Award-winning Collaboration: Antenna Software and EMC Corporation
BlackBerry Connection™ recently met up with David Applebaum, Vice President of Marketing at Antenna Software, to find out more about their Business Impact Award winning solution for EMC Corporation. Based on their out-of-the-box solution with best practices built in, it was configured to fit the needs of EMC Corporation — an information storage company that serves as caretaker for more than two thirds of the world's most essential information.
BlackBerry Connection: Can you give us some background on this project for your client EMC Corporation?
David Applebaum: Most of the world's critical data is housed in an EMC storage device. So any kind of outage could be catastrophic. Their critical repair team is one of the most highly skilled, highly driven groups in the company. But they are also the first line of customer interaction, so their effectiveness has a direct impact on their place in the market, on overall customer satisfaction and loyalty —
and ultimately on their bottom line. For them, real time access, very high performance escalation and data interaction are absolutely critical.
BC: What did the solution need to deliver?
DA: EMC has exceedingly tight SLAs (Service Level Agreements) that require 24/7/365 customer system diagnoses and customer access, so they needed to have more optimized and streamlined administrative processes. EMC was looking for a better way to assess tech skills and best practices, a better way to trap knowledge and a much better method of communicating between field techs and headquarters.
BC: How do you approach a project of that scope?
DA: Simple. Key Performance Indicators are precisely what we provide for our customers. We deliver real time mobility solutions for performance driven organizations so they can optimize process, increase profitability and ensure customer enhancement. EMC started deploying our solution in the spring of 2005. And right now, there are 1500 of their sales engineers in around 75 countries using it.
BC: Were there any challenges you faced trying to apply the solution around the world?
DA: The biggest challenge was trying to align EMC business processes across each of their offices. But from a mobility standpoint, the BlackBerry® [solution] and Antenna was really a good match. We brought in an application — a composite solution that included data from several different host applications. This solution enabled EMC to bringing data in from several sources — and then to allow the data to be used by the Antenna solution on BlackBerry devices.
BC: How did the IT department react to the implementation?
DA: They were very pleased with how simple and easy to manage the rollout was. They were also pleased with how easy it was to use the BlackBerry platform as part of the solution. I believe the only previous experience they had with the BlackBerry solution was for their executives' email. If I'm not mistaken, this is one of the most complicated applications delivered on a BlackBerry device. There are over 90 screens, with different access levels for different users. The combination of Antenna and BlackBerry Enterprise Solution™ made it an enterprise class application platform.
BC: Is there any learning you are now applying to new customer requests?
DA: Absolutely! Now we are doing what we just did, but on a slightly larger scale. And we have the experience to do so.
BC: What advantages did you have in developing for a BlackBerry-based solution?
DA: There were two. First, the ease of use of the device. Then, it's ruggedness. The BlackBerry 7290 Wireless Handeld™ is a real workhorse. It can take a lot of punishment without losing data and the battery life is excellent. Its features make it perfect for many organizations who are looking to converge around a single device, with phone, email and apps all built in. I think the BlackBerry device itself is superb.
BC: What's next for Antenna? Any more solutions that involve Research In Motion?
DA: We're really happy with out relationship with RIM. But all I can tell you is you ain't seen nothing yet.
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