure
Site : Quarry Site DG Khan Cementss
Diesel Tanks : 2

Capacity
Tank 1 : 23000 Liters
Tank 2 : 23000 Liters

Fuel Management System (FMS) Installed Infrastructure :
Probes : 2
Control Box : 1
FMS Software

Expected Savings:
Avg per Day Diesel Consumption: 5000 Liters
Monthly Diesel Expenditure@ Rs 85/Liter: 12,750,000 PKR
Monthly Savings expected 10%: 1,275,000 PKR
Annual expected Savings : 15,000,000 PKR
24 X 7 monitoring of filling and Consumption

By using the OneView solution from ZRG, Bank Alfalah is able to cater to the needs of an increased number of customers through more capacity, efficient routing and faster and accurate data posting. At the same time, it improved customer satisfaction, thanks to intelligent profile based handling of each caller that ensures that the customer gets the best service in a most effective way. The comprehensive quality management, supervision and MIS reporting tools provide detailed and summarized information on the traffic trends, agent performance and activity analysis. With OneView solution in place, Bank Alfalah can also keep maintenance costs at a minimum, due to simplified architecture and optimum reliability.

Bank of Khartoum (BOK), the largest bank in Sudan was planning on rolling out a wide range of innovative products and services. BOK goal was to create an edge by offering innovative ways of delivering the services resulting in higher customer satisfaction. At the time, the banks call centre was using a basic setup that was developed to serve a few traditional products to a much smaller branch network. This call centre setup could not be expanded to support BOKs rapidly expanding needs and hence, the new banking products and services could not be launched right away.

Warid Telecom, a venture of Abu Dhabi Group, is a leading cellular service provider in the region. The company was facing some challenges: the growing subscriber base was experiencing congestions while trying to get service or place new orders and the company was unable to launch and support advanced services. With a nation-wide subscriber base of 32+ million and an eye on expanding its operations - the company needed to find a better way of managing the more than 250,000 calls coming in daily for status inquiry and service activation.

UFone GSM provides a full range of corporate and retail based cellular phone services to over 20+ million subscribers. The company has a nationwide network of signaling tower sites and office locations in all the major cities in the country. A significant proportion of UFone GSM sales and services business is done over the phone. Three contact center locations are staffed with groups of representatives to assist the customers in service ordering, complaint handling and account related customer services.

GenITeam, in partnership with PixSense, deployed its social gaming suite for XL, a leading Indonesian telecom operator. The company provides quick turnaround time to develop white-labeled customized solutions localized to the needs of the community and subscribers. The product suite has helped carriers launch eight social games for their large subscriber base and enhance revenue options.

A Europe-based mobile telecommunications provider, with the second-largest subscriber base of over 20 million in Pakistan, was looking for significant improvement in customer service and cost management to cater to the growth (15% annually) of its GSM business in the country. TRG identified the company’s key challenges: the existing back-office facilities for customer care demands had reached maximum capacity, severely affecting service levels; the business requirement was to reduce operational expenses in the back-office while keeping competitive rates; and to reduce the cost per inbound-service call. The aim was to simplify and streamline operations processes, and increase revenue from service and support programs whilst maintaining brand image, and to increase customer satisfaction to improve customer retention.

TRG extended the customer care operations by outsourcing an additional 40% capacity to cater to growth in the pre-paid subscriber business. It conducted a customer satisfaction survey and analysis through outbound voice - creation of a customer satisfaction workflow based on the client's criteria. It focused on daily/monthly communication, and reporting to the client for greater control and visibility, with emphasis on the implementation of technology and processes in order to enhance operational efficiency and productivity. The benefits in terms of business value include an improved rating in the customer satisfaction index, extended customer care strategies, allowing the back-office to effectively scale-up to support 150% growth in business, and savings in both back-office operations and management costs. The company achieved accuracy targets and service-levels of 70% within six months of go-live against previous service levels of approximately 30% prior to outsourcing, and 83% accuracy for first call resolution.

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) lost US$ 50 million every year to global gray market telephony worth billions of dollars to illegal operators. It had no solution to monitor and block gray traffic, and had not applied any method to reconcile multiple sources of traffic information. Lack of clock synchronization also presented the challenge of mismatched records.

CRPL's International Traffic Settlement System identifies and monitors gray incoming traffic; provides rule-based matching/reconciliation between multiple sources of international traffic information; revenue assurance and settlement process between operators; data analysis in the form of reports/dashboards; a modular approach, and high-volume data processing abilities.

This solution also provides patented algorithms for gray traffic analysis; real-time, multi-sourced traffic analysis; a comprehensive analytics platform for reporting and analysis; and an international settlement rate maintained at all levels. It ensures full accounting of the international incoming traffic minutes terminated by LDIs on all access-providers' networks, and provides a certification process to all access-providers in order to identify potential fraud for international incoming calls.

This solution has reduced the PTA's gray market traffic by 98%, and increased data volume by 40-50%.

Warid Telecom International launched its Pakistan division in 2005. Since then, the company’s customer base has grown from 2.4 million to 18 million subscribers in 450 cities. As the Warid family grew, it looked for ways to streamline its IT infrastructure, accept its environmental responsibility, and take care of its customers. Warid Telecom evaluated virtualization solutions from leading vendors, and chose KalSoft to deploy Microsoft’s Windows Server 2008 operating system.

The company conducted a proof of concept with Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise and Hyper-V in March and April 2009. KalSoft, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner in Pakistan, helped with software migration and hardware installation. Later on in May, Warid Telecom started to implement the Hyper-V solution in a production environment on HP ProLiant DL580 G5 server computers. The servers include six-core Intel Xeon 7400 series processors and built-in Integrated Lights-Out 2 technology for remote management capabilities. KalSoft also deployed virtual desktops by using Remote Desktop Services, formerly known as Terminal Services, and the virtual desktop infrastructure delivery model in Windows Server 2008 R2.

This solution has enabled Warid Telecom to cut its operating expenses by 62%.

Streaming Networks entered into an agreement in 2003 with an Italian company to develop, for Telecom Italia, an H.324-compliant consumer video phone with Short Message Service (SMS) capability communicating over standard phone lines (33.4kbps bandwidth). The development reached the production stage, but was not deployed in the market. The video phone had an integrated active matrix 3.5 inch TFT LCD display screen and 1/3 inch, CMOS digital camera. Streaming Networks was responsible for both the hardware and the software parts of the project. The hardware portion consisted of board design and development based on NXP’s PNX1300 media processor. On the software side, Streaming Networks customized its H.324 video phone stack to meet Telecom Italia's specifications and requirements. The H.324 video phone stack included H.263 video codec at QVGA resolution (320x240) and G.723.1, a low bit-rate audio codec running at 5.3/6.3 kbps. An acoustic echo canceller was deployed for hands-free telephony.

The SMS supported ETSI and CTSI standards, and provided interoperability with region-specific SMS servers. The module offered complete functionality of SMS Customer Premises Equipment (CPE) in conjunction with videophone operations. Both DTMF and FSK transmission options were available for information upload. Programmable modules offered flexibility and easy customization to meet country/region-specific telecom requirements.

The work was carried out in Pakistan, Italy and Taiwan, where the prototype hardware board was made. The final product was manufactured in China.

Streaming Networks entered into an agreement in 2003 with an Italian company to develop, for Telecom Italia, an H.324-compliant consumer video phone with Short Message Service (SMS) capability communicating over standard phone lines (33.4kbps bandwidth). The development reached the production stage, but was not deployed in the market. The video phone had an integrated active matrix 3.5 inch TFT LCD display screen and 1/3 inch, CMOS digital camera. Streaming Networks was responsible for both the hardware and the software parts of the project. The hardware portion consisted of board design and development based on NXP’s PNX1300 media processor. On the software side, Streaming Networks customized its H.324 video phone stack to meet Telecom Italia's specifications and requirements. The H.324 video phone stack included H.263 video codec at QVGA resolution (320x240) and G.723.1, a low bit-rate audio codec running at 5.3/6.3 kbps. An acoustic echo canceller was deployed for hands-free telephony.

The SMS supported ETSI and CTSI standards, and provided interoperability with region-specific SMS servers. The module offered complete functionality of SMS Customer Premises Equipment (CPE) in conjunction with videophone operations. Both DTMF and FSK transmission options were available for information upload. Programmable modules offered flexibility and easy customization to meet country/region-specific telecom requirements.

The work was carried out in Pakistan, Italy and Taiwan, where the prototype hardware board was made. The final product was manufactured in China.

Founded in 1970, Bilka is a Danish chain of hypermarkets, offering groceries and general merchandise to their shoppers. Today it is part of Dansk Supermarked A/S (www.dsg.dk), Denmark's largest and fastest growing retail group, which consists of seven retail chains and two stores, which provides customers with daily food and non-food. Dansk Supermarked employs approximately 44,000 people, operates more than 1,300 stores in five countries and has a turnover of more than 66 billion DKK including tax.

Bilka Headed Towards the Digital Supermarket
They started with books. Now, Bilka is expanding the established E-market success at bilka.dk with even more goods to shop from. The course has been set towards the digital supermarket.

Computerworld DK recently investigated the level of satisfaction of Danish people with web-based bookshops. Bilka won the 1st place for its web shop with 65,000 items. Ciklum’s employees in Pakistan have programmed the solution powers bilka.dk. IT- and business-wise Bilka will use this experience in their broad E-market focus.

"We are proud of the results of the research. Especially because it is our customers who judge us on two as important parameters as price and delivery time," says Per Borup, responsible for Bilka's E-marketing. "We notice that users praise us for the classical virtues of sound business practices. That is exactly the way we want to be seen online. We view the web shop as a new branch. All the usual rules as to how to create happy customers apply online as well."

To sell books at bilkashoppen.dk (today bilka.dk) was more like a test that Bilka initiated in their wish to lower costs and gain experience in E-marketing. The web shop was started in 2006 with Ciklum as an IT supplier and became fully active in 2007. The Danish law sets a limit as to how many physical shops Bilka is allowed to open and this contributed to the desire of Bilka wanting to expand with a web shop. The business part is run by a strategy group in management, while the IT department is involved in the implementation.

"We prefer to build it all on one standardized platform. Our strategic suppliers in this area are SAP and Microsoft, and we chose Microsoft Commerce Server as a platform and Ciklum as the supplier," says Kim Nissen, Head of Systems Development in the IT department of Dansk Supermarked.

1LINK (Guarantee) Ltd. is a consortium of major banks that own and operate the largest shared financial services network in Pakistan. Realizing its role to lead and provide direction to the banks by offering innovative services on its platform, 1LINK opted for the switching technology developed by TPS.

Phoenix is a flexible and powerful payment switch used to acquire, authenticate, route, switch and authorize financial transactions across multiple channels. Responding to the customers’ needs, TPS came up with service models and solutions which 1LINK’s member banks readily adapted.

One of World’s Most Luxurious Hotels Employs New IT System to Enhance Guest Experience

Burj Al Arab in Dubai, one of the most luxurious hotels in the world, wanted to offer its guests early access to world-leading IT. In accordance with its mission—to “Stay Different”—the hotel management team equipped each of the Burj Al Arab’s 202 suites with laptop computers running Windows Vista™ Enterprise Edition and the 2007 Microsoft® Office system. Implementation took just three weeks, and the hotel’s guests are now enjoying a streamlined computing experience, easier navigation, and instant access to e-mail messages, the Internet, and multi-media entertainment channels
Business Needs

Burj Al Arab is part of the dynamic and fast-growing luxury hospitality group Jumeirah. It is one of the most luxurious hotels in the world, catering to sophisticated business and private customers. Located on the Dubai coastline in the heart of the Gulf’s hospitality industry, Burj Al Arab is known worldwide for its exceptionally high standards of service. Many of its guests are repeat customers who appreciate the hotel’s commitment to providing a unique experience on each visit. In line with parent company Jumeirah’s “Stay Different” slogan, Burj Al Arab wanted to offer guests early access to world-leading IT facilities.

Frederick Sabty, Director of IT at Burj Al Arab, says: “Our aim is to be different and to remain at the cutting edge of technology. We offer some of the world’s best service, best food and beverages, most luxurious accommodation, and most advanced IT resources for guests. We wanted to make it even easier for our guests to access their e-mail messages, the Internet, and multi-media content.”

Burj Al Arab has already started the migration to a new operating system for back-of-house operations, but the 202 suites—there are no rooms at Burj Al Arab—have come first. Sabty says: “Our guests are our top priority. Having made the decision to switch to the best and latest technologies, including the 2007 Microsoft Office system and Windows Vista, we wanted to be up and running with the new system within three weeks. By becoming an early adopter of Vista, we are equipping our guests with a technology they will soon use for both business and leisure.”
Solution

Burj Al Arab chose Windows Vista and the 2007 Microsoft Office system. It invited Microsoft Gold Certified Partner KalSoft to implement the technology on 206 laptops for all 202 suites. The deployment tool used was Microsoft Solution Accelerator for Business Desktop Deployment (BDD) 2007, which provides tools and guidance for deploying Windows Vista and the 2007 Microsoft Office system.

Shahid Roofi Khan, Solution Architect at KalSoft, says: “The deployment takes just 18 minutes at the end machine and only two clicks of the mouse to get the laptop ready for the end user. Working with the hotel, we have provided full back-up for the live environment with excellent connectivity.”

Fast time to market was also a concern for Burj Al Arab. “If we had used manual deployment techniques, it would have taken a lot more time,” says Khan. “There were, of course, lessons learned, as there are with any new technology, but we were well supported by Microsoft Services in the event of any escalation issues. After the implementation in late October, the system was ready to go live in just 23 days.”

The BDD solution is indispensable for Burj Al Arab. Khan says: “Considering the number of machines that need to be deployed and maintained and the changes to configurations, deployment was very fast.”

The applications deployed alongside Windows Vista and the 2007 Microsoft Office system provide guests with a wide range of solutions for business and leisure use. The project required KalSoft and Microsoft to transfer knowledge about the new technology to the Burj Al Arab IT support team, ensuring guests benefited from the new around-the-clock functions as soon as possible.
Benefits

The Burj Al Arab’s guests are discerning travellers, accustomed to the latest and best in hospitality services. The visual sophistication of Windows Vista helps streamline guests’ computing experience by refining common Windows functions so the user can focus on the screen’s content, rather than on how to access it. Sabty says: “We have always been an innovator. We were early adopters of Microsoft Windows® XP Home Edition for our guests. Soon, we will be the first hotel to offer Windows Vista and the 2007 Office system, enhancing the experience of staying at the hotel still further.”

Other benefits of the new system for guests include:

A more informative and intuitive desktop experience.
Greater clarity of information on the computer, allowing users to see the contents of files without having to open them.
An improved search function for files and applications.
More efficient navigation and easier-to-use functionality.
New deployment tools for rapid implementation in guests’ suites.
Built-in entertainment features.
Improved Internet browsing for guests through the new Internet Explorer 7.

Naubahar Bottling Company (Pvt.) Limited was established in 1981 to produce and market beverages of international Standards. Its main objective of the company is to achieve excellence i through the production and distribution of quality products. The company manufactures its products according to Pepsi Cola International’s (PCI) quality standards and requirements. At present, the company has five production lines with more than 300 spouts, with an average capacity of producing more than 100,000 cases daily on a three-shift basis.

Naubahar Bottling is involved in the business of syrup preparation, filling, packaging and selling of PepsiCo’s carbonated soft drinks for the Gujranwala franchise in Pakistan. In the previous system an enormous amount of paperwork was handled through spreadsheets. The company was using some Oracle modules, but did not have an integrated solution, and there were many shortcomings. Naubahar needed to eliminate redundant handling of data, and reduce business risk by replacing unsupported systems that were managing core processes at the company. It also needed real-time live lobster inventory figures.

The most compatible solution for Naubahar was proposed by MAISON Consulting & Solutions. The decision to go ahead with a new finance and database system using Microsoft Business Solution- Great Plains business software took place in 2005. Microsoft Great Plains offers integrated capabilities for financial management, supply chain, landed cost, human resource management and payable management.

The organization found that the software required less training, substantially reduced support costs, streamlined accounting processes, and improved reporting. Employees find the new financial management system easy to use and maintain. Because Naubahar can easily control the level of access for employees, limiting them to areas directly related to their jobs, the foundation has improved security. Staff works with, and views only the data that is relevant to their position.

Company Background

Samuel G. and Barney L. Keywell established Keywell in 1924 as a scrap metal recycling business. The Company began operations with one facility in Detroit Michigan, supplying carbon steel scrap to nearby mills. In 1979, the Keywell family sold the Company to Key International Manufacturing, Inc. The Company grew steadily through acquisitions and aggressive marketing. In 1986, Keywell was spun-out into a separate entity and taken private by an investor group led by the Company's current Board of Directors.
In 1987, Keywell purchased the business of Vac Air Alloys Corporation, the largest supplier of high temperature alloys in the world and a leading stainless steel scrap processor. In 1993, Keywell purchased the business of Rainbow Metals, Inc., a major processor of high temperature alloys. Keywell is an established enterprise with fourteen domestic locations and over 270 dedicated employees.
Throughout its history, the company has maintained profitable growth to become an industry leader in the processing of stainless steel, high temperature alloys and titanium scrap metal. Keywell has achieved ISO 9001 certification. ISO 9001 is the internationally recognized standard for quality management systems. Keywell’s state-of-the-industry facilities is equipped with inbound and outbound radiation monitors, as well as one or more X-ray analyzers or other sophisticated analytical equipment for precise detection and identification of every piece of metal it process.

Business Needs

Keywell wanted an Online Inventory System for their clients with following core features.
• Design and build a user-friendly web-based Inventory System to run on Keywell’s AS/400
• Allows Toll customers to easily view, sort, print, download and communicate order & delivery instructions to Keywell.
• This inventory system will provide summary information and Lot based detail data on a daily basis, which will better assist our customers in defining their purchasing requirements.
• Toll customers, such as ATI Allvac, will securely connect over the Internet using any web browser.
• Reports should be in various formats (.pdf, xls, cvs)
• Session log maintenance & tracking.

Business Solution

• After considering several options, Royal Cyber decided to build Online Inventory System using IBM Rational® Enterprise Generation Language (EGL), IBM’s strategic rapid development technology.
• EGL was a perfect fit because its development paradigm can be easily understood by skilled RPG & java developers. EGL enabled Royal Cyber developers with wide-ranging skill sets and backgrounds to apply Web and service-oriented architecture (SOA) technologies as they delivered an advanced solution.

Delivered application in two Phases

-Online Inventory System application developed in two months with all core features required by the Keywell.
-Online Inventory Reporting System
-Design Architecture

Key Technologies and Tools used

• IBM Rational Enterprise Generation Language (EGL)
• IBM WebSphere Application Server
• Rational Business Developer (RBD)
• CSS, JavaScript, HTML

Business Benefits

Helped in providing inventory information on demand; web 2.0 styled web application; reporting & session log maintenance; rapid development of new capabilities and features to meet customer demands; improved employee productivity & customers satisfaction.

