Warehouse Gets a Bargain with 'Activate'

Auckland, New Zealand

Warehouse Gets a Bargain with 'Activate'

Activate Technologies' excellent record of corporate client buy-in has continued with the recent rollout of its 'Activate' provisioning software at Warehouse Stationery.

The New Zealand owned and developed software has attracted strong interest and is already installed at a number of blue chip customers including Air New Zealand, Works Infrastructure, Auckland District Health Board and Warehouse Stationery. Two other large international installations are also in the pipeline.

The Warehouse Stationery project which was recently implemented to 300 users will shortly be rolled out to all 1200 users within the Group nationwide. The benefits are already becoming apparent: by automating the hundreds of daily mundane administrative support requests, Activate has enabled the team to improve response times, reduce the backlog of work, and look at enhancing productivity in other areas of the organisation.

Mark Denvir, General Manager ICT at Warehouse Stationery, who has over 20 years ICT experience, looked extensively at the available user-provisioning options and found no easy solution.

He said, "The software just didn't exist. For ICT support teams there was nothing available on the market to manage the processes within large and/or disparate organisations. Most software vendors, including the well-known brands, have a scattergun approach when it comes to provisioning software. This is why most corporate ICT departments are weighed down with having to process hundreds of paper forms and email requests for mundane tasks such as setting up new users, authorising access to distribution lists, updating software, sharing folders, changing password requests, and so on."

Mark then discovered Activate while he was at Works & Infrastructure, one of Activate's first reference sites, and he knew instantly he had found what he had been looking for. He says, "Activate goes a long way to addressing the majority of the needs of most corporate ICT support departments. The software works with MS Active Directory to control security and user access and automate identity management within the enterprise environment. While implementation of the software is usually just a matter of hours, the only challenge is getting all of the business data into the system. However the benefits far outweigh the effort involved. By automating the entire user provisioning process, Activate frees up as much as 50% of an analyst's time previously spent handling administration tasks, and gives control back to the business community."

Top of Mark's priorities when he joined Warehouse Stationery last year was to implement Activate. "It is one the easier decisions to make. Activate not only takes the pain out of ICT support, it also eliminates ICT as a roadblock, empowers the user, and directly benefits the business community. Feedback from users is they love it, as the software clarifies the steps they need to take and provides them a single place in which to do it."

Shaun Blackmore, Director of Activate Technologies, attributes the attraction of the software to its modular approach, which he says enables CIO's to manage and automate ICT administration tasks across the enterprise intuitively and without complex and costly implementation. "Activate uses MS Active Directory to automate identity management decisions such as which users have access to what resources within the organisation, and by doing so reduces the organisation's reliance on the ICT department and allows for better corporate governance of business processes."

By allowing users to request and approve IT services online Activate enables CIOs to reduce helpdesk and IT department workload, improve user satisfaction and achieve a rapid ROI.

Mark Denvir anticipates that the potential return on investment from Activate provisioning software will be significant. He says, "At this stage, with Activate being used by 300 users throughout Warehouse Stationery, we have noticed a decrease in administration and support calls that amounts to the equivalent of one FTE analyst. Once the software is extended to all 1200 users in the Group nationwide the benefits will be more dramatic - for everyone in the company, not just within ICT support. Not only do we expect all service support calls and response times to reduce by at least 30% of current levels, everyone in the organisation will also appreciate the value of being able to manage their user access and technology support needs without having to wait hours or days for ICT support to do it for them. Activate user provision software is a must have for ICT support departments that want the benefits of an identity management system without the complexity and cost."

ENDS

About The Warehouse Group Limited (www.thewarehouse.co.nz)
The Warehouse Group had sales of $NZ1.720 billion and profit of $NZ96.9 million for the year ended 30th July 2006 from continuing operations. The Warehouse Group comprises 85 Warehouse NZ stores and 43 Warehouse Stationery stores. The Warehouse Group employs more than 8,000 people across New Zealand.

About Activate Technologies (www.activatelive.com)
Activate Technologies Ltd, established in May 2006, has developed a modular software application called 'Activate' that automates and delegates to business users common computer tasks which would normally require help desk support - such as setting up new users, provisioning new hardware or software, password resets, and management of group lists and directories.

About Activate Software
Activate software is designed to provide an optimum balance of power, flexibility and functionality, as well as enhanced security and compliance, improved auditing and reporting of user activity, and a rapid return on investment. The software, which is built on a Microsoft platform, yields considerable ROI with minimal organisational impact and implementation time.

Activate enables businesses to implement functions as and when they require, these include:

* User Provisioning and De-provisioning
* Password Management and Self Password Reset
* Email Distribution List Management
* Folder Access and Control Management
* Corporate Directory / Phone List
* Services Management (Software, Hardware, etc)

Activate also comes in three language options: English, Portuguese and Spanish.

***

© Scoop Media