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RemindMe makes little bells ring!

Do your customers sometimes not turn up for meetings, or have you ever found yourself standing in front of a locked door with no-one to talk to?
A ‘forgotten’ appointment is not only frustrating, but also means that you waste valuable time you could have spent doing something more productive.
The same thing applies to your employees, who may have to deal with ‘absentee’ clients more often than you might think. Our solution: RemindMe rings a little reminder bell at your contacts and lets your team know in good time whether or not their meeting is going ahead.

Appointments automatically confirmed

“RemindMe is an automatic telephone system (IVR) that contacts your client and asks them to confirm an appointment that has been made,” explains Philippe Urbain, CIS and IPtel Director at Dimension Data.

This clever little solution was developed by Dimension Data itself and obtains the information it needs from your company’s diary or database. The system simply contacts your customer by phone and requests confirmation of the appointment .The reply is sent back to your diary or database, or else RemindMe sends a confirmation e-mail to the department in question at your company. And if required, the client can also be sent an SMS.

So, if the meeting is not going ahead, the same thing happens, but this time the customer is given the opportunity to make a new appointment, in which case he is put through directly to your receptionist. “Lots of companies enjoy the benefits of our application, ”smiles Urbain. “Especially sales teams, maintenance and logistics companies, financial institutions and hospitals.”

Flexibility is the key

RemindMe can work with virtually any technology,” continues Urbain. “The system can be linked to all leading telephone platforms,

because we developed the applications on Cisco, Avaya and Genesys.

Another major benefit is that each individual user can set and adjust the system to suit their requirements.” RemindMe is extremely flexible: users themselves decide whether a customer needs to be contacted a week, 2 days or a few hours before the scheduled appointment. And if you want to find out how many customers cancel their appointments, it’s easy with RemindMe, because the system analyses what you want and then produces a clear overview.

“The application also runs on a single server,” concludes Philippe Urbain, “and with an ROI of 3 to 8 months, the investment required is pretty small. With the cost of a missed appointment anywhere between 70 to 150 EUR per time, RemindMe plays an important role. ”If you don’t want to handle RemindMe yourself in the company, Dimension Data can also hostthe system for you. Things don’t get much more flexible than that!

Want to find out more? Contact Philippe Urbain (+ 32 (0)2 790 36 07) or ask him for information by sending an e-mail.

New partnerships with Fortinet and F5!

Fortinet and F5: with these two new partners, Dimension Data clearly possesses the sharpest possible weapons for ensuring the IT security of businesses and institutions.

In a constantly changing market characterised by a tendency towards the consolidation of manufacturers and the continuous emergence of new products and technologies, Dimension Data needs to keep developing its portfolio in order to remain true to its multi-vendor approach.

“We operate a very advanced and demanding selection process”, explains Alain Dumont, Business Development Manager Security. “We aim to offer our clients the best products currently available on the market, while at the same time guaranteeing them continuity. As a result, our partnerships always fit into a long-term vision and are reached with leading companies whose strategies lend themselves to their continued presence in our portfolio. Once we’ve concluded a partnership agreement with a manufacturer, we proceed with in-depth investment in the knowledge of its products.”

Fortinet protects against all intrusion risks’

Fortinet is now a Dimension Data partner at the highest level and on a global scale. Based in California, this company occupies the leading position on Gartner’s 2H07 Enterprise Firewall Magic Quadrant. It also specialises in UTM (Unified Threat Management) solutions, which group together a series of active applications for the security of the entire communications environment (Firewall, AV, IPS, IPSec, VPN, SSL, Anti-Spam, IM P2P, etc.).

Covering practically all intrusion risks, Fortinet’s solutions achieve remarkably high performance levels and do so with a striking degree of simplicity.

“Fortinet has forged its reputation through the quality of the results obtained with the providers and its solutions are now

perfectly ripe for the business market. That’s why this new partnership constitutes a particularly timely expansion of our portfolio.”

F5, for web server security

“In response to growing demand from our clients”, Alain Dumont continues, “we launched a research and selection process for an “Applications Firewall” solution, essentially for the protection of web servers. We were impressed by F5 due to the rich functionality of its products and the maturity of its solution. Their Applications Firewall tool can be used in stand-alone mode or integrated with a load balancer, a system which spreads the load between several servers.”