By using the OneView solution from ZRG, Bank Alfalah is able to cater to the needs of an increased number of customers through more capacity, efficient routing and faster and accurate data posting. At the same time, it improved customer satisfaction, thanks to intelligent profile based handling of each caller that ensures that the customer gets the best service in a most effective way. The comprehensive quality management, supervision and MIS reporting tools provide detailed and summarized information on the traffic trends, agent performance and activity analysis. With OneView solution in place, Bank Alfalah can also keep maintenance costs at a minimum, due to simplified architecture and optimum reliability.

Bank of Khartoum (BOK), the largest bank in Sudan was planning on rolling out a wide range of innovative products and services. BOK goal was to create an edge by offering innovative ways of delivering the services resulting in higher customer satisfaction. At the time, the banks call centre was using a basic setup that was developed to serve a few traditional products to a much smaller branch network. This call centre setup could not be expanded to support BOKs rapidly expanding needs and hence, the new banking products and services could not be launched right away.

Warid Telecom, a venture of Abu Dhabi Group, is a leading cellular service provider in the region. The company was facing some challenges: the growing subscriber base was experiencing congestions while trying to get service or place new orders and the company was unable to launch and support advanced services. With a nation-wide subscriber base of 32+ million and an eye on expanding its operations - the company needed to find a better way of managing the more than 250,000 calls coming in daily for status inquiry and service activation.

UFone GSM provides a full range of corporate and retail based cellular phone services to over 20+ million subscribers. The company has a nationwide network of signaling tower sites and office locations in all the major cities in the country. A significant proportion of UFone GSM sales and services business is done over the phone. Three contact center locations are staffed with groups of representatives to assist the customers in service ordering, complaint handling and account related customer services.

Founded in 1970, Bilka is a Danish chain of hypermarkets, offering groceries and general merchandise to their shoppers. Today it is part of Dansk Supermarked A/S (www.dsg.dk), Denmark's largest and fastest growing retail group, which consists of seven retail chains and two stores, which provides customers with daily food and non-food. Dansk Supermarked employs approximately 44,000 people, operates more than 1,300 stores in five countries and has a turnover of more than 66 billion DKK including tax.

Bilka Headed Towards the Digital Supermarket
They started with books. Now, Bilka is expanding the established E-market success at bilka.dk with even more goods to shop from. The course has been set towards the digital supermarket.

Computerworld DK recently investigated the level of satisfaction of Danish people with web-based bookshops. Bilka won the 1st place for its web shop with 65,000 items. Ciklum’s employees in Pakistan have programmed the solution powers bilka.dk. IT- and business-wise Bilka will use this experience in their broad E-market focus.

"We are proud of the results of the research. Especially because it is our customers who judge us on two as important parameters as price and delivery time," says Per Borup, responsible for Bilka's E-marketing. "We notice that users praise us for the classical virtues of sound business practices. That is exactly the way we want to be seen online. We view the web shop as a new branch. All the usual rules as to how to create happy customers apply online as well."

The project was running with 10 developers in Pakistan and a chief project manager at Ciklum in Denmark. The project started at GEOPAQ, which Ciklum bought in January 2007*. Ciklum has added professional project management and have focused on adding more competences within Microsoft Commerce Server. Bilka did not want to revolutionize things. On the contrary, Bilka wanted to create a simple and user-friendly shop to 98% of its target audience.

"We went for maximum user friendliness. Our prime focus has always been the target audience of the shop, and therefore we carried out our development with a great focus on the customers. The target audience was with us during all phases of the development process, including service release and marketing. That meant that we ditched the "fancy" solutions and instead focused on simplicity," explains Kim Nissen.

Now Bilka is left with an e-marketing success within the book area. Commercially, the volume was far greater than estimated, and the bestsellers by the author named Stieg Larsson have greatly helped to achieve this success. Internally, Bilka gained experience with an IT platform of a web shop and built valuable competencies."We learned a lot," states Kim Nissen.
Outsourcing continues
Bilka has also had a positive experience with outsourcing to Ciklum. Even though the project had its problems, Bilka maintained the cooperation model all the way through. Today Ciklum solves maintenance assignments and continues to develop new functionalities for Bilka and Dansk Supermarked. Ciklum's experts also perform 2nd level support.

"New functionalities are developed in a framework agreement with Ciklum. This means that the Lahore team in Pakistan is coding new functions into the shop. My programmers work well with Ciklum, and all parts - except for the integration into our ERP at Dansk Supermarked - are made by Ciklum. Our solution architects are working closely together with Ciklum because most of our code work is done externally," says Kim Nissen.

Dansk Supermarked is happy with Ciklum's quality as the cooperation model lives on into the next phases of Bilka's online rearmament.

"The operation of the web shop and the ability to deliver massive development capacity are not our core competences. The new platform will be laid out externally and the development and operation are given to partners," says Kim Nissen who uses IBM for operating bilka.dk.

Bravium Inc., a large health care organization in USA, wanted to automate and create a paperless doctor’s office. Its purpose was to allow electronic files to be shared by many resources such as hospitals, laboratories, the doctor’s office, insurance, employment, etc.

ESOLPK developed a desktop and web-based doctors' office automation system known as “myMDCentral” http://www.esolpk.com/MDCentralDemo.asp. This includes practice management, document management, medical records, and an ASP version. myMDcentral also includes biometric secure login. Patients can update demographic, insurance information, request prescription refill, or schedule an appointment from the privacy of home. They can also save life-saving demographic, medication, physician contact, and allergies’ information on a portable USB thumb drive, to be accessed in case of an emergency.

The software provides a robust, comprehensive and integrated solution, enabling better decision-making, increased efficiency in servicing customers’ demands, and promoting transparency. The technology used in deploying myMDCentral is ASP.NET and SQL Server. It is HIPPA and HL7 compliant.

1LINK (Guarantee) Ltd. is a consortium of major banks that own and operate the largest shared financial services network in Pakistan. Realizing its role to lead and provide direction to the banks by offering innovative services on its platform, 1LINK opted for the switching technology developed by TPS.

Phoenix is a flexible and powerful payment switch used to acquire, authenticate, route, switch and authorize financial transactions across multiple channels. Responding to the customers’ needs, TPS came up with service models and solutions which 1LINK’s member banks readily adapted.

Challenge
Server4Sale was given a major challenge by Habib Bank Limited (HBL) to implement HRMS Human Resource Management System in all of their banking branches to increase efficiency of its workforce. They sought to leverage the wealth of experience and skill sets of their teams and wanted an upgrade to add internet banking, and streamline the processes into their existing website including pages for Corporate Banking, Commercial Banking, Global Treasury, Investment banking and Cash Management; they also want to update all their branches information of their local and international branches on their website. Furthermore they want to have a portal with complete information about cars for car financing where the people can compare cars by selecting it from a wide range of car companies and their models and can compare car engine capacity, transmission, warranty, reliability, fuel efficiency and other features including prices and car financing information so that they can make a better choice.
Solution
Based on our former experiences it became quite evident that the applications in which data had to be entered had to be dynamic therefore we have built several applications for the data entry phase to avoid any conflicts in the data entry process. The data was selected, verified, conformed in English, and maintained using rigorous, documented processes and procedures. We have reorganized the content giving it a less cluttered look and entered all the relevant information of HBL branches including its name, address, phone number, ATM locations and lockers availability etc on their website very carefully to ensure visitors get verified information. In each pages that we have built for HBL we have added meta tags and used optimized coding by using keyword enriched content well ahead of reconstruction. We have also redirected all old pages to new pages to ensure that no link juice gets lost. HBL already has the international credibility and acceptance and we’ve just ensured that visitors to the HBL website knew about it and that’s why we created a well designed landing page where we have put the location finder on the right top space where it would be easily visible and increased conversions. We have also developed and embedded several applications to enable users to compare cars and their prices online where they easily can compare cars by selecting it from a wide range of car companies and their models using car calculator and can compare car engine capacity, transmission, warranty, reliability, fuel efficiency and other features including prices and car financing information.

Challenge
After performing an extensive research and evaluation, Pakistan Ordanance Factories (POF) chooses Server4Sale for their network security and support. With extensive experience in providing dedicated server and internet security solutions we have earned a reputation of being reliable, cost effective and stable web solutions provider. Our state-of-the-art data centers with ability to provide a full range of managed services other than straight collocation are the most important factor that gave POF rock-solid assurances that its network would stay up and will be secure even during the highest-volume periods.

Solution
Our services to Pakistan Ordanance Factories (POF) includes providing expertise for the infrastructure supporting of different operating system and application platforms, as well as storage, backup, security, and overall program management services for their personnel’s. It was a challenge to provide internet security to such a sensitive organization but Server4Sale keeps up with this challenge. Our team conducted thorough research with a number of large end-users to determine where they were experiencing any difficulties with their server security posture. To manage security, a modular and purpose-built Cisco Firewall was installed, which provides enterprise-class security. We provided them with analysis of the addressable market and then set up meetings with potential end-users and partners. Our support center staff works 24 hours a day, 7days a week and 365 days a year to ensure reliable, high performance and quality services to POF. We are committed to assist them in resolving their different IT related issues and queries. Today, POF depends on Server4Sale for all of its wireless & network security needs as well as a comprehensive bundle of other advanced web services solutions including managed network, managed web applications, and managed security. POF has also been able to harness its skilled IT workforce more productively with our efficient and secure networks and also able to Reduced costs and improved ROI. Another major benefit has been transparency into IT operations; our staff effectively resolves their queries about any component in their infrastructure or any other aspect of service excellently. POF has been impressed with our services.

A good external IT consultant can cost up to 15-18,000 EUR a month, and if you use three to six external consultants, eventually it will add up. SEB Pension is working towards using this money on own offshore resources instead. If you add management focus and good cultural integration, you can get 20 new international employees offshore and/or near-shore for the previous budget spent on local consultants. SEB Pension is realizing this goal, and when speaking about offshoring, SEB Pension is two years ahead of other Danish companies of the kind.

Among the IT departments' 51 employees, you will find Serbs, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, Indians, Pakistanis, Danes and Swedes. SEB Pension aims to attract the right people to Denmark and at the same time have development centers in, for instance, Vietnam.

"It is crucial that they "think" SEB Pension. We see them as long-term resources and not just as Java specialists," says Jakob Nielsen, System Manager from SEB Pension. "This is why we spend a lot of time getting things right and communicating this logic thoroughly to our old employees in-house and the new ones abroad."

Resource trouble
SEB Pension competes with giants such as Danica, Nykredit, PFA and ATP and as such, it is highly ambitious to be best online. However, the goal is indeed to be the best in the "pension" category on the Internet, and therefore SEB Pension wants to change the image that it is difficult to understand one's pension plan. If one is to understand the tricky rules of one's pension there is a need to develop a number of new programs, - and this is where the IT department and its resources come in. The access to competences and the dependence on people are among the strategic "troubles" that IT departments face – including those within the pension industry.

"I work together with Ciklum because through their development centers in Ukraine they have the experience in finding and maintaining good nearshore IT resources. However, every time I am personally down there to interview future employees, because you cannot just "order" people. Managerial focus is necessary at all times; and that is why we have to spend time finding and educating these employees," states Jakob Nielsen.

"In the offshore area you have the pure factory model where you go and shop for your development projects, and then there is a broader model, in which you work on influencing new employees by using your company's culture. We are very clearly in the second category as we wish to retain the people that get to know us so well and who work for SEB Pension," argues the System Manager.

SEB Pension needs resources in mainframe, .Net and Java/J2EE. India, Ukraine and Vietnam are the current "hunting grounds" for SEB Pension. Among the obstacles is the strict Danish foreign policy that hinders the incorporation of foreigners in the Danish organization.

"It affects the department that we have so many different nationalities within. We spend time discussing religion and culture, which is really a positive thing in a global context. We see it as strength to get that diversity into the organization. We become a better place to work, and of course, we do need to get the development projects done," says Mr. Nielsen.

Client’s Introduction

Legislative Department of Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania General Assembly is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Pennsylvania.
The General Assembly has 253 members, making it the second-largest state legislature in the nation (behind New Hampshire) and the largest full-time legislature.

Business Case

Legislative Department of Pennsylvania wanted WebSphere administration support for their clustered environment. They have numerous J2EE applications deployed on their environment.
Legislative Department of Pennsylvania contacted Royal cyber Inc. WebSphere Support team to provide WebSphere support during the migration process and afterwards.

Solution

Following are the support and integration services providing by Royal Cyber
• Troubleshooting of memory issues
• Monitoring and tuning the servers
• Automating all the manual process
• Installation and Configuration of plug-ins and support applications
• Server clustering for load balancing and failover support
• Generation of operational reports on WAS servers using appropriate metrics and system benchmarks
• Maintenance of applications in a three-tier model – troubleshooting various components
• Security of applications
• Royal Cyber provides 24 hours around the clock support to make sure that all the applications run smoothly and up always

Danat Integrated Infrastructure Helps Web Start-up Cut Time to Market from Months to Weeks

After launching an award-winning Arabic news portal, Web start-up Danat decided to launch a number of Web sites for Arabic language users. But it needed a reliable infrastructure to support multiple portals and reduce the need to re-write codes. It also wanted to integrate business processes with the Web sites to automate sales transactions. After considering Web content management systems such as Tridion, Danat implemented an infrastructure based on the Microsoft® family of products which provide advanced user interface and integration features. As a result, its first Web site built on the new system achieved 10,000 visits per day and won advertising contracts from more than 60 top brands in the United Arab Emirates—within just three months of launch. Moreover, Danat predicts that it can reduce time to market for Web sites from months to weeks.
Situation

Since early 1990s, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has significantly increased its efforts to diversify into non-oil business sectors—especially e-commerce. This is because with the advancement in digital technologies, and Internet users’ growing demand to shop from home, e-commerce business is expected to generate a large portion of the country’s revenues in the near future. Today, the country has 30 per cent Internet penetration—one of the highest amongst Arab states—and also the highest number of Internet users.

This presents an important opportunity for the local companies to develop their business further. One prime example is Dubai-based Danat. Established in 2005, the company develops and hosts Web portals targeted at niche demographics in Middle Eastern countries. One of its key markets is that of Arabic language users, and in 2007, the service provider launched its first Arabic financial news portal, Argaam.com. This innovative site won the Golden Award in the 2007 UAE Web Awards for excellence in Web design and development in the financial institutions category. The same year, it also won the Microsoft Award for the Best Web Site Built on Microsoft Technology.

Encouraged by the success of Argaam.com, Danat decided to launch three more portals by the end of 2008. The first one, Logta.com, provides information on discount deals from retailers in the UAE and Saudi Arabia. The second, laazi.com, is a jobs and recruitment portal customised for this region. The third one is Beezat.com, a classifieds and community portal. Anup Thomas, IT Manager at Danat, says: “At the moment, there is no major e-commerce portal for Arabic users in this region. Logta.com was our first step towards filling this gap in the market.”

But before Danat embarked on the development processes, it closely re-examined the architecture of Argaam and realised that to meet a target of launching additional sites, it required a more reliable infrastructure. Thomas says: “We had developed our first portal as a customised application using the Microsoft® .NET Framework and Microsoft SQL Server® 2005 database management system. But for our future projects, we needed to establish an infrastructure that could support multiple portals, and help developers to quickly create Web sites without having to re-write all the code from scratch.”

Another key requirement was to have automated administrative processes that could track sales and purchasing transactions on the Web site. Thomas says: “Most Web sites available on the Internet today have a powerful user interface, but content and finance management is done offline—which delays the completion of customer transactions. We wanted to gain a competitive advantage by helping retailers buy advertising space online and completing all the financial tasks in real time.”
Solution

Thomas and his team conducted a comprehensive review of the technology options available on the market, including a Web content management solution by Netherlands-based SDL Tridion. He says: “We finally chose to build the new infrastructure using Microsoft technologies. Tridion couldn’t match all our requirements, such as handling complex calculations, and we would have had to add plug-ins to perform these complex calculations—raising the system management cost. Moreover, availability of technical support and expertise on Microsoft technologies in the Middle East is more widely available than most other solutions on the market. This was very important to help our staff to efficiently manage the new system.”

Early in 2006, when it developed Argaam.com, Danat had signed a Microsoft Enterprise Licensing Agreement for low cost volume licensing of software, as well as a Microsoft Premier Support Agreement for 93 calendar-days of technical support. The arrangement proved beneficial for the company as it could quickly start working with a Microsoft Technical Account Manager to design the new service-oriented architecture. The key technologies used are:

Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2007—to build the Internet portal
Microsoft Commerce Server 2007—for providing e-commerce services such as advertisement delivery, campaign management, product catalogue management, and e-mail alerts to users
Microsoft Dynamics® CRM 3.0—
Customer relationship management solution to provide an intranet portal for staff to manage customers interactions and sales process
Microsoft Dynamics® GP 9.0—business accounting software to automate finance management processes
Microsoft BizTalk® Server 2006—business process integration system to help all the above technologies work together

The implementation team consisted of Microsoft technicians, the Danat in-house IT team of 15 people, as well as four application developers and a dedicated project manager provided by KalSoft—a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and Microsoft Small Business specialist. Graham McIntyre, General Manager—Gulf, KalSoft, says: “A project of this scale takes about one year to complete. But in the case of Danat, the team worked round the clock and took the system live in just seven months.”

The Administrative Processes
Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and an expert in implementing Microsoft Business Solutions, BayaNet implemented Microsoft Dynamics GP at Danat. It is integrated with the business applications on the Internet portal as well as with the Microsoft Dynamics CRM solution.

Advertisers who wish to post their special offers on Logta.com send a request to Danat through the electronic forms on the Web site. Based on their industry, Microsoft Dynamics CRM forwards the request to an appropriate sales executive, who ensures that the customer fulfils all requirements and registers him or her on the database.

On the other hand, when a returning advertiser buys ad space and time slots on Logta.com, Commerce Server 2007 analyses the existing promotions on that space and the network traffic. It then estimates the marketing time available for that ad space and helps staff to easily schedule advertisements.

The Internet Portal
The Web site Logta.com provides a range of advanced services, including notifications about special offers sent to the end-users through e-mail messages and tools for advertisers to track campaigns.

Importantly, the same Web site is available in English as well as Arabic, due to the features of Office SharePoint Server 2007. To meet Arabic users’ content and usability requirements, such as reading from right to left, Danat hired a consultancy to design the site hierarchy and navigation suitably customised for this user base.

The portal directly extracts information from the advertisement delivery system of Commerce Server, which is integrated with the Microsoft Dynamics CRM solution and the database. As a result, the size of the Web pages is small and users can quickly download the data on their Web browsers.
Benefits

Released in February 2008, Logta.com is the first Web site in UAE to provide one-stop-shop promotion deals to users. Hisham Baker, General Manager, Danat says: “Compared to most other competing sites, we provide the best services to our advertisers. No other e-commerce portal comes close to what we have achieved within just three months of launching Logta.com—10,000 visits per day and partnership with more than 165 top brands in the UAE. And the key reason for this success is a reliable infrastructure built on Microsoft technologies.” Following the success of Logta.com in the UAE, Danat also launched it in Saudi Arabia in June 2008 and plans to extend it to other countries in the Middle East, such as Qatar and Egypt.

