Adept's Use of Information Communication Technology

Adept Scientific specialises in supplying computer solutions to scientists, engineers and other technology users. These are demanding customers, customers who are knowledgeable and who require a high level of information. Communicating this information to them has always been at the heart of our business, and as people who are ourselves interested in and excited by new technology, we have always been keen to explore the potential of Information Communication Technology to improve the service we provide better.

Approach and Action
Telephone Systems
The telephone has traditionally been a primary means of communicating information, and is still critical to our business. With around 6000 incoming and 4000 outgoing calls per month to and from our Letchworth headquarters, efficient systems and usage are essential. We have invested heavily both in technology and in training our people in telephone use and manner, and we are always conscious that the telephone is a primary means of communication with our most valued customers and that their impression of our company and its service is likely to be heavily influenced by the first few seconds of their experience with our way of handling telephone calls. We utilise surveys and customer feedback to ensure that contacting Adept by telephone remains a good experience.
Five years ago we were one of the first companies in the UK to install an ISDN 30 based telephone system. As well as highly efficient automated answering, call re-direction, conference call and voicemail facilities, this offers a number of other benefits that have had a positive effect on our growth. The system is auto-attendant, which means we save the cost of employing a dedicated switchboard operator. Incoming calls can be picked up by anyone, which means that we rarely miss our goal of answering every call within 4 rings.  As well as individual extensions, we are able to use a variety of "group" extensions to direct callers quickly to the right person to handle their enquiry (e.g. ordering, technical support, marketing, accounts), and for specific needs or special promotions, we also have several direct-dial numbers. In either case, a brief text message appears on the handset display to alert us to the type of call that is coming in.
Our business has expanded to the extent that within the next few months we plan to upgrade our telephone system to provide significant extra capacity.

Computer Systems
We operate a Lotus Domino/Notes system as our primary internal communication mechanism. This provides us with email, workgroup, calendar and knowledge base tools. We have found Notes databases to be a highly efficient means of storing and accessing business and technical information and other records. It is easy, for example, for any of us to access details of our marketing plans, campaigns, budgets and results; to refer to meeting minutes; or to search our fast-growing database of technical information about our products (this allows our non-technical staff to provide a first level of support ­ answers to many frequently-encountered problems are easily retrieved, helping us to maximise the use of our human resources and increasing customer satisfaction).  We share this knowledge base with our suppliers across the Web, providing a technology resource for the whole world that our suppliers themselves as individual companies may not have invested in.
Our excellence in providing technical support to customers has been a major factor in our success, but as it is so dependent on human resources it is a barrier to our future growth, especially into overseas markets where language and time zone differences are additional objections to our traditional support structure.  We see our technical support knowledge base as the mechanism by which we can support a customer base many times larger than at present. Its Lotus Domino structure includes the facility to make it available to customers over the Internet, while the Notes interface makes it easy for our technical staff to amend or publish information without having to use an HTML authoring program. The knowledge base will therefore become a resource that users all over the world can freely interrogate at any time; and solutions can be utilised over and over again.

Database
Our Sales and Marketing Database now contains around 150,000 names, and is a mission-critical resource. Custom designed for us to provide us with the tools for better customer service and better communication, the database is used constantly by every member of our staff both locally and remotely.
The database holds full contact details of every customer, prospective customer and technical support caller, and every interaction with them is recorded. When someone calls, we can instantly access the full history of our dealings with them, as well as a profile of their interests. This enables us to handle the enquiry with great efficiency.
The database also provides essential marketing information. By recording every response to our advertising and other forms of marketing communications, it allows us to analyse the effectiveness of individual marketing campaigns and activities so that we get the best possible return on our marketing investment. The database also allows us to profile and select customers for targeted direct mail and other offers; this has proved a very profitable strand of activity for us and is a key component of our marketing mix.

Several times a year we publish our own magazine, Technical Computing, which is mailed to around 50,000 names from our database. The quality of our list and the refined profiling and selection capabilities of our database engine allow us to target this publication very precisely ­ so much so that other (non-competitive) companies marketing into our sector pay to advertise in it.

