Norwegian Coastal Voyage: Ruling the waves
Solution
Norwegian Coastal turned to its IT partner, the Microsoft Gold Certified Doherty IT for help. Smith said: "I know Doherty well and had every confidence the firm would come up with an innovative solution."
He was not disappointed. Doherty came up with a way of using Norwegian Coastal's existing server, based on Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and Exchange Server 2003, to give sales teams mobile access to their email using either PDAs running Microsoft Pocket PC and Bluetooth mobile phones or Microsoft Windows SmartPhones.
'Doherty's mobile solution has given us a competitive edge. Our productivity is up by 10-15 percent, we're far more responsive to new opportunities and are winning more business as a result.'
John Smith, Head of Finance and IT, Norwegian Coastal Voyage.
As a result, sales staff working away from their offices can use either SmartPhones or a combination of PDA and Bluetooth mobile phones to connect direct to the office email server, wherever they are. Once a connection with the server is established, they can quickly synchronise their email - collecting any new messages and sending their replies.
Benefits
Norwegian Coastal's sales team can now access their email from almost anywhere, which has two major benefits. Sales teams can now make much more effective use of time when they are out on the road, whilst travel agents can now be sure of getting a rapid response to emails, no matter where sales executives are at the time.
Because sales staff can now access their email from anywhere with a mobile signal, they can make much more effective use of the 'downtime' that goes with traveling. Smith said: "time on the train or during breaks at conferences for instance is no longer wasted. The sales teams can use them to catch up on email. This means that they no longer return to huge amount of email and can use their limited time in their offices more efficiently."
The greater availability of email also helps when it comes to building relationships with travel agents. Smith explained: "Agents no longer have to wait days for email responses, sales executives can respond almost immediately. This helps to ensure relationships are not tainted by a perceived lack of interest that can come from slow responses.
Overall, Smith feels that the decision to invest in a mobile email solution has proved a wise one: "I would say that our field sales teams are 15% more efficient now, which has to be good news for the ongoing development of the business."