Web Site Attracts 10,000 Visitors per Day
Within three months of launching Logta.com, the number of visitors to the site has grown to 10,000 per day. Baker says: “For the UAE alone, we’ve seen a 20 per cent per month increase in site visits. We expect this number to go up significantly once we launch the portal in other countries.”

Automated Administrative Processes Support Business Growth
A key factor of the portal’s success is a reliable administration system that supports the business with automated processes. Hatem Omar, Operations Manager at BayaNet, says: “Due to seamless integration between Microsoft CRM and Microsoft Dynamics GP, top management get a complete view of the portal’s progress. Executives can access the automatically generated financial reports through a business portal which is a part of the Microsoft Dynamics GP application and take timely actions to achieve the revenue goals.”

Baker adds: “We now have a competitive advantage in the market. By working with Microsoft, we could build an infrastructure that integrates the portal with internal operations and takes care of everything—high-quality user interface, efficient service to the advertisers, and the right tools to increase productivity of the in-house sales and marketing teams.”

More Than 165 Top Brands Use Portal Services
By June 2008, more than 60 large retailers in the UAE had partnered with Danat to publish their promotions on Logta.com, including top brands such as Carrefour—the second largest retail group in the world, and Sharaf DG—an international electronic retail chain. “We expect the number of partners to increase three times by 2009,” says Baker.

The general manager feels that this phenomenal success was a result of using reliable technology as well as one-to-one interaction with the customers. For each of its advertisers, Danat appoints dedicated account managers who ensure that customers can easily complete transactions on the portal. Moreover, the company also plans to add a tool on the portal for advertisers to calculate the return on investment for their promotions.

Danat Predicts Reduction in Time to Market for Portals from Months to Weeks
The organisation can now quickly build, launch, and manage more Web portals on its new infrastructure as all the required technologies are already in place. Baker says: “Now, for our future projects, we can re-use most of the existing code and only spend time on configuring the out-of-the-box features of SharePoint Server.”

“When we built the financial news portal, it took us eight months for planning, developing, and launching it. Now, with the kind of IT environment that’s available to us, we can shorten the turnaround time for a Web site to just weeks.”

Scalable System Saves Investments, Reduces Operational Costs
Danat plans to launch Logta.com in most countries in the Middle East—especially the Gulf states—by 2010, and believes that the highly scalable infrastructure will easily support the growth in the number of users as well as the content. “For UAE operations, we are only using 25 per cent capacity of the system. It will be cost-effective to expand to other regions as there is no need to make further investments in technology,” says Baker. “Importantly, by serving a large user-base on the same infrastructure, we will also experience a significant reduction in the total cost of ownership for the technologies.”

Training Support from Vendors Helps IT Team Adopt New Technologies
To help ensure that the Danat IT team could easily manage the system, the technology partners provided intensive training sessions for its in-house technicians. Microsoft conducted workshops on using Commerce Server and BizTalk Server 2006. BayaNet followed the “train the trainer technique” to provide guidance to key users on Microsoft Dynamics GP so they could, in turn, train their team members. Finally, KalSoft organised training on system architecture as well as the entire operations life cycle of the solution.

Moreover, Microsoft also held a two-week training session for Danat developers on building Web sites using the .NET development framework and SharePoint Server. It also appointed an expert team, called the SharePoint rangers, who help developers optimise the code for user interface. Baker says: “SharePoint Server has been traditionally used for building intranet portals. So, Microsoft support was crucial to help developers use the software to create a public-facing, commercial Web site.”

Company Background

Office National is an Australia’s largest independent office products group, spread over 170 outlets.
• Office National not only supports major brands, but also offers their own range of office products.
• Office National IT products are at the leading edge of technology including the latest in computer hardware, software, and networking solutions.
• Office National has over 1150 employees who operate extent to 170 metropolitans and regional locations and delivering exceptional services to their customers.
• Office National websites are based on both B2B and B2C, to interact with their customers based in Australia and New Zealand, they have built respective website for better communication with the regional customers.
• Succession to their proven growth in business, they will soon be launching new Office National Website for South African region.

Business Needs

To implement easy to use Store Locator for visitor’s/client’s convenience.
• To improve the existing infrastructure to provide failover support, and proper testing and development environment.
• To resolve current issues in the Production Environment and make the environment stable.
• To improve site performance by Migrating the Database from unsupported version DB2 8.1 to DB2 9.5 and applying operational data cleanup activities.
• To increase sales launch new stores for New Zealand and South African region and improve navigation, look and feel of the stores.
• To gain available new market share and become market leaders by providing better buying experience for their customers.
• To install and configure a middleware to share catalog, invoice, contract, and image information among their various applications.

Key Technologies Used

• WebSphere Commerce 6.0 Extended Sites
• B2B and B2C business models
• WebSphere Application Server 6.0 ND
• Rational Application Developer
• JBOSS ESB
• DB2 9.5

Solution and Achieved Project Milestones

-Store Locator Integration for Simple Navigation
Store locator is integrated with every stores of the office national, so that visitors can find out the nearest store located to their location. It is integrated with Google maps API which makes easy for visitors to get to the nearest location and complete the shopping process

-Store Locator Interface & Functionality
Now it is very easy for visitors to access location of Office National stores after the Integration of new store locator.
Now the visitors only need to follow the following steps to land to their desired stores.
1. You need to select your desire product; you want to buy “Type of Store” for e.g. Toys, books.
2. In order find nearest location of the store all you need is to select the distance range, which is shown in kilometers, from the “Within” dropdown.
3. Then you need to select your State, form the dropdown.
4. In the last you only need to type your “zip code” or “Street address” on the respective mentioned field.
5. When you will click on the “Go” button, it will show you all the stores in that selected distance range, now you can easily make purchases online.
When you will select any of the mentioned stores, it will show you more details about that store. For e.g. its opening and closing hours, address, phone number, fax number, its directions from your current location etc.

-Steps Taken to Enhance System Performance
• Implementation of Load Balancer, WAS Clustering, and Database Migration helped totally reduce downtime of the website during busy hours and ultimately improves the performance of the website.
• New attractive website design tempts customers to stay long on the website for the purchasing and helped them to complete the buying process with minimal time.
• Store Locator helps customers locate nearest store and reserve products in the store.
• Precision Targeted Marketing features and custom promotions help business users to retain customers.
• Numerous visitors have been increased and hits on the site almost doubled after utilizing Search Engine Optimization features.
• Scripts to automate the cleanup of Operational Data help reduce potential future performance and downtime risks.

-(In Process) Activities in Collaboration with WebSphere Commerce Gurus
• ESB integration with WebSphere Commerce will help update all applications including WebSphere Commerce in a timely manner.
• Become competitive by Migrating All Australian and New-Zealand stores to WebSphere Commerce 7.0 environment.
• Become Market leaders within Office Products domain by adopting Web 2.0 feature rich starter stores such as Elite and Madison for their B2B and B2C model stores.
• Increase Sales by starting new stores within South African region
• Since Office national visitors have been increasing very fast, now it has become very difficult for them to manage the entire infrastructure independently, therefore our outstanding performance impressed them to hire us for
Providing 24/7 support for their development and infrastructural environment for better performance.

Client’s Introduction

Legislative Department of Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania General Assembly is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Pennsylvania.
The General Assembly has 253 members, making it the second-largest state legislature in the nation (behind New Hampshire) and the largest full-time legislature.

Business Case

Legislative Department of Pennsylvania wanted WebSphere administration support for their clustered environment. They have numerous J2EE applications deployed on their environment.
Legislative Department of Pennsylvania contacted Royal cyber Inc. WebSphere Support team to provide WebSphere support during the migration process and afterwards.

Solution

Following are the support and integration services providing by Royal Cyber
• Troubleshooting of memory issues
• Monitoring and tuning the servers
• Automating all the manual process
• Installation and Configuration of plug-ins and support applications
• Server clustering for load balancing and failover support
• Generation of operational reports on WAS servers using appropriate metrics and system benchmarks
• Maintenance of applications in a three-tier model – troubleshooting various components
• Security of applications
• Royal Cyber provides 24 hours around the clock support to make sure that all the applications run smoothly and up always

Maria B. (A leading designer and retail brand of garments) achieves dead stock reduction of 80% in 3 months by using LumenSoft Candela Retail Management System

Business Introduction

Maria B is the leading designer and retail brand for ladies bridal, formal and casual wear. The brand is more than 10 years old and has retail outlets across of Pakistan.

The Need and Business Challenge

Maria B. was initially using a software solution to handle its retail operations but it was not capable of effectively handling multi-location (chain store) retail business. The head-office and shops were running different modules which were not fully integrated. This resulted in “information silos” due to which timely and accurate business decisions could not be made.

Also operations were cumbersome resulting in reduced productivity. Stocks had gradually increased to alarming levels due to lack of required information. To make matters worse, inventory could not be moved to outlets in time thus resulting in loss of sales and customer dissatisfaction. Stock audits became a huge task requiring several people from the head office to go to the store and take up to 2 full days to complete a thorough audit. Understandably due to the effort, stock checks were delayed during peak season.

Like any traditional entrepreneurial venture, the business was people oriented with lack of processes and management systems. The business required a software solution which could not only be used to control and automate the operations but also have capability of implementing industry best practices, and robust business processes.

Choice of Solution

Maria B. looked for different available retail software solutions in the market. It was an easy decision to select Candela RMS for management of their retail operations. Candela had the largest customer base for retail chain stores in Pakistan and many top brands of the country were using this solution. Amongst the customer list, many were engaged in a similar type of business. LumenSoft Technologies engineers had required experience and expertise to provide training and implementation support.

The best part of the deal was it promised to implement industry best practices and put the business under the control of processes.

Benefits Achieved

Only in first three months of operations Maria B. was able to boost sales for certain brands by 50%. Also dead stocks were reduced by 80% in some outlets. During the same period the ROI was 100% and the investment break-even was achieved within two quarters of implementation. Therefore this proved to be one of the best investments for the business.

This became possible by integrating all the retail outlets with head-office. The information flow between the head-office and outlets was seamless (both ways). In the head office the information was rolled-up to create a complete business picture. Analysis was available on different designs, categories, and groups which helped in optimizing the stocks at different retail outlets. After system implementation accurate inventory was reflected in the system which enabled the management to take timely decisions. Stocks were shuffled between outlets according to shops sales trends.

Reconciliation of cash and stocks between head-office and retail outlets became very effective and leakages and pilferage was greatly reduced. Shop staff, instead of preparing reports, was able to pay more attention of customer and thus their productivity was increased.

Mr. Fazal Ashfaq, head of retail operations at Maria B., says

“We were surprised to see the results produced by LumenSoft Candela RMS in such a short time. We are in total control of our business. We know what are the best sellers and at which outlets. We have instant information about our retail outlets as profit centers and also we can go deep down and analyze on design levels”

Maria B. the founder and owner of the business says

“… I have never been a technology person but I knew enough to see that there existed tremendous room for growth by implementing a retail software solution. We were pleased to see that Lumensoft had a ready to implement product that needed barely any modification to run on our business. A few months after implementation I can get a current bird’s eye view of my business and can alter direction to focus on items that are selling well. I would definitely recommend Lumensoft to any retailer….“

By using the OneView solution from ZRG, Bank Alfalah is able to cater to the needs of an increased number of customers through more capacity, efficient routing and faster and accurate data posting. At the same time, it improved customer satisfaction, thanks to intelligent profile based handling of each caller that ensures that the customer gets the best service in a most effective way. The comprehensive quality management, supervision and MIS reporting tools provide detailed and summarized information on the traffic trends, agent performance and activity analysis. With OneView solution in place, Bank Alfalah can also keep maintenance costs at a minimum, due to simplified architecture and optimum reliability.

Bank of Khartoum (BOK), the largest bank in Sudan was planning on rolling out a wide range of innovative products and services. BOK goal was to create an edge by offering innovative ways of delivering the services resulting in higher customer satisfaction. At the time, the banks call centre was using a basic setup that was developed to serve a few traditional products to a much smaller branch network. This call centre setup could not be expanded to support BOKs rapidly expanding needs and hence, the new banking products and services could not be launched right away.

Warid Telecom, a venture of Abu Dhabi Group, is a leading cellular service provider in the region. The company was facing some challenges: the growing subscriber base was experiencing congestions while trying to get service or place new orders and the company was unable to launch and support advanced services. With a nation-wide subscriber base of 32+ million and an eye on expanding its operations - the company needed to find a better way of managing the more than 250,000 calls coming in daily for status inquiry and service activation.

UFone GSM provides a full range of corporate and retail based cellular phone services to over 20+ million subscribers. The company has a nationwide network of signaling tower sites and office locations in all the major cities in the country. A significant proportion of UFone GSM sales and services business is done over the phone. Three contact center locations are staffed with groups of representatives to assist the customers in service ordering, complaint handling and account related customer services.

A good external IT consultant can cost up to 15-18,000 EUR a month, and if you use three to six external consultants, eventually it will add up. SEB Pension is working towards using this money on own offshore resources instead. If you add management focus and good cultural integration, you can get 20 new international employees offshore and/or near-shore for the previous budget spent on local consultants. SEB Pension is realizing this goal, and when speaking about offshoring, SEB Pension is two years ahead of other Danish companies of the kind.

Among the IT departments' 51 employees, you will find Serbs, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, Indians, Pakistanis, Danes and Swedes. SEB Pension aims to attract the right people to Denmark and at the same time have development centers in, for instance, Vietnam.

"It is crucial that they "think" SEB Pension. We see them as long-term resources and not just as Java specialists," says Jakob Nielsen, System Manager from SEB Pension. "This is why we spend a lot of time getting things right and communicating this logic thoroughly to our old employees in-house and the new ones abroad."

Resource trouble
SEB Pension competes with giants such as Danica, Nykredit, PFA and ATP and as such, it is highly ambitious to be best online. However, the goal is indeed to be the best in the "pension" category on the Internet, and therefore SEB Pension wants to change the image that it is difficult to understand one's pension plan. If one is to understand the tricky rules of one's pension there is a need to develop a number of new programs, - and this is where the IT department and its resources come in. The access to competences and the dependence on people are among the strategic "troubles" that IT departments face – including those within the pension industry.

"I work together with Ciklum because through their development centers in Ukraine they have the experience in finding and maintaining good nearshore IT resources. However, every time I am personally down there to interview future employees, because you cannot just "order" people. Managerial focus is necessary at all times; and that is why we have to spend time finding and educating these employees," states Jakob Nielsen.

"In the offshore area you have the pure factory model where you go and shop for your development projects, and then there is a broader model, in which you work on influencing new employees by using your company's culture. We are very clearly in the second category as we wish to retain the people that get to know us so well and who work for SEB Pension," argues the System Manager.

SEB Pension needs resources in mainframe, .Net and Java/J2EE. India, Ukraine and Vietnam are the current "hunting grounds" for SEB Pension. Among the obstacles is the strict Danish foreign policy that hinders the incorporation of foreigners in the Danish organization.

"It affects the department that we have so many different nationalities within. We spend time discussing religion and culture, which is really a positive thing in a global context. We see it as strength to get that diversity into the organization. We become a better place to work, and of course, we do need to get the development projects done," says Mr. Nielsen.

Founded in 1970, Bilka is a Danish chain of hypermarkets, offering groceries and general merchandise to their shoppers. Today it is part of Dansk Supermarked A/S (www.dsg.dk), Denmark's largest and fastest growing retail group, which consists of seven retail chains and two stores, which provides customers with daily food and non-food. Dansk Supermarked employs approximately 44,000 people, operates more than 1,300 stores in five countries and has a turnover of more than 66 billion DKK including tax.

Bilka Headed Towards the Digital Supermarket
They started with books. Now, Bilka is expanding the established E-market success at bilka.dk with even more goods to shop from. The course has been set towards the digital supermarket.

Computerworld DK recently investigated the level of satisfaction of Danish people with web-based bookshops. Bilka won the 1st place for its web shop with 65,000 items. Ciklum’s employees in Pakistan have programmed the solution powers bilka.dk. IT- and business-wise Bilka will use this experience in their broad E-market focus.

"We are proud of the results of the research. Especially because it is our customers who judge us on two as important parameters as price and delivery time," says Per Borup, responsible for Bilka's E-marketing. "We notice that users praise us for the classical virtues of sound business practices. That is exactly the way we want to be seen online. We view the web shop as a new branch. All the usual rules as to how to create happy customers apply online as well."

To sell books at bilkashoppen.dk (today bilka.dk) was more like a test that Bilka initiated in their wish to lower costs and gain experience in E-marketing. The web shop was started in 2006 with Ciklum as an IT supplier and became fully active in 2007. The Danish law sets a limit as to how many physical shops Bilka is allowed to open and this contributed to the desire of Bilka wanting to expand with a web shop. The business part is run by a strategy group in management, while the IT department is involved in the implementation.

"We prefer to build it all on one standardized platform. Our strategic suppliers in this area are SAP and Microsoft, and we chose Microsoft Commerce Server as a platform and Ciklum as the supplier," says Kim Nissen, Head of Systems Development in the IT department of Dansk Supermarked.

To sell books at bilkashoppen.dk (today bilka.dk) was more like a test that Bilka initiated in their wish to lower costs and gain experience in E-marketing. The web shop was started in 2006 with Ciklum as an IT supplier and became fully active in 2007. The Danish law sets a limit as to how many physical shops Bilka is allowed to open and this contributed to the desire of Bilka wanting to expand with a web shop. The business part is run by a strategy group in management, while the IT department is involved in the implementation.

"We prefer to build it all on one standardized platform. Our strategic suppliers in this area are SAP and Microsoft, and we chose Microsoft Commerce Server as a platform and Ciklum as the supplier," says Kim Nissen, Head of Systems Development in the IT department of Dansk Supermarked.

Indigo Engine (www.indigoengine.com) is a New York City, USA-based software consulting company, focused on building solutions around web-based enterprise applications. Its eclectic client list consists of household names, such as Pfizer, as well as venture-backed and early-stage startups, such as Move On In, which provides a global roommate-matching service. The Indigo Engine leadership consisted of senior ex-technology and strategy consultants. In the cost-conscious post-dot-com environment, their competitive advantage consisted of combining their extensive technology and management experience with low-cost, offshore implementation.

Indigo Engine needed to work with a development partner that would collaborate with them closely to respond to their customers’ changing demands.

Starting with a small team to test the waters, Indigo Engine soon expanded its relationship with Folio3 to include over a dozen engineers working on multiple projects. These included a software architect, who was responsible for the products’ technical design, overall quality and performance; web programmers, who coded the various applications; and quality assurance personnel, who tested the applications both for performance, and to ensure minimal defects. A project manager coordinated work at Folio3, and acted as the single focal person with various Indigo Engine onsite project managers. The Indigo team at Folio3 worked very closely with customers, with daily IM and phone sessions to facilitate a 24-hour work cycle, to provide seamless, immediate feedback to customers’ issues and requests.