F5 in fact started out as a load balancing specialist and is among the leaders in the field of Application Delivery Networking, designed to guarantee rapid, secure and reliable access to applications. Currently, the partnership agreed with F5, also an American company, is limited to the Belgian market, but an evaluation is underway with a view to its international roll-out.

Comment from Jaak Cuppens, Channel Manager Northern EMEA at F5:

“We are very excited about the partnership with Dimension Data. This cooperation will offer us the possibility to show the Dimension Data customers how we can effectively support organisations by simplifying their IT infrastructure, lowering their management costs and increasing their IT flexibility”, says Jaak Cuppens, Channel Manager Northern EMEA at F5.

“The solid reputation and familiarity with Dimension Data in the networking market offers us a good opportunity to increase our reach out to strategic enterprise customers.”

The Tandberg Video IP telephone literally brings Video Conferencing to your desktop.

Tandberg Video Solutions: doing business worldwide from your desktop!

What do you remember best: what you hear or what you see? Studies show that you only retain 20% of what you hear and just 30% of what you see. But if you can see and hear it at the same time, you remember 70%. So it is little wonder thatmore and more Tandberg video solutions are finding their way to your desktop!

Better quality, different times

“There are a number of different reasons why video solutions are playing an increasingly important role in the business world,” explains Christophe Masse, Solutions Director. “On the one hand, improved technology (sufficient bandwidth) and higher quality (high-definition images) enable us to use more video.

Then, on the other hand, companies these days are doing business very differently than they did before.” As a result of globalisation, people from the same company can be working on the same project in different time zones on different continents. The same thing applies to communication with customers and business partners.
In addition, more companies are applying greener policies (68% of companies according to a Dimension Data survey conducted in August 2009) and seeking to achieve lower CO² consumption. As a result, business travel is being restricted and this means there is a need for new communication solutions.

These days, everything has to be much faster and more efficient, which means that time spent travelling can be lost time. Also, many employees use all sorts of IT applications at home and expect the same comfort and convenience at work. All of which means that businesses are under more pressure to stay up to date if they want to retain their talent.

Just one click

Another reason why video is gaining in importance in business is the need for integrated communication tools that enable us to communicate with one another at the touch of a button (mobile phones, land lines, e-mail, etc.). “And that’s where Dimension Data, in conjunction with Tandberg (and/or Microsoft), can be an important partner for customers.” says Christophe Masse. “Dimension Data is a worldwide partner of Tandberg and they have also awarded us ‘System Integrator Partner 2008’ status.”

Because Dimension Data has an international presence, it is able to help customers develop customised video solutions, wherever they happen to be located in the world. As an integrator, it can also integrate Tandberg Video Solutions totally into the customer’s company network. And if there are problems, help is available round the clock.

“Is there any return on this investment? You bet there is,” laughs Masse. “Since Dimension Data has been using Tandberg Video Solutions, travel costs for our senior management alone have fallen by 20%! Yet face-to-face contact is just as high as it was before!” Put another way, Tandberg Video Solutions mean lower costs and a greener policy. They are also more ‘with it’. What more could you want?

For more information, contact Christophe Masse, Solution Director ( +32 (0)2 702 12 07).

How do you go about protecting your Intellectual Property?

Cost-cutting and boosting productivity are currently two of the keywords heard most frequently in business circles. It means that protecting your IT infrastructure properly has become absolutely essential. Think about it: what’s the security situation in your company at the moment?

ITSecurity: a ‘Must Have’

It’s no easy task finding the right level of IT Security. Certainly not in the current IT environment, which seems to be becoming more complex with each passing day. Businesses and their employees communicate in all sorts of different ways (PDA, land lines, wireless networks, online, etc.) and from all sorts of different locations (in the office, out visiting customers, working from home, travelling abroad, etc.).

And more and more networks are constantly being created with external partners and customers. IT infra- -structures and applications have to be available round the clock – and to cap it all, increasing levels of regulation from the outside add their weight to the overall pressure.

“More sophisticated computer-borne attacks and the risk of losing their intellectual property is also making our customers more aware of the dangers that lurk out there.” acknowledges Kevin Vanhaelen, Dimension Data Business Development Manager – Security Services. “As a result, IT security is increasingly becoming a ‘must have’! And despite the current economic crisis, IT Security budgets remain virtually steady. In fact, there is even slight growth forecast for 2010.

