Computacentre Plc

In no more than 200 words please describe your solution's innovative use of technology. (Remember, innovation can be anything from an amazing application to keeping your server reliability at 99.99%.)

I have developed and improved a one stop Windows deployment environment which enables 20 plus engineers in our configuration center to deploy a multitude of Windows desktop, server and mobile solutions - around 1000 units per day - prior to delivery to customer site. Images are deployed from within WinPE and each step is recorded on an SQL database, combined with vb scripting, the use of IIS and Microsofts Expressions, the Quality Assurance process is second to none and ready to report in real-time.

How has your Champion IT solution changed the way you and/or your organisation do things? For example, has it led to cost savings or increased productivity and up-time?

Productivity has been improved - Network deployment time has dropped by 75% and server performance whilst reducing server load by 50% - Quality Assurance reporting is RealTime as well as Reporting i.e. Asset Management - Mac Address & UID Reporting. Down time is never an issue now. All this increased productivity and functionality enables a reduction in cost per box.

What are your plans? How would you like to make your Champion IT solution even better?

I am testing Server 2008 as I type. Linked to the new WinPE 2.1 I should see improved networking performance. Also in testing is the new Imagex functionality utilising multicast - this in itself could represent a $140,000 dollar saving per year.

In no more than 200 words please describe your solution's innovative use of technology. (Remember, innovation can be anything from an amazing application to keeping your server reliability at 99.99%.)

We built a process for marketing to give them the ability to produce their own lists of potential customers to be contacted about a given campaign. At the core of this was an analysis services cube which combined all of the customer related data in the company.

How has your Champion IT solution changed the way you and/or your organisation do things? For example, has it led to cost savings or increased productivity and up-time?

We now have the ability to in-source and no longer rely on an agency, which dramatically cut down costs. The marketing team are now able to buy 'cold calling' lists and put them through the system. It saves paper by sending out the right mail-shots to the right people.

What are your plans? How would you like to make your Champion IT solution even better?

Refine the system. We plan to set up a survey website in SharePoint for customers to ascertain what influenced them to buy, e.g. event, advert, recommendation etc. This would then provide evidence about which campaigns to run.

Get the marketing team to champion the wider use of business intelligence in the company. We are now working on a prototype for customer complaints along the same lines.