Pakistan’s first direct insurance company was seeking a significant increase in revenue, while providing promised customer service to tap into the burgeoning auto insurance sector. It needed to boost insurance policy sales through customer acquisition, lifecycle management programs, and enhance the customer experience through streamlined services, optimum response times, and swift claim processing. The existing back-office facilities were insufficient to meet customer care demands, and service levels were strongly threatened. The business requirement was to reduce operational expenses in the back-office; reduce the cost per inbound-service call; and achieve the shortest turnaround time in claims processing. The aim was to deliver measurable improvements in service quality; simplify and streamline operations processes in the back-office to improve efficiency; increase revenue through existing customers and, by generating a significant prospect base, enhance customer experience to build brand equity.
TRG ensured the maintenance of its client’s state-of-the art contact center facility to provide 24/7 customer service. It developed persuasive sales techniques to up-sell and cross-sell to targeted users; introduced direct insurance services to prospect consumers through a referral system, and targeted the corporate sector by generating hot leads with decision makers. It facilitated new products and offerings that service end-to-end auto management needs; real-time reporting of operational metrics for management control; maximized productivity of the staff through a proprietary monitoring mechanism, and analyzed daily business activities and underlying trends.
TRG’s support and services created a tangible impact in terms of operational and business value. This includes first resolution rate; higher fresh policy sales revenue with an improved up-sell/cross-sell rate; maximized lead management; penetration rate (the percentage of the call list that has been called); immediate back-office support to handle call traffic; an effectively leveraged existing customer base to increase conversion rate, and an improved rating in customer satisfaction and customer retention.

DDFC (Pvt.) Ltd. has been one of the leading engineering manufacturing solutions companies in Pakistan for over 30 years. With its evolving IT and business needs, DDFC required a solution that would bring about workflow automation, process consistency and organizational transparency. An increasing workforce meant that payroll processing and management was an immediate concern for DDFC.

SigmaTec Unify offered a comprehensive, affordable, adoptable and adaptable payroll management solution, which catered to DDFC’s exclusive business and regulatory requirements in great detail. Apart from deployment services and technical support, SigmaTec also looks after the initial data entry, reports’ customization and business process re-engineering requirements. Consultation is also provided as required regarding the effective usage and the business benefit of modules.

The whole organization is now on a signal data set. The result is a complete elimination of inter-departmental conflict, data confusion and time wastage in reporting.

Possessing over 55 years of leadership and expertise in carpet production and finishing know-how, Lahore Carpet Manufacturing Company (LCMC) continuously works to develop new design collections, processes, and material; introduces new trends according to the requirements, and establishes existing ones.

LCMC required a solution that would bring about workflow automation, process uniformity and organizational transparency. In 2005, LCMC started the search for an automated and rational solution to fulfil its critical business needs as an enterprise. SigmaTec’s ERP solution, SigmaTec Unify, offered a comprehensive, affordable and adoptable solution. Extensive training sessions, both online and at LCMC’s premises, enabled users to get up to speed with the new system. Consultation was also provided as required regarding the effective usage and the business benefit of modules.

SigmaTec Unify has totally revolutionized information processing at LCMC. The whole organization is now on a signal data set. LCMC’s management can view all carpets at various stages of production at the single click of a button. SigmaTec Unify has made transparent the profitability of every single carpet in LCMC’s stock of over 35,000 carpets.

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) lost US$ 50 million every year to global gray market telephony worth billions of dollars to illegal operators. It had no solution to monitor and block gray traffic, and had not applied any method to reconcile multiple sources of traffic information. Lack of clock synchronization also presented the challenge of mismatched records.

CRPL's International Traffic Settlement System identifies and monitors gray incoming traffic; provides rule-based matching/reconciliation between multiple sources of international traffic information; revenue assurance and settlement process between operators; data analysis in the form of reports/dashboards; a modular approach, and high-volume data processing abilities.

This solution also provides patented algorithms for gray traffic analysis; real-time, multi-sourced traffic analysis; a comprehensive analytics platform for reporting and analysis; and an international settlement rate maintained at all levels. It ensures full accounting of the international incoming traffic minutes terminated by LDIs on all access-providers' networks, and provides a certification process to all access-providers in order to identify potential fraud for international incoming calls.

This solution has reduced the PTA's gray market traffic by 98%, and increased data volume by 40-50%.

Habib Bank Ltd. (HBL) Oman is one of HBL’s global initiatives to serve local and international customers in the Middle East. As HBL improved its customer base in Oman, the bank experienced a drastic increase in transaction volumes, and its existing transaction processing system could not handle this boost.

HBL selected TPS’s Phoenix switching middleware to handle the increasing transaction volume, and offer self-service banking services to its customers in Oman. Phoenix will replace the existing switch, offering reliability, flexibility, maturity and focused services at par with HBL’s commitment to excellence.

Habib Bank Ltd. (HBL), with an extensive local network of over 1425 local and 55+ international branches, has the largest branch network in Pakistan.

When HBL decided to replace its in-house developed distributed core banking system, MOBS, with a centralized banking solution, MISYS, the biggest challenge was to maintain the continuity of the bank’s ADC operations. TPS facilitated the smooth migration of all branches without interrupting operations, data duplication or corruption.

The case study focuses on how a very important player of the Healthcare industry uses IT development to its own advantage. Between retailers and manufacturers, the distributors, whose role in any industry can only be underestimated, provide the one important link: juggling inventories with areas and trends in check, making their task a very sensitive one with a heavy flow of information that thrives on timeliness and accuracy.

Pharmalink is a major local distributor of pharmaceutical products for many leading manufacturers, including Sanofi Aventis and Efroze Chemical Industries (Pvt.) Ltd. Faced with the inventories, pricing and discount policies, seasonal bonuses, invoicing and the major need for timely alerts made it necessary for Pharmalink to look for a solution that could help it make the best of the volatile environment in which they operated.

DMaX, an extensive distribution and sales management system by EfroTech, fulfilled Pharmalink’s objectives.

DMaX offers:
Principal-wise reports.
Pricing manual and principal/period/product-wise discount policies.
Invoice creator and recovery manager.
Bonus on combo-products (as per the distributor’s specifications).
Expiry alerts.
Handheld and PDA device integration for automated order processing.
Multi-User / multi- company support.
Inventory and purchase management.
Multiple warehouse support.
Order processing and delivery.
Sales analysis and reporting.

With this one-stop solution, Pharmalink was able to achieve greater accuracy, timeliness and more informed decision making.

Challenge
Server4Sale was given a major challenge by Habib Bank Limited (HBL) to implement HRMS Human Resource Management System in all of their banking branches to increase efficiency of its workforce. They sought to leverage the wealth of experience and skill sets of their teams and wanted an upgrade to add internet banking, and streamline the processes into their existing website including pages for Corporate Banking, Commercial Banking, Global Treasury, Investment banking and Cash Management; they also want to update all their branches information of their local and international branches on their website. Furthermore they want to have a portal with complete information about cars for car financing where the people can compare cars by selecting it from a wide range of car companies and their models and can compare car engine capacity, transmission, warranty, reliability, fuel efficiency and other features including prices and car financing information so that they can make a better choice.
Solution
Based on our former experiences it became quite evident that the applications in which data had to be entered had to be dynamic therefore we have built several applications for the data entry phase to avoid any conflicts in the data entry process. The data was selected, verified, conformed in English, and maintained using rigorous, documented processes and procedures. We have reorganized the content giving it a less cluttered look and entered all the relevant information of HBL branches including its name, address, phone number, ATM locations and lockers availability etc on their website very carefully to ensure visitors get verified information. In each pages that we have built for HBL we have added meta tags and used optimized coding by using keyword enriched content well ahead of reconstruction. We have also redirected all old pages to new pages to ensure that no link juice gets lost. HBL already has the international credibility and acceptance and we’ve just ensured that visitors to the HBL website knew about it and that’s why we created a well designed landing page where we have put the location finder on the right top space where it would be easily visible and increased conversions. We have also developed and embedded several applications to enable users to compare cars and their prices online where they easily can compare cars by selecting it from a wide range of car companies and their models using car calculator and can compare car engine capacity, transmission, warranty, reliability, fuel efficiency and other features including prices and car financing information.

Established in Saudi Arabia in 1995, International Dynamic Systems (IDS) supplies pipes, electrical items, electromechanical items, lifting solutions, scaffolding items, industrial power tools, hand tools, fasteners, safety items, valves, flow meters and numerous other vital industrial products worldwide. Its revenue in 2009 was approximately Saudi Riyals (SR) 30 million.

As a trading company, IDS dealt with multiple clients and vendors, but it used Excel sheets and manually generated accounts and purchase orders. Its office, store and warehouse were not connected, and it did not have a consolidated accounting, sales or distribution solution. This resulted in duplication of effort, loss of valuable time and resources, and delay in fulfilling clients' orders.

Gillani Middle East implemented its integrated software solution iERP at IDS. This included its General Ledger, Accounts Receivable, and Accounts Payable, sales, distribution, purchasing and inventory management modules. This connected its office, store and warehouse, and generated real-time on-demand data for all sales managers and the upper management. The Linux operating system provided low Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), fast transaction processing, improved transaction performance and enhanced productivity.

The iERP is built around the wholesale distribution model, designed to handle the entire distribution process. Its Order Entry module generates all sales orders. It creates quotes for customers. Any quote can be converted into a sales order for an inventory item or a rental item. Quotes can be sent to customers via e-mail, fax, Word document, Excel document, PDF document, or EDI format. The Purchasing module generates vendor returns. Its Inventory Management module handles inventory throughout the entire company. This includes inventory adjustments, maintenance of inventory catalogs (vendor catalogs), shelf-life maintenance (if applicable), maintenance of demo inventory/scrap inventory, and letdowns. A comprehensive human resource administration, hiring and payroll system is also integrated with Gillani Financials.

Strengthening Participatory Organization (SPO) http://www.spopk.org/ is a national civil society organization. It strengthens and supports community organizations and public interest institutions of Pakistan for the benefit of poor and disadvantaged sections of society for sustainable development through a participatory approach. SPO’s activities are spread across Pakistan’s four provinces and more than sixty districts.

ESOLPK developed SPO’s project monitoring and control system, which includes budget allocation, risk analysis, and various useful reports, etc. This has increased SPO’s efficiency in running current projects and its future forecasting abilities.

Emirates Technology Computers (EMITAC) is a leading sales and distribution company in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). When EMITAC's business expanded across multiple Middle East markets, the lack of an organized process workflow to manage increasing volumes of order processing resulted in lost opportunities and dissatisfied customers.

EMITAC recognized the need for a solution to help it automate and streamline its existing sales processes in order to make them more efficient, effective and profitable. It turned to Avanza’s CRM and sales' solution experience for the development of a customized sales order management system designed to achieve high levels of service and productivity.

This reseller portal has works at the heart of all operations, allowing the maximum profitability of incoming orders through automated, well-defined process workflows. It streamlines orders and data into the system to facilitate performance monitoring and sales tracking. It also brings EMITAC’s existing business processes online to enable customers to book and view orders, view their orders' status, obtain quotes, create requisitions, and track orders in a self-servicing environment.

Allowing EMITAC's customers authorized access to the business portal, its online ordering capability reduces internal support costs, grows repeat business and reorders, and improves customer satisfaction.

The Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS) in Karachi has geographically spread-out multiple constituent colleges. It had no single point of reference, no central data repository. In June 2007, the University of Engineering & Technology in Peshawar and the DUHS were selected to participate in a pilot project to automate their student administration and management processes using Oracle’s PeopleSoft Enterprise Campus Solutions.

Techlogix implemented this solution at the DUHS, which has resulted in centralization, uniformity and compliance with policies, and better monitoring. It has improved efficiency by automating the students’ administration process. A web-based system brings students up to speed regarding general information; enables them to view exam results, course and grade history; evaluate transfer credit, and pay fees online. It enables staff to track fee payments, create class assignments, calculate grades, and assess students’ progress online. Students can receive their degrees within days rather than in months.

Oracle’s PeopleSoft Campus Solutions proved adaptable enough to be effective for diverse educational systems. Techlogix’s campus solutions implementation methodology succeeded in absorbing the impact of abrupt mid-project policy changes, such as switching from the annual to the semester system. The university’s administration's drive to implement the system contributed to the project’s success.

With a customer base of over 25,000 accounts, Clary Business Machines provides audio-video conferencing equipment, paper machines, and shredders, etc., to local corporations, government and educational institutes to improve their operational efficiency and reduce costs. EVISION was asked to maintain its website, to increase its online reach to potential customers in the USA, and Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

EVISION utilized Google’s standard guidelines to get properly indexed in major search engines, price comparison engines, directories and local searches, which include webmaster tools, analytics and proper website optimization. It introduced Really Simple Syndication (RSS), podcasting, video distribution, PDF catalogue designing and distribution, updated articles and the news section. The website’s forums and blogs provided customers’ feedback.

Shredderwarehouse.com received more Internet traffic than Office Depot and Office Max. It was listed in Inc5000 and Fast100 in four years’ time. Geographic and demographic spread and customer satisfaction increased.

Electro Computer Warehouse (ECW) is a full-service technology solutions dealer. It is a re-marketer of Grade "A" refurbished/off-lease computer systems, with a large, constantly-updated catalog of laptops, LCD Monitors, and LCD systems, etc. The business had a physical presence in Canada with no plans to sell to American markets; its main focus was to promote its products in the Canadian market only.

EVISION promoted ECW’s business online on kijiji.ca and craigslist on a daily basis. The website offered computer sales in various Canadian cities, and some time was spent marketing to the USA as well. EVISION managed an online support center, wholesale and the orders’ processing; and also utilized the e-commerce solution VP-ASP, a premium e-commerce solution with a built-in payment processor, tax configuration and shipping integration.

This resulted in an increased online reach through all possible channels, increased conversion rates, more customers, their satisfaction, and a socially-active website to collect feedback and reach new customers. Today, ECW maintains a top position in Google, price comparison engines, MSN Store, Kaboodle, Yahoo!, etc., with 70% of its computers shipped out of Canada, round-the-clock after sales services and prompt delivery.

Pakistan’s first direct insurance company was seeking a significant increase in revenue, while providing promised customer service to tap into the burgeoning auto insurance sector. It needed to boost insurance policy sales through customer acquisition, lifecycle management programs, and enhance the customer experience through streamlined services, optimum response times, and swift claim processing. The existing back-office facilities were insufficient to meet customer care demands, and service levels were strongly threatened. The business requirement was to reduce operational expenses in the back-office; reduce the cost per inbound-service call; and achieve the shortest turnaround time in claims processing. The aim was to deliver measurable improvements in service quality; simplify and streamline operations processes in the back-office to improve efficiency; increase revenue through existing customers and, by generating a significant prospect base, enhance customer experience to build brand equity.
TRG ensured the maintenance of its client’s state-of-the art contact center facility to provide 24/7 customer service. It developed persuasive sales techniques to up-sell and cross-sell to targeted users; introduced direct insurance services to prospect consumers through a referral system, and targeted the corporate sector by generating hot leads with decision makers. It facilitated new products and offerings that service end-to-end auto management needs; real-time reporting of operational metrics for management control; maximized productivity of the staff through a proprietary monitoring mechanism, and analyzed daily business activities and underlying trends.
TRG’s support and services created a tangible impact in terms of operational and business value. This includes first resolution rate; higher fresh policy sales revenue with an improved up-sell/cross-sell rate; maximized lead management; penetration rate (the percentage of the call list that has been called); immediate back-office support to handle call traffic; an effectively leveraged existing customer base to increase conversion rate, and an improved rating in customer satisfaction and customer retention.

Possessing over 55 years of leadership and expertise in carpet production and finishing know-how, Lahore Carpet Manufacturing Company (LCMC) continuously works to develop new design collections, processes, and material; introduces new trends according to the requirements, and establishes existing ones.

LCMC required a solution that would bring about workflow automation, process uniformity and organizational transparency. In 2005, LCMC started the search for an automated and rational solution to fulfil its critical business needs as an enterprise. SigmaTec’s ERP solution, SigmaTec Unify, offered a comprehensive, affordable and adoptable solution. Extensive training sessions, both online and at LCMC’s premises, enabled users to get up to speed with the new system. Consultation was also provided as required regarding the effective usage and the business benefit of modules.

SigmaTec Unify has totally revolutionized information processing at LCMC. The whole organization is now on a signal data set. LCMC’s management can view all carpets at various stages of production at the single click of a button. SigmaTec Unify has made transparent the profitability of every single carpet in LCMC’s stock of over 35,000 carpets.

DaimlerChrysler is one of the world’s leading automotive, transportation and services companies. Its passenger car brands include Mercedes-Benz, Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge. Commercial vehicles are produced under the Mercedes-Benz, Freightliner, Sterling, Western Star, Setra, Thomas Built Buses, Orion and American LaFrance brands. DaimlerChrysler employs 372,500 people, and had a global revenue of Euros 152.9 billion (US$136.1 billion) in 2001. DCCS approached NetSol to develop a proposal and contract management system capable of managing the portfolios of DCCS’ European-structured finance businesses.

The system needed to be multi-currency and Euro-compliant, capable of interfacing with DCCS’ selected General Ledger (Exact); capable of reporting in local GAAP to meet local accounting requirements; and capable of reporting in US GAAP for DaimlerChrysler’s central financial reporting requirements.

The system also needed to comply with local tax regulations, and with local central bank financial inspection requirements, be capable of managing proposals, contract administration and contract accounting. It needed to be MS Windows-based, with the ability to interface with Crystal Reports, based on an industry-standard database, and based on a sound technical architecture, where at least 80% of country functionality was embedded within a pan-European core system, with less than 20% of each country system being specific to that country. This gave multi-country economies-of-scale from both a business process, and a technical perspective, and completed within a fixed price, and to a short timetable.

The solution's study was the first phase of the project. The project concluded with the successful implementation of robust, scalable, multi-currency systems supporting DCCS’ businesses in Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany and in the UK, and with a successful transition from national currencies to the Euro. They fully complied with local tax regulations, both accounting and central bank reporting requirements, and reported in both local, and in US GAAP.

The case study focuses on how a very important player of the Healthcare industry uses IT development to its own advantage. Between retailers and manufacturers, the distributors, whose role in any industry can only be underestimated, provide the one important link: juggling inventories with areas and trends in check, making their task a very sensitive one with a heavy flow of information that thrives on timeliness and accuracy.

Pharmalink is a major local distributor of pharmaceutical products for many leading manufacturers, including Sanofi Aventis and Efroze Chemical Industries (Pvt.) Ltd. Faced with the inventories, pricing and discount policies, seasonal bonuses, invoicing and the major need for timely alerts made it necessary for Pharmalink to look for a solution that could help it make the best of the volatile environment in which they operated.

DMaX, an extensive distribution and sales management system by EfroTech, fulfilled Pharmalink’s objectives.