The Internet
We first set up the Adept Scientific Web site in 1995. We had anticipated that the Internet would become a very important means of communicating information (particularly to our high-tech market), and we have benefited greatly by being among the first companies to maintain a Web presence.
Our Web site now runs to over 3500 pages, and is a major resource for our customers. Unlike printed materials, information on our Web site can always be kept up to date at short notice, and it is difficult to conceive of any other way of distributing so much timely information to so many people all over the world ­ what is more, information self-selected by the customer as relevant to his/her work. Customers can download demonstration and trial software, technical documents such as "White Papers", and updates, patches and add-ons for the software they own ­ all enhance our service and engender customer satisfaction and loyalty.
We operate a voluntary registration system to encourage people to give us their contact details, including email address. This information is added to our database so that we can communicate relevant information, including new products and special offers, by mail or email. Registration also allows users to view price information at the Adept WebStore, our e-commerce site.
The WebStore is obviously a crucial component of our plans to expand into a worldwide operation. It provides a cost-effective means of taking pre-paid orders from anywhere in the world, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. We work with a service provider who use highly secure "shopping cart" technology; after six months we are already their biggest Web reseller. The content of our WebStore is kept in a Lotus Notes database, which makes it easy for any member of our team to add and update information quickly.
The Internet is the primary route to market for our US subsidiary,  Adept Scientific Inc.  ICT has enabled us to manage and support this US company from the UK without a massive financial investment. One full-time and two part-time members of staff are able to service the entire North American market thanks to the technical support, marketing and management back-up we are able to provide through the Internet and other ICT.

Electronic Mail
We have taken full advantage of email to communicate faster and more succinctly with our customers and suppliers. The ability to exchange documents and files electronically has brought us significant benefits. For example, customers can email files or data to our technical support specialists, which can reduce by several days the time taken to solve a problem ­ or provide the evidence that supports a sale. Electronic file transfer by email has also had a positive effect on our marketing efforts: text and graphics files can be received from suppliers, advertising copy sent to media, mailing data sent to our fulfilment house ­ all much faster than having to rely on postal, courier or messenger services, so we can implement campaigns faster and sooner, and put our message to the market more effectively and expeditiously.
The growth in Internet and email usage has given us the opportunity to set up and host Web-based "mailing lists" ­ technical discussion groups for specified software programs. Analogous to private "Usenet" groups with all communication by direct email, these often lively groups allow users all over the world to help each other, share experiences and solutions to problems, and help specify the development of the product. Through these lists we are building worldwide communities of users (a recent example saw a user in New Zealand amplifying a solution that a user is the USA had offered in response to a user in Scandinavia), establishing contacts in other countries and identifying our company with our key products internationally, at very little cost ­ all very valuable in our move towards becoming a worldwide supplier.
Email is a very cost-effective form of marketing communications, and one that enables us to deliver our message anywhere in the world. We take great care to email only relevant information, and always to give recipients the opportunity to opt out of receiving further communications from us. We see email as a prime marketing tool in the future, perhaps eventually replacing traditional direct mail.

Marketing Systems
Adept Scientific is a marketing-driven company, and we have invested substantially in industry-standard systems, for example in computer hardware and software for in-house graphic design and production. The use of state-of-the-art technology brings us a number of benefits in addition to the ability to produce more and better marketing materials. Because our creative resources are in-house, we have more control, less dependence on outside agencies and the flexibility to re-prioritise easily when necessary.
We often use these resources to develop creative and marketing materials in partnership with our supplies who in turn use them in their domestic and worldwide marketing campaigns.  We use communication technologies to discuss, review and refine the marketing pieces we develop, without having to fly out to meet with our suppliers.


Videoconferencing
We have invested in videoconferencing facilities which have proved valuable in our communication with suppliers, most of whom are located in North America. Though not used as a replacement for telephone, email or fax in everyday communication, a videoconference allows us to have more frequent "face to face" meetings that make important discussions easier and reinforce the personal contact that is so important in business relationships. The cost of the system was recovered within a year by savings in travel expenses.

Teleworking
The opportunities provided by ICT are not confined to communication with customers and suppliers: they make it possible for us to work, where appropriate, at remote locations. As well as email, we have implemented technologies that allow us to access our Lotus Notes-based resources, and our network resources, including the database, remotely. The latter has been made possible by our recent investment in a firewall that provides the security and has allowed us to implement a virtual private network.
In the past, one factor limiting our growth has been the difficulty in recruiting people locally with the right skill sets and technical expertise. Now we have the option of considering people from outside the area who may be able to work part or all of the time from home. Our UNIX systems manager is located in North Carolina, USA, and manages our Web, FTP and mail servers remotely.
Thanks to affordable ISDN technology, we have been able to re-locate a key member of staff to the North of England, so that she can establish better contacts in a geographical area with a significant concentration of our major customers. This is an important step in our expansion which we have been able to achieve without the cost of setting up a subsidiary office with duplicate systems; and it has allowed us to offer career development to a key staff member, who is nonetheless able to remain very much a part of the team.
Other key members of staff can also work from home when necessary, for example on projects that demand a degree of concentration that is not easy to achieve in a busy office. Indeed, teleworking technology has on several occasions allowed someone to continue working during minor illnesses that have prevented them coming into the office. The technology gives us far more flexibility in the recruitment and deployment of personnel.