Dutch ISV iBabs Sees Significant International Growth of Its Paperless Meetings Service With BlackBerry

Preparing for a meeting can be a painstaking process, and one which only grows more difficult in larger organizations. Ensuring every participant has up-to-date documents is difficult enough without accounting for the immense amount of time, money, and effort spent on printing and distribution. With iBabs, none of that is necessary – documents can be forwarded directly to employee devices, and staff can communicate and collaborate digitally before, during, and after a meeting.

One iBabs client, for example, printed an average of 250 pages per employee per month. And they had 200 employees involved in their meetings. That’s over 50,000 pieces of paper that might only be used once.

Since implementing iBabs, that company can prepare for meetings up to 70% faster, and host faster meetings, besides. Employees can easily look up past meetings and find out what was discussed, what actions were taken, and how they participated. And more importantly, they can do so securely - and as easily as they’d use any consumer mobile application.

“Since iBabs is very user friendly, our clerical officials explored its functionalities almost intuitively,” says an official from the City of Amsterdam. “The application is easy to use, and tablets have actually replaced the current users’ briefcases containing loads of documents. The app has been made widely available within the municipality to increase efficiency and decrease the use of paper significantly.”

“We have a lot of users in the board and higher management levels of our customer base that use nothing aside from email and iBabs for their meetings,” says Paul Neefjes, iBabs Managing Director. “It’s all they need.”

As one of BlackBerry’s most valued partners, iBabs makes extensive use of the BlackBerry® Dynamics SDK, ensuring their solution can slot readily into their clients’ existing infrastructure, and that it can do so easier than with any of BlackBerry’s competitors. Many of their customers were already using the SDK for their own internal apps when iBabs was brought on-board, and the ISV wanted to ensure they had access to all the necessary functionality to protect their data. As an added benefit, this helped them to bring in an influx of new clients – and that isn’t the only benefit to the partnership.

New Clients: Since partnering with BlackBerry, iBabs has seen significant growth in its overseas clientele. As many high-security agencies were already closely aligned with BlackBerry’s solutions portfolio, incorporating iBabs seemed to them a natural choice.

“Support for BlackBerry was a prerequisite for many of our clients in the US, and even here in Holland,” says Neefjes. “It was why we initially sought the connection, and doing so has actually brought in a surge of global clients. That’s the good thing about our relationship with BlackBerry – it’s a two-way street.”

Ease of Use: According to Neefjes, one of the best things about working with BlackBerry is the level of support his firm receives. Finding the right person to contact about an  issue is easy, and problems are quickly solved before they grow severe. That said, such situations occur infrequently – integration and management of iBabs for BlackBerry is easier than with any of BlackBerry’s competitors.

“The good thing about BlackBerry is that they’re actually focusing on this product,” Neefjes says. “Our developers keep saying they wish every integration was as easy as it was with the BlackBerry SDK. Integration only took a week, and the SDK has never been late with an update. Our clients call us if a new version of iBabs isn’t ready in time, but they’ve never needed to do that with BlackBerry.”

Trusted Security: Since iBabs is used by so many high-security organizations, it follows that a great deal of sensitive data is stored within the app. It must adhere to a number of security certifications, and take measures to protect highly-confidential documents. BlackBerry enables this with ease.

“The most critical thing, security-wise, is when people lose their device,” says Neefjes. “Keeping the information on those devices protected – keeping it off the street – is very important. Having BlackBerry security protecting our customers’ data is extremely valuable. The ability to control and protect on-device information makes it a lot easier for us to sell.”