DMaX offers:
Principal-wise reports.
Pricing manual and principal/period/product-wise discount policies.
Invoice creator and recovery manager.
Bonus on combo-products (as per the distributor’s specifications).
Expiry alerts.
Handheld and PDA device integration for automated order processing.
Multi-User / multi- company support.
Inventory and purchase management.
Multiple warehouse support.
Order processing and delivery.
Sales analysis and reporting.

With this one-stop solution, Pharmalink was able to achieve greater accuracy, timeliness and more informed decision making.

Qalhat LNG LNG Producer Saves up to Two Days a Month of Employee Time with Collaboration Solution

Qalhat LNG, a producer of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in the Sultanate of Oman, experienced frequent downtime and high rental fees for its leased IT services. It worked with Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner KalSoft to deploy its own solution using Microsoft technologies. Now, Qalhat LNG no longer experiences delays—increasing employee productivity by up to two days a month—and has reduced IT operating expenses by nearly 30 per cent.
Business Needs

Qalhat LNG in the Sultanate of Oman started production of 3.3 million tonnes of LNG a year in December 2005 from a plant built alongside two existing LNG trains. The company’s largest single shareholder is the Government of Oman, with other shareholdings held by Oman LNG, Union Fenosa Gas of Spain, Itochu, Mitsubishi Corporation, and Osaka Gas of Japan.

The business has no operational staff of its own—most of its employees are Omani nationals working in fields such as management, marketing, and finance. Initially, the organisation worked at the same site as its partner company—Oman LNG—and used its IT services. But, as Qalhat LNG expanded, its employees’ offices were relocated 10 kilometres away.

Because of this, staff relied on a leased line connection to Oman LNG for all their IT needs. Saif Al Harthy, Technical Manager at Qalhat LNG, says: “To function, we relied on the connection to Oman LNG. From sending e-mail messages to creating and printing documents—everything operated on our partner’s IT systems.”

This created a number of issues. The leased line service charged a monthly rental fee that was expensive to maintain. Also, the connection was unreliable and would fail around twice a month. “If the leased line connection failed we couldn’t operate. Our employees were limited in the amount of work they could do because they couldn’t even send an e-mail message to the person sitting next to them,” says Al Harthy.

“We needed an advanced IT environment that could support our employees 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It also needed to accommodate the expansion of our company quickly and easily without incurring too much cost,” he adds.
Solution

Al Harthy examined the market and assessed the options. “We originally considered other software solutions, but found them to be too expensive and difficult to operate,” says Al Harthy. “We then approached KalSoft, a company with experience and competencies in deploying advanced infrastructure solutions based on Microsoft technologies.”

Together, they began a phased deployment of a suite of Microsoft products. In June 2007, the first stage—which was to implement a robust IT infrastructure in the new premises—began. The solution comprised:

Windows Server® 2003—as the operating system
Microsoft Exchange Server 2007—for hosted rich e-mail services, including calendaring, scheduling, and synchronisation with mobile devices using Windows Mobile® 6.0 software
Microsoft Forefront™ Security for Exchange Server—which protects the Exchange Server 2007 messaging environment from viruses, worms, and spam
The 2007 Microsoft Office suite—which provides all the fundamental business applications such as Microsoft Office Word 2007 and Microsoft Office Excel® 2007 spreadsheet software

The next stage was to migrate the existing electronic mailboxes and users from Oman LNG to the new infrastructure. Akhter Zaib, Sales Manager at KalSoft, says: “To minimise inconvenience, we migrated a small selection of users at a time and carried out most of the work at weekends.”

The system went live in March 2007 and immediately had a positive impact on employee productivity. But, Al Harthy was keen to improve this further. “I wanted to increase the amount of collaboration between our employees. To do this, we deployed Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 collaboration technology, and because we already had a Microsoft environment integration was easy,” says Al Harthy. “We now have a personalised intranet, separated into dedicated Web sites for each department. On top of that, it provides us with extensive document management capabilities, including version tracking,” he adds.
Benefits

By creating a collaborative infrastructure based on Microsoft technologies, Qalhat LNG has experienced a rise in performance and profitability. Also, because the company no longer pays for IT services through a leased line, it has reduced its total cost of ownership for IT infrastructure. Al Harthy says: “Using Microsoft technologies has given us the opportunity to improve the quality and quantity of our work. Not only that, but the solution has reduced our company’s IT expenditure by almost 30 per cent.”

High performance, continuity, and stability. Employees no longer rely on an unstable connection to their partner company’s IT system. This improved availability has increased productivity by up to two days a month.

Lower total cost of ownership. Qalhat LNG has reduced its IT expenditure by almost 30 per cent because it no longer rents its IT services through a leased line.

User-friendly interface for remote working. Staff can remotely access their e-mail accounts and documents, at any time, by using Windows Mobile devices. This has improved productivity and will cut carbon emissions by reducing the need for employees to travel.

Local support 24 hours a day, seven days a week. KalSoft provides valuable expertise to Qalhat LNG, whether it relates to technical issues or improving their existing infrastructure.

Promotes internal collaboration and teamwork. Employees can easily share documents and information through the Office SharePoint Server 2007 portal. They use workflows to track documents efficiently, and post notices on departmental sites for internal communication.

Business partnership with Microsoft. Al Harthy receives assistance and advice from Microsoft on the latest technologies and products. He’s now planning to upgrade to the Windows Server 2008 Standard operating system.

Ease of use. Employees quickly adopted the technology due to support offered by KalSoft and the intuitiveness of the products.

One of World’s Most Luxurious Hotels Employs New IT System to Enhance Guest Experience

Burj Al Arab in Dubai, one of the most luxurious hotels in the world, wanted to offer its guests early access to world-leading IT. In accordance with its mission—to “Stay Different”—the hotel management team equipped each of the Burj Al Arab’s 202 suites with laptop computers running Windows Vista™ Enterprise Edition and the 2007 Microsoft® Office system. Implementation took just three weeks, and the hotel’s guests are now enjoying a streamlined computing experience, easier navigation, and instant access to e-mail messages, the Internet, and multi-media entertainment channels
Business Needs

Burj Al Arab is part of the dynamic and fast-growing luxury hospitality group Jumeirah. It is one of the most luxurious hotels in the world, catering to sophisticated business and private customers. Located on the Dubai coastline in the heart of the Gulf’s hospitality industry, Burj Al Arab is known worldwide for its exceptionally high standards of service. Many of its guests are repeat customers who appreciate the hotel’s commitment to providing a unique experience on each visit. In line with parent company Jumeirah’s “Stay Different” slogan, Burj Al Arab wanted to offer guests early access to world-leading IT facilities.

Frederick Sabty, Director of IT at Burj Al Arab, says: “Our aim is to be different and to remain at the cutting edge of technology. We offer some of the world’s best service, best food and beverages, most luxurious accommodation, and most advanced IT resources for guests. We wanted to make it even easier for our guests to access their e-mail messages, the Internet, and multi-media content.”

Burj Al Arab has already started the migration to a new operating system for back-of-house operations, but the 202 suites—there are no rooms at Burj Al Arab—have come first. Sabty says: “Our guests are our top priority. Having made the decision to switch to the best and latest technologies, including the 2007 Microsoft Office system and Windows Vista, we wanted to be up and running with the new system within three weeks. By becoming an early adopter of Vista, we are equipping our guests with a technology they will soon use for both business and leisure.”
Solution

Burj Al Arab chose Windows Vista and the 2007 Microsoft Office system. It invited Microsoft Gold Certified Partner KalSoft to implement the technology on 206 laptops for all 202 suites. The deployment tool used was Microsoft Solution Accelerator for Business Desktop Deployment (BDD) 2007, which provides tools and guidance for deploying Windows Vista and the 2007 Microsoft Office system.

Shahid Roofi Khan, Solution Architect at KalSoft, says: “The deployment takes just 18 minutes at the end machine and only two clicks of the mouse to get the laptop ready for the end user. Working with the hotel, we have provided full back-up for the live environment with excellent connectivity.”

Fast time to market was also a concern for Burj Al Arab. “If we had used manual deployment techniques, it would have taken a lot more time,” says Khan. “There were, of course, lessons learned, as there are with any new technology, but we were well supported by Microsoft Services in the event of any escalation issues. After the implementation in late October, the system was ready to go live in just 23 days.”

The BDD solution is indispensable for Burj Al Arab. Khan says: “Considering the number of machines that need to be deployed and maintained and the changes to configurations, deployment was very fast.”

The applications deployed alongside Windows Vista and the 2007 Microsoft Office system provide guests with a wide range of solutions for business and leisure use. The project required KalSoft and Microsoft to transfer knowledge about the new technology to the Burj Al Arab IT support team, ensuring guests benefited from the new around-the-clock functions as soon as possible.
Benefits

The Burj Al Arab’s guests are discerning travellers, accustomed to the latest and best in hospitality services. The visual sophistication of Windows Vista helps streamline guests’ computing experience by refining common Windows functions so the user can focus on the screen’s content, rather than on how to access it. Sabty says: “We have always been an innovator. We were early adopters of Microsoft Windows® XP Home Edition for our guests. Soon, we will be the first hotel to offer Windows Vista and the 2007 Office system, enhancing the experience of staying at the hotel still further.”

Other benefits of the new system for guests include:

A more informative and intuitive desktop experience.
Greater clarity of information on the computer, allowing users to see the contents of files without having to open them.
An improved search function for files and applications.
More efficient navigation and easier-to-use functionality.
New deployment tools for rapid implementation in guests’ suites.
Built-in entertainment features.
Improved Internet browsing for guests through the new Internet Explorer 7.

Naubahar Bottling Company (Pvt.) Limited was established in 1981 to produce and market beverages of international Standards. Its main objective of the company is to achieve excellence i through the production and distribution of quality products. The company manufactures its products according to Pepsi Cola International’s (PCI) quality standards and requirements. At present, the company has five production lines with more than 300 spouts, with an average capacity of producing more than 100,000 cases daily on a three-shift basis.

Naubahar Bottling is involved in the business of syrup preparation, filling, packaging and selling of PepsiCo’s carbonated soft drinks for the Gujranwala franchise in Pakistan. In the previous system an enormous amount of paperwork was handled through spreadsheets. The company was using some Oracle modules, but did not have an integrated solution, and there were many shortcomings. Naubahar needed to eliminate redundant handling of data, and reduce business risk by replacing unsupported systems that were managing core processes at the company. It also needed real-time live lobster inventory figures.

The most compatible solution for Naubahar was proposed by MAISON Consulting & Solutions. The decision to go ahead with a new finance and database system using Microsoft Business Solution- Great Plains business software took place in 2005. Microsoft Great Plains offers integrated capabilities for financial management, supply chain, landed cost, human resource management and payable management.

The organization found that the software required less training, substantially reduced support costs, streamlined accounting processes, and improved reporting. Employees find the new financial management system easy to use and maintain. Because Naubahar can easily control the level of access for employees, limiting them to areas directly related to their jobs, the foundation has improved security. Staff works with, and views only the data that is relevant to their position.

Arabian United Float Glass Company 600 tons of high-quality float glass. The purchase of modern business management software to ensure that the state-of-the-art unit operates to the highest levels of efficiency was a top priority for the management. The company had outgrown its Peachtree accounting system. In assessing the market, the company considered many different ERP solutions, but disregarded them based on performance and total cost of ownership.

Working with Microsoft Gold Certified Partner MAISON-Naizak Global Engineering, the company deployed Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 with Process Industries for Microsoft Dynamics AX software to gain even deeper insight into the business. Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009, which offers a service-oriented architecture and tight integration with web services, is designed to manage the complexities of an organization involved in global markets. It helps consolidate and standardize processes and provides visibility across all departments. MAISON-Naizak was also responsible for training and personal development of users, many but not all of whom were familiar with the look and feel of Microsoft technology.

Microsoft Dynamics AX has given the company full control over its procurement process, which was previously done manually, and was therefore, prone to human error. The manufacturer saves time and effort with workflows that enforce and enhance controls based on specific risk and compliance scenarios. The software has helped manufacturers increase the speed and efficiency of its manufacturing operations, and communicate more effectively with its extended supply chain. The technology builds and quickly modifies work streams to take advantage of new opportunities, and adapts quickly to changing industry and customer demands. The company now finds it less of a major task to monitor and control its inventory, thereby helping to streamline its cash flow.

Challenge
Server4Sale was given a major challenge by Habib Bank Limited (HBL) to implement HRMS Human Resource Management System in all of their banking branches to increase efficiency of its workforce. They sought to leverage the wealth of experience and skill sets of their teams and wanted an upgrade to add internet banking, and streamline the processes into their existing website including pages for Corporate Banking, Commercial Banking, Global Treasury, Investment banking and Cash Management; they also want to update all their branches information of their local and international branches on their website. Furthermore they want to have a portal with complete information about cars for car financing where the people can compare cars by selecting it from a wide range of car companies and their models and can compare car engine capacity, transmission, warranty, reliability, fuel efficiency and other features including prices and car financing information so that they can make a better choice.
Solution
Based on our former experiences it became quite evident that the applications in which data had to be entered had to be dynamic therefore we have built several applications for the data entry phase to avoid any conflicts in the data entry process. The data was selected, verified, conformed in English, and maintained using rigorous, documented processes and procedures. We have reorganized the content giving it a less cluttered look and entered all the relevant information of HBL branches including its name, address, phone number, ATM locations and lockers availability etc on their website very carefully to ensure visitors get verified information. In each pages that we have built for HBL we have added meta tags and used optimized coding by using keyword enriched content well ahead of reconstruction. We have also redirected all old pages to new pages to ensure that no link juice gets lost. HBL already has the international credibility and acceptance and we’ve just ensured that visitors to the HBL website knew about it and that’s why we created a well designed landing page where we have put the location finder on the right top space where it would be easily visible and increased conversions. We have also developed and embedded several applications to enable users to compare cars and their prices online where they easily can compare cars by selecting it from a wide range of car companies and their models using car calculator and can compare car engine capacity, transmission, warranty, reliability, fuel efficiency and other features including prices and car financing information.

Challenge
After performing an extensive research and evaluation, Pakistan Ordanance Factories (POF) chooses Server4Sale for their network security and support. With extensive experience in providing dedicated server and internet security solutions we have earned a reputation of being reliable, cost effective and stable web solutions provider. Our state-of-the-art data centers with ability to provide a full range of managed services other than straight collocation are the most important factor that gave POF rock-solid assurances that its network would stay up and will be secure even during the highest-volume periods.

Solution
Our services to Pakistan Ordanance Factories (POF) includes providing expertise for the infrastructure supporting of different operating system and application platforms, as well as storage, backup, security, and overall program management services for their personnel’s. It was a challenge to provide internet security to such a sensitive organization but Server4Sale keeps up with this challenge. Our team conducted thorough research with a number of large end-users to determine where they were experiencing any difficulties with their server security posture. To manage security, a modular and purpose-built Cisco Firewall was installed, which provides enterprise-class security. We provided them with analysis of the addressable market and then set up meetings with potential end-users and partners. Our support center staff works 24 hours a day, 7days a week and 365 days a year to ensure reliable, high performance and quality services to POF. We are committed to assist them in resolving their different IT related issues and queries. Today, POF depends on Server4Sale for all of its wireless & network security needs as well as a comprehensive bundle of other advanced web services solutions including managed network, managed web applications, and managed security. POF has also been able to harness its skilled IT workforce more productively with our efficient and secure networks and also able to Reduced costs and improved ROI. Another major benefit has been transparency into IT operations; our staff effectively resolves their queries about any component in their infrastructure or any other aspect of service excellently. POF has been impressed with our services.

Company Background

Samuel G. and Barney L. Keywell established Keywell in 1924 as a scrap metal recycling business. The Company began operations with one facility in Detroit Michigan, supplying carbon steel scrap to nearby mills. In 1979, the Keywell family sold the Company to Key International Manufacturing, Inc. The Company grew steadily through acquisitions and aggressive marketing. In 1986, Keywell was spun-out into a separate entity and taken private by an investor group led by the Company's current Board of Directors.
In 1987, Keywell purchased the business of Vac Air Alloys Corporation, the largest supplier of high temperature alloys in the world and a leading stainless steel scrap processor. In 1993, Keywell purchased the business of Rainbow Metals, Inc., a major processor of high temperature alloys. Keywell is an established enterprise with fourteen domestic locations and over 270 dedicated employees.
Throughout its history, the company has maintained profitable growth to become an industry leader in the processing of stainless steel, high temperature alloys and titanium scrap metal. Keywell has achieved ISO 9001 certification. ISO 9001 is the internationally recognized standard for quality management systems. Keywell’s state-of-the-industry facilities is equipped with inbound and outbound radiation monitors, as well as one or more X-ray analyzers or other sophisticated analytical equipment for precise detection and identification of every piece of metal it process.

Business Needs

Keywell wanted an Online Inventory System for their clients with following core features.
• Design and build a user-friendly web-based Inventory System to run on Keywell’s AS/400
• Allows Toll customers to easily view, sort, print, download and communicate order & delivery instructions to Keywell.
• This inventory system will provide summary information and Lot based detail data on a daily basis, which will better assist our customers in defining their purchasing requirements.
• Toll customers, such as ATI Allvac, will securely connect over the Internet using any web browser.
• Reports should be in various formats (.pdf, xls, cvs)
• Session log maintenance & tracking.

Business Solution

• After considering several options, Royal Cyber decided to build Online Inventory System using IBM Rational® Enterprise Generation Language (EGL), IBM’s strategic rapid development technology.
• EGL was a perfect fit because its development paradigm can be easily understood by skilled RPG & java developers. EGL enabled Royal Cyber developers with wide-ranging skill sets and backgrounds to apply Web and service-oriented architecture (SOA) technologies as they delivered an advanced solution.

Delivered application in two Phases

-Online Inventory System application developed in two months with all core features required by the Keywell.
-Online Inventory Reporting System
-Design Architecture

Key Technologies and Tools used

• IBM Rational Enterprise Generation Language (EGL)
• IBM WebSphere Application Server
• Rational Business Developer (RBD)
• CSS, JavaScript, HTML

Business Benefits

Helped in providing inventory information on demand; web 2.0 styled web application; reporting & session log maintenance; rapid development of new capabilities and features to meet customer demands; improved employee productivity & customers satisfaction.

Maria B. (A leading designer and retail brand of garments) achieves dead stock reduction of 80% in 3 months by using LumenSoft Candela Retail Management System

Business Introduction

Maria B is the leading designer and retail brand for ladies bridal, formal and casual wear. The brand is more than 10 years old and has retail outlets across of Pakistan.

The Need and Business Challenge

Maria B. was initially using a software solution to handle its retail operations but it was not capable of effectively handling multi-location (chain store) retail business. The head-office and shops were running different modules which were not fully integrated. This resulted in “information silos” due to which timely and accurate business decisions could not be made.

Also operations were cumbersome resulting in reduced productivity. Stocks had gradually increased to alarming levels due to lack of required information. To make matters worse, inventory could not be moved to outlets in time thus resulting in loss of sales and customer dissatisfaction. Stock audits became a huge task requiring several people from the head office to go to the store and take up to 2 full days to complete a thorough audit. Understandably due to the effort, stock checks were delayed during peak season.

