Pitney Bowes and Alicornio Africa' Partnership Enables Optimal Data-Related Services For Their Clients
Synergistic, strategic partnerships enable optimal services to clients, and the software industry is no exception to that rule. One such value-adding partnership is that between Pitney Bowes SA and local software partner, Alicornio Africa.
This is according to Jaap Nieboer, Mailstream Software Solutions Manager at Pitney Bowes SA.
“We work in close co-operation on data-related projects,” says Nieboer.
“This makes perfect sense because our knowledge and skills complement each other, whether we’re collecting data, integrating data, building databases or merging them. Working closely benefits our mutual clients. Together we offer leading-edge Pitney Bowes software and services in partnership with Alicornio.
According to Nieboer, in October 2003, Group 1 acquired Sagent Inc. In the wake of the merger, Sagent SA became Alicornio Africa (Pty) Ltd. The following year, Group 1 became a wholly owned subsidiary of Pitney Bowes.
The combined product offering of Group 1's CRM software and Sagent's information integration suite spearheaded a serious development in the information management, document and data integration arena.
“Alicornio Africa has made its mark as a distributor of Pitney Bowes data-related software products, and through its consulting, training and support services has made a valuable contribution to the success of Pitney Bowes’ software in South Africa,” continues Nieboer.
Alicornio Africa’s chief executive officer, Susan Andre, agrees that partnerships are key to strengthening a business’s ability to deliver quality services.
“Alicornio carefully selects its partners, forming alliances where there are synergies. Strong business relationships help our clients, or partners as we like to call them, share Alicornio’s expertise in information integration and business intelligence (BI) via the software solutions, guidance, training and knowledge transfer that we offer in these areas.
These mutually beneficial relationships ensure that jointly we can meet the demands of our pan-African customers and markets,” Andre points out.
“Alicornio's hands-on approach along with out simple and realistic methodology make it possible for the CEO, IT director, communications manager and information analyst alike to utilise existing data and transform new data into meaningful information, to the greater benefit of the company.
“By partnering with us, clients can maximise the speed of at which they prepare information for delivery while minimising the resources and effort required to develop and maintain these processes,” she continues.
“Pitney Bowes and Alicornio Africa also believe strongly in empowering their clients with knowledge to make the most out of the two companies’ solutions and services,” Andre comments.
She adds that with this in mind, Alicornio Africa will be hosting a Data Warehouse Design and Development Master Class for Effective Business Intelligence in Cape Town from 19 to 22 May 2008.
“This course is for anyone interested in learning the latest techniques for planning, designing and managing dimensional data warehouses and Extract, Transform and Load (ETL) processes including real-time data warehousing and enterprise information integration,” Andre explains.
The four-day class will be presented by an international data-warehousing expert from the United Kingdom, Lawrence Corr. He is a leading data warehouse design specialist and highly experienced trainer with over 20 years of industry experience in decision support and data analysis.
About Pitney Bowes
Pitney Bowes Incorporated is a $6 billion global provider of integrated mail, messaging and document management solutions. The company serves over two million businesses of all sizes through dealer and direct operations. Pitney Bowes has been in the mailing business for 87 years and operates in over 130 countries worldwide.
Pitney Bowes enables its customers to streamline communication processes, strengthen their customer relationships, minimise waste in customer communications and uncover real business opportunities – ‘engineering the flow of communication’.
As a full Pitney Bowes International subsidiary, and key industry player, with a large base of integrity sites in South Africa, Pitney Bowes SA understands the mailstream line-of-business cycle from end-to-end. As part of a well-established, global company, they are well-positioned to provide a secure, committed support infrastructure – backed by global expertise and local knowledge – to their Southern African customer base.
Based in Midrand, Johannesburg, Pitney Bowes SA has an extensive mailing industry service capability. Customers include major players within the banking, insurance, medical, mailing bureaux, and postal industries throughout Southern Africa.
About Alicornio Africa
Alicornio Africa has been a distributor of Group 1 Software in Southern Africa and other parts of Africa since 1999. Offering Sagent Data Flow and other software products from the Group 1 stable, as well as consulting service and training covering the entire spectrum of information integration, data profiling, data deduplication, data quality, data warehousing, business intelligence, data mining and customer communications management. For more information visit www.alicornio.co.za