Taking a bird’s-eye view

“If a business decides to organise its IT security cost-effectively and structurally, it is best to option for a cyclical approach, beginning with an assessment phase,” says Vanhaelen.

“That means that you have to stand back from your company, as it were, and take a good look to analyse the way it is managed as a whole. ”To help its customers through this process, Dimension Data has a range of Security Consulting services to offer. “We look both at the overall management of the IT network (procedures followed, standards, etc.), as well as the more technical side of things (gap analysis, vulnerability management, mimicking attacks, etc.),” continues Vanhaelen.

Assessments always have the same aim: first of all to identify the risks, then to examine the possible consequences should an incident occur. Finally, Dimension Data proposes a number of solutions, based on priority. “Dimension Data is able to use its strong technical know-how, plus its extensive knowledge and experience with networks, to delve a long way into the problem and integrate some highly complex security structures,” says Vanhaelen. “However, the main thing is that more and more companies are coming to realise the importance of having good IT security. I see that as a highly positive trend!”

Would you like to use the Security Consulting services provided by Dimension Data? Kevin Vanhaelen ( +32 (0) 2 745 04 45) will be happy to show you how.

Security Graph

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Dimension Data installs uniform network at Alfacam Group

Alfacam Group recently made the move from a number of different networks to a uniform HP Procurve network solution. Dimension Data was involved and worked with HP Procurve to implement a reliable solution that is easy to expand and adjust to meet requirements. We spoke with Kevin Couvreur, ICT Manager of Alfacam.

Q: First things first, what does Alfacam do exactly?

Alfacam provides services to TV stations and production houses and has over 30 television outside broadcast vehicles. In fact, the company has the biggest OB fleet in Europe: 22 production vehicles, fully equipped to handle shoots and recordings in HD.

Alfacam services are frequently used to record large-scale events (sport, concerts, opera, political happenings, festivals, entertainment shows, etc.) on an international scale.

Some of our recent jobs include the Eurovision Song Contest in Moscow (2009), the UEFA football Cup Final in Istanbul (2009), the NATO summit in Strasburg (2009), the Olympic Games in Beijing (2008), the MTV Europe Music Awards in Liverpool (2008) – and many more. The company operates out of the Eurocam Media Center in Lint.This is a media complex that houses 15 television studios and accommodates other media companies such as the digital TV broadcasters EXQI Culture and EXQI Sport. Also coming soon are the EXQI media content platform and the analogue broadcaster EXQI Plus.

Q: Why the need for a uniform IT network?

The rapid growth at Alfacam Group is having a great many consequences in terms of IT and infrastructure. Kevin Couvreur, explains: “Much of our business actually runs on IT. The technical equipment in our production vehicles, cameras, editing units, final control, etc. All of these things can only operate when they are connected to one another over the different networks and IP.”

Until recently, the network at Alfacam Group consisted of a mixture of different systems that had been built up over the years. To meet the ever-changing technological requirements and to put everything on a single line, the Alfacam Group decided to switch to a single HP Procurve network environment. Dimension Data is currently handling the implementation of the entire project.

Q: What is the biggest challenge in this project?

One of the main challenges of the project is the fast-changing environment in which Alfacam operates. Kevin Couvreur again: “As a result of the changing climate within our company, it is sometimes difficult to plan properly and we often have to make major adjustments. In addition to our own needs, we also have to cater for the requirements of certain third parties. When external production companies or TV broadcasters decide to record a particular production in one of our studios, they need to have online facilities, as well as a telephone system and their own network – and of course all that has to be secure and must not interfere with other networks.”

Q: How did Dimension Data and HP Procurve go about things?

Dimension Data and HP Procurve started from a sturdy basic infrastructure on which they could build flexibly. Taking account of future expectations and possible growth in the company, it’s now easy to add or remove other applications and portals. Working within this uniform network, things such as maintenance, management and configuration are a lot more transparent and straightforward than they were before. Whereas previously the various networks all needed their own specific adjustments, now there is just one technology and one security policy to worry about.

Right now, the project is 85 per cent installed. Yet the differences are already making themselves felt. “Everyone is now able to work at the same speeds on the network,” says Couvreur, “and it’s much easier to send and receive large files. There are fewer complaints, too – and that was the ultimate aim. The time-savings we will achieve by using this system will certain bear fruit in the future.”