Like any traditional entrepreneurial venture, the business was people oriented with lack of processes and management systems. The business required a software solution which could not only be used to control and automate the operations but also have capability of implementing industry best practices, and robust business processes.

Choice of Solution

Maria B. looked for different available retail software solutions in the market. It was an easy decision to select Candela RMS for management of their retail operations. Candela had the largest customer base for retail chain stores in Pakistan and many top brands of the country were using this solution. Amongst the customer list, many were engaged in a similar type of business. LumenSoft Technologies engineers had required experience and expertise to provide training and implementation support.

The best part of the deal was it promised to implement industry best practices and put the business under the control of processes.

Benefits Achieved

Only in first three months of operations Maria B. was able to boost sales for certain brands by 50%. Also dead stocks were reduced by 80% in some outlets. During the same period the ROI was 100% and the investment break-even was achieved within two quarters of implementation. Therefore this proved to be one of the best investments for the business.

This became possible by integrating all the retail outlets with head-office. The information flow between the head-office and outlets was seamless (both ways). In the head office the information was rolled-up to create a complete business picture. Analysis was available on different designs, categories, and groups which helped in optimizing the stocks at different retail outlets. After system implementation accurate inventory was reflected in the system which enabled the management to take timely decisions. Stocks were shuffled between outlets according to shops sales trends.

Reconciliation of cash and stocks between head-office and retail outlets became very effective and leakages and pilferage was greatly reduced. Shop staff, instead of preparing reports, was able to pay more attention of customer and thus their productivity was increased.

Mr. Fazal Ashfaq, head of retail operations at Maria B., says

“We were surprised to see the results produced by LumenSoft Candela RMS in such a short time. We are in total control of our business. We know what are the best sellers and at which outlets. We have instant information about our retail outlets as profit centers and also we can go deep down and analyze on design levels”

Maria B. the founder and owner of the business says

“… I have never been a technology person but I knew enough to see that there existed tremendous room for growth by implementing a retail software solution. We were pleased to see that Lumensoft had a ready to implement product that needed barely any modification to run on our business. A few months after implementation I can get a current bird’s eye view of my business and can alter direction to focus on items that are selling well. I would definitely recommend Lumensoft to any retailer….“

Dubai Islamic Bank Pakistan Ltd. (DIBPL) wanted to gain an edge over its competitors by extending its e-banking service offerings to its customers. DIBPL chose Avanza Solutions' Electronic Bill Payment Solution (eBPS). It will be available at DIBPL's various delivery channels, such as ATMs, Internet banking, mobile banking, IVR and CRM. eBPS has two sets of messaging interfaces: one to communicate with DIBPL's delivery channels, and the other to communicate with DIBPL's financial host.

The interface between the delivery channels and middleware supports bill inquiry, bill payment, and bill payment reversal. The interface between eBPS and DIBPL's host consists of the generic balance inquiry and funds' transfer transactions required to implement the eBPS transactions. The message format is based on ISO8583, the universal standard for financial transactions.

This solution's benefits include cost-reduction, as the infrastructure is already in place; increased customer satisfaction, as transactions can be reliably conducted 24x7, and hassle-free transactions, since many utility companies are already a part of the eBPS consortium.

Habib Bank Ltd. (HBL) Oman is one of HBL’s global initiatives to serve local and international customers in the Middle East. As HBL improved its customer base in Oman, the bank experienced a drastic increase in transaction volumes, and its existing transaction processing system could not handle this boost.

HBL selected TPS’s Phoenix switching middleware to handle the increasing transaction volume, and offer self-service banking services to its customers in Oman. Phoenix will replace the existing switch, offering reliability, flexibility, maturity and focused services at par with HBL’s commitment to excellence.

DaimlerChrysler is one of the world’s leading automotive, transportation and services companies. Its passenger car brands include Mercedes-Benz, Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge. Commercial vehicles are produced under the Mercedes-Benz, Freightliner, Sterling, Western Star, Setra, Thomas Built Buses, Orion and American LaFrance brands. DaimlerChrysler employs 372,500 people, and had a global revenue of Euros 152.9 billion (US$136.1 billion) in 2001. DCCS approached NetSol to develop a proposal and contract management system capable of managing the portfolios of DCCS’ European-structured finance businesses.

The system needed to be multi-currency and Euro-compliant, capable of interfacing with DCCS’ selected General Ledger (Exact); capable of reporting in local GAAP to meet local accounting requirements; and capable of reporting in US GAAP for DaimlerChrysler’s central financial reporting requirements.

The system also needed to comply with local tax regulations, and with local central bank financial inspection requirements, be capable of managing proposals, contract administration and contract accounting. It needed to be MS Windows-based, with the ability to interface with Crystal Reports, based on an industry-standard database, and based on a sound technical architecture, where at least 80% of country functionality was embedded within a pan-European core system, with less than 20% of each country system being specific to that country. This gave multi-country economies-of-scale from both a business process, and a technical perspective, and completed within a fixed price, and to a short timetable.

The solution's study was the first phase of the project. The project concluded with the successful implementation of robust, scalable, multi-currency systems supporting DCCS’ businesses in Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany and in the UK, and with a successful transition from national currencies to the Euro. They fully complied with local tax regulations, both accounting and central bank reporting requirements, and reported in both local, and in US GAAP.

Naubahar Bottling Company (Pvt.) Limited was established in 1981 to produce and market beverages of international Standards. Its main objective of the company is to achieve excellence i through the production and distribution of quality products. The company manufactures its products according to Pepsi Cola International’s (PCI) quality standards and requirements. At present, the company has five production lines with more than 300 spouts, with an average capacity of producing more than 100,000 cases daily on a three-shift basis.

Naubahar Bottling is involved in the business of syrup preparation, filling, packaging and selling of PepsiCo’s carbonated soft drinks for the Gujranwala franchise in Pakistan. In the previous system an enormous amount of paperwork was handled through spreadsheets. The company was using some Oracle modules, but did not have an integrated solution, and there were many shortcomings. Naubahar needed to eliminate redundant handling of data, and reduce business risk by replacing unsupported systems that were managing core processes at the company. It also needed real-time live lobster inventory figures.

The most compatible solution for Naubahar was proposed by MAISON Consulting & Solutions. The decision to go ahead with a new finance and database system using Microsoft Business Solution- Great Plains business software took place in 2005. Microsoft Great Plains offers integrated capabilities for financial management, supply chain, landed cost, human resource management and payable management.

The organization found that the software required less training, substantially reduced support costs, streamlined accounting processes, and improved reporting. Employees find the new financial management system easy to use and maintain. Because Naubahar can easily control the level of access for employees, limiting them to areas directly related to their jobs, the foundation has improved security. Staff works with, and views only the data that is relevant to their position.

Best Foods is one of the leading importers and distributors of quality food products operating in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Its products satisfy the local and regional demand for special dietary food at competitive prices through a regional distribution network and market coverage. Its revenue in 2009 was Saudi Riyals (SR) 14 million.

Best Foods suffered from pilferage of food items due to a lack of proper inventory and a distribution system at its warehouses. This led to dipping sales and revenue, as there was no proper method for the replenishment of items based on market demand. The upper management could not access manually entered information from warehouses and other offices, which was distributed and not consolidated. Payroll was calculated using Excel spreadsheets. Timecards were used at the home office and in warehouses. Its old computers were incapable of handling the necessary bandwidth.

Gillani Middle East implemented Gillani Financials' Gillani iDistribute, which was customized to better suit Best Foods' specific needs. This included its General Ledger, Accounts Receivable, and Accounts Payable, sales, distribution, purchasing and inventory management modules. This automated and integrated solution gave the management complete control of the business flow in all its offices and locations, generated timely reports, and resulted in more revenue, and better time and employee management.

iDistribute is built around the wholesale distribution model. Its Order Entry module generates all sales orders. It creates quotes for customers. Any quote can be converted into a sales order for an inventory item or a rental item. Quotes can be sent to customers via e-mail, fax, Word document, Excel document, PDF document, or EDI format. The Purchasing module generates vendor returns. Its Inventory Management module handles inventory throughout the entire company.

Established in Saudi Arabia in 1995, International Dynamic Systems (IDS) supplies pipes, electrical items, electromechanical items, lifting solutions, scaffolding items, industrial power tools, hand tools, fasteners, safety items, valves, flow meters and numerous other vital industrial products worldwide. Its revenue in 2009 was approximately Saudi Riyals (SR) 30 million.

As a trading company, IDS dealt with multiple clients and vendors, but it used Excel sheets and manually generated accounts and purchase orders. Its office, store and warehouse were not connected, and it did not have a consolidated accounting, sales or distribution solution. This resulted in duplication of effort, loss of valuable time and resources, and delay in fulfilling clients' orders.

Gillani Middle East implemented its integrated software solution iERP at IDS. This included its General Ledger, Accounts Receivable, and Accounts Payable, sales, distribution, purchasing and inventory management modules. This connected its office, store and warehouse, and generated real-time on-demand data for all sales managers and the upper management. The Linux operating system provided low Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), fast transaction processing, improved transaction performance and enhanced productivity.

The iERP is built around the wholesale distribution model, designed to handle the entire distribution process. Its Order Entry module generates all sales orders. It creates quotes for customers. Any quote can be converted into a sales order for an inventory item or a rental item. Quotes can be sent to customers via e-mail, fax, Word document, Excel document, PDF document, or EDI format. The Purchasing module generates vendor returns. Its Inventory Management module handles inventory throughout the entire company. This includes inventory adjustments, maintenance of inventory catalogs (vendor catalogs), shelf-life maintenance (if applicable), maintenance of demo inventory/scrap inventory, and letdowns. A comprehensive human resource administration, hiring and payroll system is also integrated with Gillani Financials.

The Massachusetts Hospital Association (MHA) http://www.mhasurveys.com is a voluntary, not-for-profit organization composed of hospitals and health systems, related organizations, and other members with a common interest in promoting the health of the people of the Commonwealth.

For many years, MHA conducted a survey using Excel spreadsheets for data collection, and an Access database for reporting. Hundreds of Massachusetts-based hospitals participate in the survey.

ESOLPK automated MHA’s survey system by developing a web-based online compensation survey application for the hospital industry. It provided the highest level of data security in deploying this application, enabling all states to participate easily in the survey. ESOLPK updates the application on a weekly basis, and runs and manages the survey on a monthly and on an annual basis.

Bravium Inc., a large health care organization in USA, wanted to automate and create a paperless doctor’s office. Its purpose was to allow electronic files to be shared by many resources such as hospitals, laboratories, the doctor’s office, insurance, employment, etc.

ESOLPK developed a desktop and web-based doctors' office automation system known as “myMDCentral” http://www.esolpk.com/MDCentralDemo.asp. This includes practice management, document management, medical records, and an ASP version. myMDcentral also includes biometric secure login. Patients can update demographic, insurance information, request prescription refill, or schedule an appointment from the privacy of home. They can also save life-saving demographic, medication, physician contact, and allergies’ information on a portable USB thumb drive, to be accessed in case of an emergency.

The software provides a robust, comprehensive and integrated solution, enabling better decision-making, increased efficiency in servicing customers’ demands, and promoting transparency. The technology used in deploying myMDCentral is ASP.NET and SQL Server. It is HIPPA and HL7 compliant.

Security Inc., a subsidiary of a Fortune 50 company, develops safety, security and lifestyle enhancement products for residential, consumer and institutional, government and military market segments.

Security Inc. has about 30,000 products, of which only 20% had detailed product information available through various print catalogs. The company’s web presence did not meet customers’ requirements, since it was extremely difficult to obtain information about products, let alone perform product comparisons, attribute-based search, and other advanced functions.

Techlogix recommended its Systems Application and Product Master Data Management (SAP MDM) solution. It consists of the MDM Data Manager, Import Manager, Image Manager and MDM Console to create and maintain data repositories. Adobe InDesign was used for paper catalog publishing. MDM Java APIs made web publishing possible, as well as a web‐based Data Manager to enter and maintain data in the MDM repository. This solution now ensures the data’s validity and consistency, enabling customers to search rapidly, accurately and efficiently across the entire product catalog, which can be re-categorized without affecting web and paper publishing layouts. Cross-sells can be activated online for customers to easily compare related products. SAP MDM is a highly-scalable solution, designed to keep pace with Security, Inc.’s future needs.

The majority of patient information and test requirements were conveyed via paper requisition to the Southeast Missouri Hospital's (SEMO) outreach laboratory healthcare services. Reliable, accurate and electronic communication between the outreach laboratory and the client is of utmost importance. Any error in the early stages of specimen collection is carried throughout the process, and has a detrimental effect on patient care.

The SEMO implemented TSG's Outreach Order Communication Portal (OOCP) for physicians' offices, and facilities outside the hospital’s network to connect with its clinical laboratory. The OOCP ensures the accuracy of the transmitted data, and streamlines the workflow process. Data entry from paper requisitions eliminates clerical errors, and instrument-ready barcodes eliminate mistaken specimen identification.

The Massachusetts Hospital Association (MHA) http://www.mhasurveys.com is a voluntary, not-for-profit organization composed of hospitals and health systems, related organizations, and other members with a common interest in promoting the health of the people of the Commonwealth.

For many years, MHA conducted a survey using Excel spreadsheets for data collection, and an Access database for reporting. Hundreds of Massachusetts-based hospitals participate in the survey.

ESOLPK automated MHA’s survey system by developing a web-based online compensation survey application for the hospital industry. It provided the highest level of data security in deploying this application, enabling all states to participate easily in the survey. ESOLPK updates the application on a weekly basis, and runs and manages the survey on a monthly and on an annual basis.

Bravium Inc., a large health care organization in USA, wanted to automate and create a paperless doctor’s office. Its purpose was to allow electronic files to be shared by many resources such as hospitals, laboratories, the doctor’s office, insurance, employment, etc.

ESOLPK developed a desktop and web-based doctors' office automation system known as “myMDCentral” http://www.esolpk.com/MDCentralDemo.asp. This includes practice management, document management, medical records, and an ASP version. myMDcentral also includes biometric secure login. Patients can update demographic, insurance information, request prescription refill, or schedule an appointment from the privacy of home. They can also save life-saving demographic, medication, physician contact, and allergies’ information on a portable USB thumb drive, to be accessed in case of an emergency.

The software provides a robust, comprehensive and integrated solution, enabling better decision-making, increased efficiency in servicing customers’ demands, and promoting transparency. The technology used in deploying myMDCentral is ASP.NET and SQL Server. It is HIPPA and HL7 compliant.

Emirates Technology Computers (EMITAC) is a leading sales and distribution company in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). When EMITAC's business expanded across multiple Middle East markets, the lack of an organized process workflow to manage increasing volumes of order processing resulted in lost opportunities and dissatisfied customers.

EMITAC recognized the need for a solution to help it automate and streamline its existing sales processes in order to make them more efficient, effective and profitable. It turned to Avanza’s CRM and sales' solution experience for the development of a customized sales order management system designed to achieve high levels of service and productivity.

This reseller portal has works at the heart of all operations, allowing the maximum profitability of incoming orders through automated, well-defined process workflows. It streamlines orders and data into the system to facilitate performance monitoring and sales tracking. It also brings EMITAC’s existing business processes online to enable customers to book and view orders, view their orders' status, obtain quotes, create requisitions, and track orders in a self-servicing environment.

Allowing EMITAC's customers authorized access to the business portal, its online ordering capability reduces internal support costs, grows repeat business and reorders, and improves customer satisfaction.

The Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS) in Karachi has geographically spread-out multiple constituent colleges. It had no single point of reference, no central data repository. In June 2007, the University of Engineering & Technology in Peshawar and the DUHS were selected to participate in a pilot project to automate their student administration and management processes using Oracle’s PeopleSoft Enterprise Campus Solutions.

Techlogix implemented this solution at the DUHS, which has resulted in centralization, uniformity and compliance with policies, and better monitoring. It has improved efficiency by automating the students’ administration process. A web-based system brings students up to speed regarding general information; enables them to view exam results, course and grade history; evaluate transfer credit, and pay fees online. It enables staff to track fee payments, create class assignments, calculate grades, and assess students’ progress online. Students can receive their degrees within days rather than in months.

Oracle’s PeopleSoft Campus Solutions proved adaptable enough to be effective for diverse educational systems. Techlogix’s campus solutions implementation methodology succeeded in absorbing the impact of abrupt mid-project policy changes, such as switching from the annual to the semester system. The university’s administration's drive to implement the system contributed to the project’s success.

DDFC (Pvt.) Ltd. has been one of the leading engineering manufacturing solutions companies in Pakistan for over 30 years. With its evolving IT and business needs, DDFC required a solution that would bring about workflow automation, process consistency and organizational transparency. An increasing workforce meant that payroll processing and management was an immediate concern for DDFC.

SigmaTec Unify offered a comprehensive, affordable, adoptable and adaptable payroll management solution, which catered to DDFC’s exclusive business and regulatory requirements in great detail. Apart from deployment services and technical support, SigmaTec also looks after the initial data entry, reports’ customization and business process re-engineering requirements. Consultation is also provided as required regarding the effective usage and the business benefit of modules.

The whole organization is now on a signal data set. The result is a complete elimination of inter-departmental conflict, data confusion and time wastage in reporting.

Possessing over 55 years of leadership and expertise in carpet production and finishing know-how, Lahore Carpet Manufacturing Company (LCMC) continuously works to develop new design collections, processes, and material; introduces new trends according to the requirements, and establishes existing ones.

LCMC required a solution that would bring about workflow automation, process uniformity and organizational transparency. In 2005, LCMC started the search for an automated and rational solution to fulfil its critical business needs as an enterprise. SigmaTec’s ERP solution, SigmaTec Unify, offered a comprehensive, affordable and adoptable solution. Extensive training sessions, both online and at LCMC’s premises, enabled users to get up to speed with the new system. Consultation was also provided as required regarding the effective usage and the business benefit of modules.

SigmaTec Unify has totally revolutionized information processing at LCMC. The whole organization is now on a signal data set. LCMC’s management can view all carpets at various stages of production at the single click of a button. SigmaTec Unify has made transparent the profitability of every single carpet in LCMC’s stock of over 35,000 carpets.

Tameer Micro Finance Bank (TMFB) needed a robust, reliable and flexible solution in order to provide new services quickly and efficiently to its 180 million Pakistani customers. It needed a switch that could cater to its aggressive growth plans without facing bottlenecks. The bank wanted true middleware and a platform that would allow it to offer these services via multiple channels and systems.

TPS’s modular architecture, robust and flexible platform has enabled TMFB to launch its branchless banking services, and gain momentum in a short span of time.

