A call for critical information access

Global Vantedge, a contact center for telecom and banking institutions needed to deploy a technology solution that would allow safe and secure access to client and customer data. It deployed a suite of applications based on Microsoft technologies and now enjoys better information integration with its clients.

by Soutiman Das Gupta

Global Vantedge (GV), a US-based company set up an offshore contact center in Gurgaon, and specializes in credit and receivable management services for leading telecom and banking institutions.

The company's key requirement was to set up a system that would allow access to its clients' servers and external databases without compromising the integrity of the data. This would provide GV, critical customer information, which is essential for its specialized job functions.

It developed a range of Microsoft-based solutions to address the issues. And the company now enjoys benefits like integration with applications across multiple platforms, security, reliability, and cost savings.

Services

GV's primary focus is the niche market of collections and receivables in USA. It makes calls to the credit card defaulters, organizes delinquency collections, and post charge-off recoveries. And it carries out functions like application processing, credit decisioning, and dispute resolution for its clients.

"We aim to become an extension of our clients' teams in order to ensure that they have the information and control they need without the hassles of building and managing one," said Anil Kapilashrami.

And in that regard, Kapilashrami talks especially about the company's need to offer quantitative analytics. This helps to leverage customer data effectively with the help of analytic and data-management tools.

Critical need

"Our critical need was to access the systems of our clients for key information on their customers. We also had to receive and provide feeds to service bureaus, and integrate the customer information with other repositories,” said Kapilashrami. "We required a system that could talk to the various client's database and systems, and integrate the required data without compromising its integrity."

Business needs

The company uses an integrated Collections Management System & Dialer infrastructure to access and store vital client information. The integrated system is used to contact a minimum of 100,000 customers per day.

The Dialer software can access a defaulter's contact details from a client database and create its own directory. It is responsible for connecting the customer care executive to the recommended customers for the pre-determined period. This integrated system needed a reliable and secure database engine.

GV had to ensure accuracy of the information that it received and shared with its bank card and telecom customers. It thus required a solution with a reliable platform, which could analyze the existing data effectively and provide the required information to the employees. This would help reduce downtime for processing.

E-mail is the most cost efficient and effective mean of communication for the organization since the company's Head Office (HO) and clients are in USA. It thus needed a communications infrastructure, which could help share mail and messages.

The solution at the center

The company deployed a suite of applications based on Microsoft technologies which included database management, email, and clustering. The solutions are deployed on Windows 2000 Server, SQL Server 2000, and Exchange Server 2000 using the Microsoft development environment.

The features of the solution are:

• Active Directory, file and print servers and terminal service. This allows the IT administrator to manage the users, groups, printers, and computers.
• A database engine to protect all the vital client and customer information based on SQL Server 2000.
• The solution is clustered with Windows 2000 Advanced Server and SQL 2000 Enterprise.
• The collaboration suite is based on Exchange Server 2000.
• SQL Server 2000 using Windows 2000 and Visual Studio as the development platform.
• Visual Studio as the primary development platform. Applications developed so far range from integrating the remote collection systems with Dialer to generating various reports for analyzing day to day business processes.

How it helps

"The solution provides us a lot of data integrity," claimed Kapilashrami. The database engine on Microsoft SQL Server 2000 allows GV to protect vital client information and access without any modifications.

The Collection System has been implemented on a clustered environment, and thus provides availability, good performance, and data integrity. "The company has experienced a dramatic increase in productivity and a three fold increase in cost saving by implementing this system."

The collaborated mail infrastructure now offers reliable service. With centralization of all its processes, the mail server can be controlled from one location.

"The company now also needs less time to market its solutions and services," said Kapilashrami.

Future plans

In future the company plans to develop new applications based on the Microsoft .NET platform. It is in the process of deploying HR management systems and will deploy other in-house applications in the near future.

Soutiman Das Gupta can be reached at soutimand@networkmagazineindia.com