Compu-Clearing to re-open Durban office

In the freight system industry,
changes in technology often
dictate company structure and
policy, according to Arnold Garber,
chairman of freight system specialists,
Compu-Clearing.
Even something as apparently
simple as the necessary or justifiable
location of branch offices can be a
subject of technological change.
And that, Garber told FTW, has
been the case with CC’s Durban
branch, which is now set to
reappear on the Kwa Zulu Natal
business stage.
“It was technology that made us
close the original office,” Garber
said, “and it is technology again that
makes us re-open it.”
This because computer procedures
and programming have changed
rapidly in the past two decades.
Back in the 1980s, Compu-
Clearing decided to open an office
in the port city for two reasons. “The
first was because – for our customers
to be connected to Compu-Clearing
main-frame servers – they needed
to have a Diginet line all the way to
Johannesburg,” said Garber. “This
made sense to the companies that
had branches all over the country.
But, for enterprises that only had
an operation in Durban, it made no
sense. So we decided to set up a
server room there.”
The need for a help desk was
a second reason for the Durban
location.
“In those years,” Garber
added, “the concept of phoning a
Johannesburg number – or even a
toll-free number – and speaking to
someone in another city, was first of
all expensive. It was also problematic
and not the order-of-the-day.”
But technology changed all
this. First, according to Garber,
the advent of the cell-phone and a
reduction in Telkom rates for broadband
calls made phoning anywhere
around the country – indeed the
world – common practice. At the
same time, on the system connection
side, Telkom had introduced its
‘frame relay network’. Customers
in Durban only needed to have a
line to the nearest node – which was
usually in the same suburb where
they had their offices. “That,” he
said, “eliminated the need for having
a server in Durban, and we could
concentrate all our computing power
in Johannesburg.”
Durban then closed. But now
there has been a new technological
development on the web which has
made Compu-Clearing once again
look at opening an office in Durban.
Programmes such as ‘Go To
Meeting’ or ‘Team Viewer’ on the
internet, according to Garber, have
now made it possible to run training
for people in Durban with the trainer
being in Johannesburg.
So Compu-Clearing is settingup
a training and support centre in
Durban to run all the company’s
courses, but with the trainers still in
Johannesburg.
“You sit in a boardroom in
Durban with a big screen and with
loud speakers – and you can converse
and interact with the trainer without
any difficulties,” Garber said.
“This latest technological change
has once again made a Durban
office for Compu-Clearing a
justifiable investment.”