Granada Group Plc’s third party maintenance provider, Granada Computer Services, believes its new React Centre and reorganised customer services operation will enable it to take the big manufacturers head on. Moreover, international operations director Richard Ferry claims that the Bracknell, Berkshire-based company’s services are unique – although most rivals can offer centralised expertise, he says, no-one else can monitor computer systems remotely, or keep an eye on such critical issues as temperature and air conditioning levels at any given customer site. Another advantage Granada has over the competition, he says, is that unlike the big vendors now scurrying onto the marketplace to boost revenues, Granada structured around the Data Processing Customer Engineering Plc acquisition and sundry add-ons – has been in the game for years and knows its strengths and weaknesses. This, he believes, has taught the group to be flexible – after 15 years of looking after multivendor systems, it doesn’t simply have to rely on managing subcontractors unlike many of its rivals. Long a problem child, Granada Computer Services is now thriving and as of April 15, it restructured its customer support functions into two separate divisions with the aim of providing a more focussed and efficient service: enterprise support looks after IBM Corp, Digital Equipment Corp and ICL Plc mainframes; and distributed systems support tends to networked personal computers and workstations. The company chose to divide its business in this fashion, Ferry says, because not only is the market going down this route, but Granada’s business is too. Both divisions are based at group headquarters, as is the React Centre. The React Centre is run by 10 of our best calibre people, and houses an unspecified proprietary mainframe. This undertakes the remote monitoring of a customer’s equipment 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It also incorporates a known problem database. The mainframe is linked to detection boxes developed by Granada, which are based at each customer’s site. These monitor and diagnose any problems occuring in a particular computer system, drops in temperature and changes in air conditioning levels. If a problem does occur, a signal is automatically sent to the mainframe, and according to Ferry, Granada can respond within two hours, by sending out mobile engineers from one of the 15 local support centres that span the UK and continental Europe. There are about 230 such engineers in total. The service is also available to those mainframe clients that have on-site engineers.
Remote monitoring service
The detection boxes mentioned above are also linked to a stand-alone personal computer, loaded with with Granada’s own Fixed Site Management System software. FSMS logs every call that a customer makes to the company; tracks and manages the spare parts inventory; manages organisational logistics; and generates reports, which are submitted regularly to the customer. Granada uses these reports to see how well it is performing in relation to its contract. Although the two systems are not integrated at the moment, they will be eventually. The remote monitoring service was originally put on trial about a year ago in the retail sector – one of Granada’s biggest markets – and its success prompted the firm to adopt the scheme company-wide. As a result, it has spent UKP100,000 on hardware and software, reallocated staff, and centralised both core management and administrative staff. There were no job losses or gains. So, Granada Computer Services now comprises four divisions in total, including the two mentioned above. The other two are fourth party repair, which looks after both internal equipment and external customers, and software services, which was launched in January 1993 (CI No 2,087). Although the company has subsidiaries in 10 countries, it still generates about half of its revenues, or about UKP70m, in the UK. Another 40% comes from Europe, although it does aim to expand here via acquisition, and the remaining 10% is earned in the US. Granada’a m
ain markets are retail, the government and the Ministry of Defence.
– Catherine Everett
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