One of World’s Most Luxurious Hotels Employs New IT System to Enhance Guest Experience

Burj Al Arab in Dubai, one of the most luxurious hotels in the world, wanted to offer its guests early access to world-leading IT. In accordance with its mission—to “Stay Different”—the hotel management team equipped each of the Burj Al Arab’s 202 suites with laptop computers running Windows Vista™ Enterprise Edition and the 2007 Microsoft® Office system. Implementation took just three weeks, and the hotel’s guests are now enjoying a streamlined computing experience, easier navigation, and instant access to e-mail messages, the Internet, and multi-media entertainment channels
Business Needs

Burj Al Arab is part of the dynamic and fast-growing luxury hospitality group Jumeirah. It is one of the most luxurious hotels in the world, catering to sophisticated business and private customers. Located on the Dubai coastline in the heart of the Gulf’s hospitality industry, Burj Al Arab is known worldwide for its exceptionally high standards of service. Many of its guests are repeat customers who appreciate the hotel’s commitment to providing a unique experience on each visit. In line with parent company Jumeirah’s “Stay Different” slogan, Burj Al Arab wanted to offer guests early access to world-leading IT facilities.

Frederick Sabty, Director of IT at Burj Al Arab, says: “Our aim is to be different and to remain at the cutting edge of technology. We offer some of the world’s best service, best food and beverages, most luxurious accommodation, and most advanced IT resources for guests. We wanted to make it even easier for our guests to access their e-mail messages, the Internet, and multi-media content.”

Burj Al Arab has already started the migration to a new operating system for back-of-house operations, but the 202 suites—there are no rooms at Burj Al Arab—have come first. Sabty says: “Our guests are our top priority. Having made the decision to switch to the best and latest technologies, including the 2007 Microsoft Office system and Windows Vista, we wanted to be up and running with the new system within three weeks. By becoming an early adopter of Vista, we are equipping our guests with a technology they will soon use for both business and leisure.”
Solution

Burj Al Arab chose Windows Vista and the 2007 Microsoft Office system. It invited Microsoft Gold Certified Partner KalSoft to implement the technology on 206 laptops for all 202 suites. The deployment tool used was Microsoft Solution Accelerator for Business Desktop Deployment (BDD) 2007, which provides tools and guidance for deploying Windows Vista and the 2007 Microsoft Office system.

Shahid Roofi Khan, Solution Architect at KalSoft, says: “The deployment takes just 18 minutes at the end machine and only two clicks of the mouse to get the laptop ready for the end user. Working with the hotel, we have provided full back-up for the live environment with excellent connectivity.”

Fast time to market was also a concern for Burj Al Arab. “If we had used manual deployment techniques, it would have taken a lot more time,” says Khan. “There were, of course, lessons learned, as there are with any new technology, but we were well supported by Microsoft Services in the event of any escalation issues. After the implementation in late October, the system was ready to go live in just 23 days.”

The BDD solution is indispensable for Burj Al Arab. Khan says: “Considering the number of machines that need to be deployed and maintained and the changes to configurations, deployment was very fast.”

The applications deployed alongside Windows Vista and the 2007 Microsoft Office system provide guests with a wide range of solutions for business and leisure use. The project required KalSoft and Microsoft to transfer knowledge about the new technology to the Burj Al Arab IT support team, ensuring guests benefited from the new around-the-clock functions as soon as possible.
Benefits

The Burj Al Arab’s guests are discerning travellers, accustomed to the latest and best in hospitality services. The visual sophistication of Windows Vista helps streamline guests’ computing experience by refining common Windows functions so the user can focus on the screen’s content, rather than on how to access it. Sabty says: “We have always been an innovator. We were early adopters of Microsoft Windows® XP Home Edition for our guests. Soon, we will be the first hotel to offer Windows Vista and the 2007 Office system, enhancing the experience of staying at the hotel still further.”

Other benefits of the new system for guests include:

A more informative and intuitive desktop experience.
Greater clarity of information on the computer, allowing users to see the contents of files without having to open them.
An improved search function for files and applications.
More efficient navigation and easier-to-use functionality.
New deployment tools for rapid implementation in guests’ suites.
Built-in entertainment features.
Improved Internet browsing for guests through the new Internet Explorer 7.

Company Background

Office National is an Australia’s largest independent office products group, spread over 170 outlets.
• Office National not only supports major brands, but also offers their own range of office products.
• Office National IT products are at the leading edge of technology including the latest in computer hardware, software, and networking solutions.
• Office National has over 1150 employees who operate extent to 170 metropolitans and regional locations and delivering exceptional services to their customers.
• Office National websites are based on both B2B and B2C, to interact with their customers based in Australia and New Zealand, they have built respective website for better communication with the regional customers.
• Succession to their proven growth in business, they will soon be launching new Office National Website for South African region.

Business Needs

To implement easy to use Store Locator for visitor’s/client’s convenience.
• To improve the existing infrastructure to provide failover support, and proper testing and development environment.
• To resolve current issues in the Production Environment and make the environment stable.
• To improve site performance by Migrating the Database from unsupported version DB2 8.1 to DB2 9.5 and applying operational data cleanup activities.
• To increase sales launch new stores for New Zealand and South African region and improve navigation, look and feel of the stores.
• To gain available new market share and become market leaders by providing better buying experience for their customers.
• To install and configure a middleware to share catalog, invoice, contract, and image information among their various applications.

Key Technologies Used

• WebSphere Commerce 6.0 Extended Sites
• B2B and B2C business models
• WebSphere Application Server 6.0 ND
• Rational Application Developer
• JBOSS ESB
• DB2 9.5

Solution and Achieved Project Milestones

-Store Locator Integration for Simple Navigation
Store locator is integrated with every stores of the office national, so that visitors can find out the nearest store located to their location. It is integrated with Google maps API which makes easy for visitors to get to the nearest location and complete the shopping process

-Store Locator Interface & Functionality
Now it is very easy for visitors to access location of Office National stores after the Integration of new store locator.
Now the visitors only need to follow the following steps to land to their desired stores.
1. You need to select your desire product; you want to buy “Type of Store” for e.g. Toys, books.
2. In order find nearest location of the store all you need is to select the distance range, which is shown in kilometers, from the “Within” dropdown.
3. Then you need to select your State, form the dropdown.
4. In the last you only need to type your “zip code” or “Street address” on the respective mentioned field.
5. When you will click on the “Go” button, it will show you all the stores in that selected distance range, now you can easily make purchases online.
When you will select any of the mentioned stores, it will show you more details about that store. For e.g. its opening and closing hours, address, phone number, fax number, its directions from your current location etc.

-Steps Taken to Enhance System Performance
• Implementation of Load Balancer, WAS Clustering, and Database Migration helped totally reduce downtime of the website during busy hours and ultimately improves the performance of the website.
• New attractive website design tempts customers to stay long on the website for the purchasing and helped them to complete the buying process with minimal time.
• Store Locator helps customers locate nearest store and reserve products in the store.
• Precision Targeted Marketing features and custom promotions help business users to retain customers.
• Numerous visitors have been increased and hits on the site almost doubled after utilizing Search Engine Optimization features.
• Scripts to automate the cleanup of Operational Data help reduce potential future performance and downtime risks.

-(In Process) Activities in Collaboration with WebSphere Commerce Gurus
• ESB integration with WebSphere Commerce will help update all applications including WebSphere Commerce in a timely manner.
• Become competitive by Migrating All Australian and New-Zealand stores to WebSphere Commerce 7.0 environment.
• Become Market leaders within Office Products domain by adopting Web 2.0 feature rich starter stores such as Elite and Madison for their B2B and B2C model stores.
• Increase Sales by starting new stores within South African region
• Since Office national visitors have been increasing very fast, now it has become very difficult for them to manage the entire infrastructure independently, therefore our outstanding performance impressed them to hire us for
Providing 24/7 support for their development and infrastructural environment for better performance.

DDFC (Pvt.) Ltd. has been one of the leading engineering manufacturing solutions companies in Pakistan for over 30 years. With its evolving IT and business needs, DDFC required a solution that would bring about workflow automation, process consistency and organizational transparency. An increasing workforce meant that payroll processing and management was an immediate concern for DDFC.

SigmaTec Unify offered a comprehensive, affordable, adoptable and adaptable payroll management solution, which catered to DDFC’s exclusive business and regulatory requirements in great detail. Apart from deployment services and technical support, SigmaTec also looks after the initial data entry, reports’ customization and business process re-engineering requirements. Consultation is also provided as required regarding the effective usage and the business benefit of modules.

The whole organization is now on a signal data set. The result is a complete elimination of inter-departmental conflict, data confusion and time wastage in reporting.

Faysal Bank Ltd. (FBL) is one of the fastest growing banks in Pakistan. It required an infrastructure-oriented environment to update its fragmented infrastructure, and make it easier to establish uniform settings across all workstations.

In June 2009, KalSoft deployed Active Directory Domain Services, Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 R2, and Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 at FBL to make the infrastructure more reliable, and to implement group policy across all clients within minutes. The complexity of the technology’s deployment was such that KalSoft clearly understood that this was not a standalone project, and demonstrated how Active Directory and the System Center solutions would lay the groundwork for future expansion, standardization and infrastructure optimization. KalSoft successfully fabricated the infrastructure stack by implementing a centralized Active Directory, replacing the standalone directories at each branch, and reducing the number of servers in use at FBL from 130 to 14.

The bank can now quickly install software, including software updates and screensavers for marketing campaigns across the business. Its systems are now more secure, troubleshooting has been simplified, and calls to the help desk have been reduced. FBL has improved its service level by 80%.

A Europe-based mobile telecommunications provider, with the second-largest subscriber base of over 20 million in Pakistan, was looking for significant improvement in customer service and cost management to cater to the growth (15% annually) of its GSM business in the country. TRG identified the company’s key challenges: the existing back-office facilities for customer care demands had reached maximum capacity, severely affecting service levels; the business requirement was to reduce operational expenses in the back-office while keeping competitive rates; and to reduce the cost per inbound-service call. The aim was to simplify and streamline operations processes, and increase revenue from service and support programs whilst maintaining brand image, and to increase customer satisfaction to improve customer retention.

TRG extended the customer care operations by outsourcing an additional 40% capacity to cater to growth in the pre-paid subscriber business. It conducted a customer satisfaction survey and analysis through outbound voice - creation of a customer satisfaction workflow based on the client's criteria. It focused on daily/monthly communication, and reporting to the client for greater control and visibility, with emphasis on the implementation of technology and processes in order to enhance operational efficiency and productivity. The benefits in terms of business value include an improved rating in the customer satisfaction index, extended customer care strategies, allowing the back-office to effectively scale-up to support 150% growth in business, and savings in both back-office operations and management costs. The company achieved accuracy targets and service-levels of 70% within six months of go-live against previous service levels of approximately 30% prior to outsourcing, and 83% accuracy for first call resolution.

Pakcom Ltd. and Paktel Ltd. wanted to automate their entire customer care and billing operation in order to reduce the cost spent on time and resources, prevent revenue loss, and run a smooth operation at the country-level.

Computer Research (Pvt.) Ltd. (CRPL) had previously deployed an end-to-end billing solution at Pakcom. Its customized eCellPlus Common Billing System (eCBS) now includes Web-enabled cellular billing software developed in Oracle. It offers complete billing, customer care, collections, accounts receivable, switch provisioning, credit monitoring, auto barring, account settler and various other solutions integrated in a single package.

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) lost US$ 50 million every year to global gray market telephony worth billions of dollars to illegal operators. It had no solution to monitor and block gray traffic, and had not applied any method to reconcile multiple sources of traffic information. Lack of clock synchronization also presented the challenge of mismatched records.

CRPL's International Traffic Settlement System identifies and monitors gray incoming traffic; provides rule-based matching/reconciliation between multiple sources of international traffic information; revenue assurance and settlement process between operators; data analysis in the form of reports/dashboards; a modular approach, and high-volume data processing abilities.

This solution also provides patented algorithms for gray traffic analysis; real-time, multi-sourced traffic analysis; a comprehensive analytics platform for reporting and analysis; and an international settlement rate maintained at all levels. It ensures full accounting of the international incoming traffic minutes terminated by LDIs on all access-providers' networks, and provides a certification process to all access-providers in order to identify potential fraud for international incoming calls.

This solution has reduced the PTA's gray market traffic by 98%, and increased data volume by 40-50%.

Warid Telecom International launched its Pakistan division in 2005. Since then, the company’s customer base has grown from 2.4 million to 18 million subscribers in 450 cities. As the Warid family grew, it looked for ways to streamline its IT infrastructure, accept its environmental responsibility, and take care of its customers. Warid Telecom evaluated virtualization solutions from leading vendors, and chose KalSoft to deploy Microsoft’s Windows Server 2008 operating system.

The company conducted a proof of concept with Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise and Hyper-V in March and April 2009. KalSoft, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner in Pakistan, helped with software migration and hardware installation. Later on in May, Warid Telecom started to implement the Hyper-V solution in a production environment on HP ProLiant DL580 G5 server computers. The servers include six-core Intel Xeon 7400 series processors and built-in Integrated Lights-Out 2 technology for remote management capabilities. KalSoft also deployed virtual desktops by using Remote Desktop Services, formerly known as Terminal Services, and the virtual desktop infrastructure delivery model in Windows Server 2008 R2.

This solution has enabled Warid Telecom to cut its operating expenses by 62%.

Electro Computer Warehouse (ECW) is a full-service technology solutions dealer. It is a re-marketer of Grade "A" refurbished/off-lease computer systems, with a large, constantly-updated catalog of laptops, LCD Monitors, and LCD systems, etc. The business had a physical presence in Canada with no plans to sell to American markets; its main focus was to promote its products in the Canadian market only.

EVISION promoted ECW’s business online on kijiji.ca and craigslist on a daily basis. The website offered computer sales in various Canadian cities, and some time was spent marketing to the USA as well. EVISION managed an online support center, wholesale and the orders’ processing; and also utilized the e-commerce solution VP-ASP, a premium e-commerce solution with a built-in payment processor, tax configuration and shipping integration.

This resulted in an increased online reach through all possible channels, increased conversion rates, more customers, their satisfaction, and a socially-active website to collect feedback and reach new customers. Today, ECW maintains a top position in Google, price comparison engines, MSN Store, Kaboodle, Yahoo!, etc., with 70% of its computers shipped out of Canada, round-the-clock after sales services and prompt delivery.

Danat Integrated Infrastructure Helps Web Start-up Cut Time to Market from Months to Weeks

After launching an award-winning Arabic news portal, Web start-up Danat decided to launch a number of Web sites for Arabic language users. But it needed a reliable infrastructure to support multiple portals and reduce the need to re-write codes. It also wanted to integrate business processes with the Web sites to automate sales transactions. After considering Web content management systems such as Tridion, Danat implemented an infrastructure based on the Microsoft® family of products which provide advanced user interface and integration features. As a result, its first Web site built on the new system achieved 10,000 visits per day and won advertising contracts from more than 60 top brands in the United Arab Emirates—within just three months of launch. Moreover, Danat predicts that it can reduce time to market for Web sites from months to weeks.
Situation

Since early 1990s, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has significantly increased its efforts to diversify into non-oil business sectors—especially e-commerce. This is because with the advancement in digital technologies, and Internet users’ growing demand to shop from home, e-commerce business is expected to generate a large portion of the country’s revenues in the near future. Today, the country has 30 per cent Internet penetration—one of the highest amongst Arab states—and also the highest number of Internet users.

This presents an important opportunity for the local companies to develop their business further. One prime example is Dubai-based Danat. Established in 2005, the company develops and hosts Web portals targeted at niche demographics in Middle Eastern countries. One of its key markets is that of Arabic language users, and in 2007, the service provider launched its first Arabic financial news portal, Argaam.com. This innovative site won the Golden Award in the 2007 UAE Web Awards for excellence in Web design and development in the financial institutions category. The same year, it also won the Microsoft Award for the Best Web Site Built on Microsoft Technology.

Encouraged by the success of Argaam.com, Danat decided to launch three more portals by the end of 2008. The first one, Logta.com, provides information on discount deals from retailers in the UAE and Saudi Arabia. The second, laazi.com, is a jobs and recruitment portal customised for this region. The third one is Beezat.com, a classifieds and community portal. Anup Thomas, IT Manager at Danat, says: “At the moment, there is no major e-commerce portal for Arabic users in this region. Logta.com was our first step towards filling this gap in the market.”

But before Danat embarked on the development processes, it closely re-examined the architecture of Argaam and realised that to meet a target of launching additional sites, it required a more reliable infrastructure. Thomas says: “We had developed our first portal as a customised application using the Microsoft® .NET Framework and Microsoft SQL Server® 2005 database management system. But for our future projects, we needed to establish an infrastructure that could support multiple portals, and help developers to quickly create Web sites without having to re-write all the code from scratch.”

Another key requirement was to have automated administrative processes that could track sales and purchasing transactions on the Web site. Thomas says: “Most Web sites available on the Internet today have a powerful user interface, but content and finance management is done offline—which delays the completion of customer transactions. We wanted to gain a competitive advantage by helping retailers buy advertising space online and completing all the financial tasks in real time.”
Solution

Thomas and his team conducted a comprehensive review of the technology options available on the market, including a Web content management solution by Netherlands-based SDL Tridion. He says: “We finally chose to build the new infrastructure using Microsoft technologies. Tridion couldn’t match all our requirements, such as handling complex calculations, and we would have had to add plug-ins to perform these complex calculations—raising the system management cost. Moreover, availability of technical support and expertise on Microsoft technologies in the Middle East is more widely available than most other solutions on the market. This was very important to help our staff to efficiently manage the new system.”

Early in 2006, when it developed Argaam.com, Danat had signed a Microsoft Enterprise Licensing Agreement for low cost volume licensing of software, as well as a Microsoft Premier Support Agreement for 93 calendar-days of technical support. The arrangement proved beneficial for the company as it could quickly start working with a Microsoft Technical Account Manager to design the new service-oriented architecture. The key technologies used are:

Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2007—to build the Internet portal
Microsoft Commerce Server 2007—for providing e-commerce services such as advertisement delivery, campaign management, product catalogue management, and e-mail alerts to users
Microsoft Dynamics® CRM 3.0—
Customer relationship management solution to provide an intranet portal for staff to manage customers interactions and sales process
Microsoft Dynamics® GP 9.0—business accounting software to automate finance management processes
Microsoft BizTalk® Server 2006—business process integration system to help all the above technologies work together

The implementation team consisted of Microsoft technicians, the Danat in-house IT team of 15 people, as well as four application developers and a dedicated project manager provided by KalSoft—a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and Microsoft Small Business specialist. Graham McIntyre, General Manager—Gulf, KalSoft, says: “A project of this scale takes about one year to complete. But in the case of Danat, the team worked round the clock and took the system live in just seven months.”

The Administrative Processes
Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and an expert in implementing Microsoft Business Solutions, BayaNet implemented Microsoft Dynamics GP at Danat. It is integrated with the business applications on the Internet portal as well as with the Microsoft Dynamics CRM solution.

Advertisers who wish to post their special offers on Logta.com send a request to Danat through the electronic forms on the Web site. Based on their industry, Microsoft Dynamics CRM forwards the request to an appropriate sales executive, who ensures that the customer fulfils all requirements and registers him or her on the database.

On the other hand, when a returning advertiser buys ad space and time slots on Logta.com, Commerce Server 2007 analyses the existing promotions on that space and the network traffic. It then estimates the marketing time available for that ad space and helps staff to easily schedule advertisements.

The Internet Portal
The Web site Logta.com provides a range of advanced services, including notifications about special offers sent to the end-users through e-mail messages and tools for advertisers to track campaigns.

Importantly, the same Web site is available in English as well as Arabic, due to the features of Office SharePoint Server 2007. To meet Arabic users’ content and usability requirements, such as reading from right to left, Danat hired a consultancy to design the site hierarchy and navigation suitably customised for this user base.

The portal directly extracts information from the advertisement delivery system of Commerce Server, which is integrated with the Microsoft Dynamics CRM solution and the database. As a result, the size of the Web pages is small and users can quickly download the data on their Web browsers.
Benefits

Released in February 2008, Logta.com is the first Web site in UAE to provide one-stop-shop promotion deals to users. Hisham Baker, General Manager, Danat says: “Compared to most other competing sites, we provide the best services to our advertisers. No other e-commerce portal comes close to what we have achieved within just three months of launching Logta.com—10,000 visits per day and partnership with more than 165 top brands in the UAE. And the key reason for this success is a reliable infrastructure built on Microsoft technologies.” Following the success of Logta.com in the UAE, Danat also launched it in Saudi Arabia in June 2008 and plans to extend it to other countries in the Middle East, such as Qatar and Egypt.

Web Site Attracts 10,000 Visitors per Day
Within three months of launching Logta.com, the number of visitors to the site has grown to 10,000 per day. Baker says: “For the UAE alone, we’ve seen a 20 per cent per month increase in site visits. We expect this number to go up significantly once we launch the portal in other countries.”

Automated Administrative Processes Support Business Growth
A key factor of the portal’s success is a reliable administration system that supports the business with automated processes. Hatem Omar, Operations Manager at BayaNet, says: “Due to seamless integration between Microsoft CRM and Microsoft Dynamics GP, top management get a complete view of the portal’s progress. Executives can access the automatically generated financial reports through a business portal which is a part of the Microsoft Dynamics GP application and take timely actions to achieve the revenue goals.”

Baker adds: “We now have a competitive advantage in the market. By working with Microsoft, we could build an infrastructure that integrates the portal with internal operations and takes care of everything—high-quality user interface, efficient service to the advertisers, and the right tools to increase productivity of the in-house sales and marketing teams.”

More Than 165 Top Brands Use Portal Services
By June 2008, more than 60 large retailers in the UAE had partnered with Danat to publish their promotions on Logta.com, including top brands such as Carrefour—the second largest retail group in the world, and Sharaf DG—an international electronic retail chain. “We expect the number of partners to increase three times by 2009,” says Baker.

The general manager feels that this phenomenal success was a result of using reliable technology as well as one-to-one interaction with the customers. For each of its advertisers, Danat appoints dedicated account managers who ensure that customers can easily complete transactions on the portal. Moreover, the company also plans to add a tool on the portal for advertisers to calculate the return on investment for their promotions.

Danat Predicts Reduction in Time to Market for Portals from Months to Weeks
The organisation can now quickly build, launch, and manage more Web portals on its new infrastructure as all the required technologies are already in place. Baker says: “Now, for our future projects, we can re-use most of the existing code and only spend time on configuring the out-of-the-box features of SharePoint Server.”

“When we built the financial news portal, it took us eight months for planning, developing, and launching it. Now, with the kind of IT environment that’s available to us, we can shorten the turnaround time for a Web site to just weeks.”

Scalable System Saves Investments, Reduces Operational Costs
Danat plans to launch Logta.com in most countries in the Middle East—especially the Gulf states—by 2010, and believes that the highly scalable infrastructure will easily support the growth in the number of users as well as the content. “For UAE operations, we are only using 25 per cent capacity of the system. It will be cost-effective to expand to other regions as there is no need to make further investments in technology,” says Baker. “Importantly, by serving a large user-base on the same infrastructure, we will also experience a significant reduction in the total cost of ownership for the technologies.”

Training Support from Vendors Helps IT Team Adopt New Technologies
To help ensure that the Danat IT team could easily manage the system, the technology partners provided intensive training sessions for its in-house technicians. Microsoft conducted workshops on using Commerce Server and BizTalk Server 2006. BayaNet followed the “train the trainer technique” to provide guidance to key users on Microsoft Dynamics GP so they could, in turn, train their team members. Finally, KalSoft organised training on system architecture as well as the entire operations life cycle of the solution.

Moreover, Microsoft also held a two-week training session for Danat developers on building Web sites using the .NET development framework and SharePoint Server. It also appointed an expert team, called the SharePoint rangers, who help developers optimise the code for user interface. Baker says: “SharePoint Server has been traditionally used for building intranet portals. So, Microsoft support was crucial to help developers use the software to create a public-facing, commercial Web site.”

Danat Integrated Infrastructure Helps Web Start-up Cut Time to Market from Months to Weeks

After launching an award-winning Arabic news portal, Web start-up Danat decided to launch a number of Web sites for Arabic language users. But it needed a reliable infrastructure to support multiple portals and reduce the need to re-write codes. It also wanted to integrate business processes with the Web sites to automate sales transactions. After considering Web content management systems such as Tridion, Danat implemented an infrastructure based on the Microsoft® family of products which provide advanced user interface and integration features. As a result, its first Web site built on the new system achieved 10,000 visits per day and won advertising contracts from more than 60 top brands in the United Arab Emirates—within just three months of launch. Moreover, Danat predicts that it can reduce time to market for Web sites from months to weeks.
Situation

Since early 1990s, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has significantly increased its efforts to diversify into non-oil business sectors—especially e-commerce. This is because with the advancement in digital technologies, and Internet users’ growing demand to shop from home, e-commerce business is expected to generate a large portion of the country’s revenues in the near future. Today, the country has 30 per cent Internet penetration—one of the highest amongst Arab states—and also the highest number of Internet users.

This presents an important opportunity for the local companies to develop their business further. One prime example is Dubai-based Danat. Established in 2005, the company develops and hosts Web portals targeted at niche demographics in Middle Eastern countries. One of its key markets is that of Arabic language users, and in 2007, the service provider launched its first Arabic financial news portal, Argaam.com. This innovative site won the Golden Award in the 2007 UAE Web Awards for excellence in Web design and development in the financial institutions category. The same year, it also won the Microsoft Award for the Best Web Site Built on Microsoft Technology.

Encouraged by the success of Argaam.com, Danat decided to launch three more portals by the end of 2008. The first one, Logta.com, provides information on discount deals from retailers in the UAE and Saudi Arabia. The second, laazi.com, is a jobs and recruitment portal customised for this region. The third one is Beezat.com, a classifieds and community portal. Anup Thomas, IT Manager at Danat, says: “At the moment, there is no major e-commerce portal for Arabic users in this region. Logta.com was our first step towards filling this gap in the market.”

But before Danat embarked on the development processes, it closely re-examined the architecture of Argaam and realised that to meet a target of launching additional sites, it required a more reliable infrastructure. Thomas says: “We had developed our first portal as a customised application using the Microsoft® .NET Framework and Microsoft SQL Server® 2005 database management system. But for our future projects, we needed to establish an infrastructure that could support multiple portals, and help developers to quickly create Web sites without having to re-write all the code from scratch.”

Another key requirement was to have automated administrative processes that could track sales and purchasing transactions on the Web site. Thomas says: “Most Web sites available on the Internet today have a powerful user interface, but content and finance management is done offline—which delays the completion of customer transactions. We wanted to gain a competitive advantage by helping retailers buy advertising space online and completing all the financial tasks in real time.”
Solution

Thomas and his team conducted a comprehensive review of the technology options available on the market, including a Web content management solution by Netherlands-based SDL Tridion. He says: “We finally chose to build the new infrastructure using Microsoft technologies. Tridion couldn’t match all our requirements, such as handling complex calculations, and we would have had to add plug-ins to perform these complex calculations—raising the system management cost. Moreover, availability of technical support and expertise on Microsoft technologies in the Middle East is more widely available than most other solutions on the market. This was very important to help our staff to efficiently manage the new system.”

Early in 2006, when it developed Argaam.com, Danat had signed a Microsoft Enterprise Licensing Agreement for low cost volume licensing of software, as well as a Microsoft Premier Support Agreement for 93 calendar-days of technical support. The arrangement proved beneficial for the company as it could quickly start working with a Microsoft Technical Account Manager to design the new service-oriented architecture. The key technologies used are:

Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2007—to build the Internet portal
Microsoft Commerce Server 2007—for providing e-commerce services such as advertisement delivery, campaign management, product catalogue management, and e-mail alerts to users
Microsoft Dynamics® CRM 3.0—
Customer relationship management solution to provide an intranet portal for staff to manage customers interactions and sales process
Microsoft Dynamics® GP 9.0—business accounting software to automate finance management processes
Microsoft BizTalk® Server 2006—business process integration system to help all the above technologies work together

The implementation team consisted of Microsoft technicians, the Danat in-house IT team of 15 people, as well as four application developers and a dedicated project manager provided by KalSoft—a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and Microsoft Small Business specialist. Graham McIntyre, General Manager—Gulf, KalSoft, says: “A project of this scale takes about one year to complete. But in the case of Danat, the team worked round the clock and took the system live in just seven months.”

The Administrative Processes
Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and an expert in implementing Microsoft Business Solutions, BayaNet implemented Microsoft Dynamics GP at Danat. It is integrated with the business applications on the Internet portal as well as with the Microsoft Dynamics CRM solution.

Advertisers who wish to post their special offers on Logta.com send a request to Danat through the electronic forms on the Web site. Based on their industry, Microsoft Dynamics CRM forwards the request to an appropriate sales executive, who ensures that the customer fulfils all requirements and registers him or her on the database.

On the other hand, when a returning advertiser buys ad space and time slots on Logta.com, Commerce Server 2007 analyses the existing promotions on that space and the network traffic. It then estimates the marketing time available for that ad space and helps staff to easily schedule advertisements.

The Internet Portal
The Web site Logta.com provides a range of advanced services, including notifications about special offers sent to the end-users through e-mail messages and tools for advertisers to track campaigns.

Importantly, the same Web site is available in English as well as Arabic, due to the features of Office SharePoint Server 2007. To meet Arabic users’ content and usability requirements, such as reading from right to left, Danat hired a consultancy to design the site hierarchy and navigation suitably customised for this user base.

The portal directly extracts information from the advertisement delivery system of Commerce Server, which is integrated with the Microsoft Dynamics CRM solution and the database. As a result, the size of the Web pages is small and users can quickly download the data on their Web browsers.
Benefits

Released in February 2008, Logta.com is the first Web site in UAE to provide one-stop-shop promotion deals to users. Hisham Baker, General Manager, Danat says: “Compared to most other competing sites, we provide the best services to our advertisers. No other e-commerce portal comes close to what we have achieved within just three months of launching Logta.com—10,000 visits per day and partnership with more than 165 top brands in the UAE. And the key reason for this success is a reliable infrastructure built on Microsoft technologies.” Following the success of Logta.com in the UAE, Danat also launched it in Saudi Arabia in June 2008 and plans to extend it to other countries in the Middle East, such as Qatar and Egypt.

Web Site Attracts 10,000 Visitors per Day
Within three months of launching Logta.com, the number of visitors to the site has grown to 10,000 per day. Baker says: “For the UAE alone, we’ve seen a 20 per cent per month increase in site visits. We expect this number to go up significantly once we launch the portal in other countries.”

Automated Administrative Processes Support Business Growth
A key factor of the portal’s success is a reliable administration system that supports the business with automated processes. Hatem Omar, Operations Manager at BayaNet, says: “Due to seamless integration between Microsoft CRM and Microsoft Dynamics GP, top management get a complete view of the portal’s progress. Executives can access the automatically generated financial reports through a business portal which is a part of the Microsoft Dynamics GP application and take timely actions to achieve the revenue goals.”

Baker adds: “We now have a competitive advantage in the market. By working with Microsoft, we could build an infrastructure that integrates the portal with internal operations and takes care of everything—high-quality user interface, efficient service to the advertisers, and the right tools to increase productivity of the in-house sales and marketing teams.”

More Than 165 Top Brands Use Portal Services
By June 2008, more than 60 large retailers in the UAE had partnered with Danat to publish their promotions on Logta.com, including top brands such as Carrefour—the second largest retail group in the world, and Sharaf DG—an international electronic retail chain. “We expect the number of partners to increase three times by 2009,” says Baker.

The general manager feels that this phenomenal success was a result of using reliable technology as well as one-to-one interaction with the customers. For each of its advertisers, Danat appoints dedicated account managers who ensure that customers can easily complete transactions on the portal. Moreover, the company also plans to add a tool on the portal for advertisers to calculate the return on investment for their promotions.

Danat Predicts Reduction in Time to Market for Portals from Months to Weeks
The organisation can now quickly build, launch, and manage more Web portals on its new infrastructure as all the required technologies are already in place. Baker says: “Now, for our future projects, we can re-use most of the existing code and only spend time on configuring the out-of-the-box features of SharePoint Server.”

“When we built the financial news portal, it took us eight months for planning, developing, and launching it. Now, with the kind of IT environment that’s available to us, we can shorten the turnaround time for a Web site to just weeks.”

Scalable System Saves Investments, Reduces Operational Costs
Danat plans to launch Logta.com in most countries in the Middle East—especially the Gulf states—by 2010, and believes that the highly scalable infrastructure will easily support the growth in the number of users as well as the content. “For UAE operations, we are only using 25 per cent capacity of the system. It will be cost-effective to expand to other regions as there is no need to make further investments in technology,” says Baker. “Importantly, by serving a large user-base on the same infrastructure, we will also experience a significant reduction in the total cost of ownership for the technologies.”

Training Support from Vendors Helps IT Team Adopt New Technologies
To help ensure that the Danat IT team could easily manage the system, the technology partners provided intensive training sessions for its in-house technicians. Microsoft conducted workshops on using Commerce Server and BizTalk Server 2006. BayaNet followed the “train the trainer technique” to provide guidance to key users on Microsoft Dynamics GP so they could, in turn, train their team members. Finally, KalSoft organised training on system architecture as well as the entire operations life cycle of the solution.

Moreover, Microsoft also held a two-week training session for Danat developers on building Web sites using the .NET development framework and SharePoint Server. It also appointed an expert team, called the SharePoint rangers, who help developers optimise the code for user interface. Baker says: “SharePoint Server has been traditionally used for building intranet portals. So, Microsoft support was crucial to help developers use the software to create a public-facing, commercial Web site.”

Company Background

Samuel G. and Barney L. Keywell established Keywell in 1924 as a scrap metal recycling business. The Company began operations with one facility in Detroit Michigan, supplying carbon steel scrap to nearby mills. In 1979, the Keywell family sold the Company to Key International Manufacturing, Inc. The Company grew steadily through acquisitions and aggressive marketing. In 1986, Keywell was spun-out into a separate entity and taken private by an investor group led by the Company's current Board of Directors.
In 1987, Keywell purchased the business of Vac Air Alloys Corporation, the largest supplier of high temperature alloys in the world and a leading stainless steel scrap processor. In 1993, Keywell purchased the business of Rainbow Metals, Inc., a major processor of high temperature alloys. Keywell is an established enterprise with fourteen domestic locations and over 270 dedicated employees.
Throughout its history, the company has maintained profitable growth to become an industry leader in the processing of stainless steel, high temperature alloys and titanium scrap metal. Keywell has achieved ISO 9001 certification. ISO 9001 is the internationally recognized standard for quality management systems. Keywell’s state-of-the-industry facilities is equipped with inbound and outbound radiation monitors, as well as one or more X-ray analyzers or other sophisticated analytical equipment for precise detection and identification of every piece of metal it process.

Business Needs

Keywell wanted an Online Inventory System for their clients with following core features.
• Design and build a user-friendly web-based Inventory System to run on Keywell’s AS/400
• Allows Toll customers to easily view, sort, print, download and communicate order & delivery instructions to Keywell.
• This inventory system will provide summary information and Lot based detail data on a daily basis, which will better assist our customers in defining their purchasing requirements.
• Toll customers, such as ATI Allvac, will securely connect over the Internet using any web browser.
• Reports should be in various formats (.pdf, xls, cvs)
• Session log maintenance & tracking.

Business Solution

• After considering several options, Royal Cyber decided to build Online Inventory System using IBM Rational® Enterprise Generation Language (EGL), IBM’s strategic rapid development technology.
• EGL was a perfect fit because its development paradigm can be easily understood by skilled RPG & java developers. EGL enabled Royal Cyber developers with wide-ranging skill sets and backgrounds to apply Web and service-oriented architecture (SOA) technologies as they delivered an advanced solution.

Delivered application in two Phases

-Online Inventory System application developed in two months with all core features required by the Keywell.
-Online Inventory Reporting System
-Design Architecture

Key Technologies and Tools used

• IBM Rational Enterprise Generation Language (EGL)
• IBM WebSphere Application Server
• Rational Business Developer (RBD)
• CSS, JavaScript, HTML

Business Benefits

Helped in providing inventory information on demand; web 2.0 styled web application; reporting & session log maintenance; rapid development of new capabilities and features to meet customer demands; improved employee productivity & customers satisfaction.

A Europe-based mobile telecommunications provider, with the second-largest subscriber base of over 20 million in Pakistan, was looking for significant improvement in customer service and cost management to cater to the growth (15% annually) of its GSM business in the country. TRG identified the company’s key challenges: the existing back-office facilities for customer care demands had reached maximum capacity, severely affecting service levels; the business requirement was to reduce operational expenses in the back-office while keeping competitive rates; and to reduce the cost per inbound-service call. The aim was to simplify and streamline operations processes, and increase revenue from service and support programs whilst maintaining brand image, and to increase customer satisfaction to improve customer retention.

TRG extended the customer care operations by outsourcing an additional 40% capacity to cater to growth in the pre-paid subscriber business. It conducted a customer satisfaction survey and analysis through outbound voice - creation of a customer satisfaction workflow based on the client's criteria. It focused on daily/monthly communication, and reporting to the client for greater control and visibility, with emphasis on the implementation of technology and processes in order to enhance operational efficiency and productivity. The benefits in terms of business value include an improved rating in the customer satisfaction index, extended customer care strategies, allowing the back-office to effectively scale-up to support 150% growth in business, and savings in both back-office operations and management costs. The company achieved accuracy targets and service-levels of 70% within six months of go-live against previous service levels of approximately 30% prior to outsourcing, and 83% accuracy for first call resolution.

Tameer Micro Finance Bank (TMFB) needed a robust, reliable and flexible solution in order to provide new services quickly and efficiently to its 180 million Pakistani customers. It needed a switch that could cater to its aggressive growth plans without facing bottlenecks. The bank wanted true middleware and a platform that would allow it to offer these services via multiple channels and systems.

TPS’s modular architecture, robust and flexible platform has enabled TMFB to launch its branchless banking services, and gain momentum in a short span of time.