Compu-Clearing sets up support centre in Cape Town

The freight system specialist Compu- Clearing is set to reappear on the business stage in the Western Cape, according to chairman Arnold Garber. And it is changing technology that has driven the ‘in-out-in again’ history of the company’s presence in the Cape province. “It was technology that made us close the original Cape Town office,” Garber told FTW, “and it is technology again that makes us re-open it.” Back in the 1980s, Compu-Clearing decided to open an office in the Mother City for two reasons. “The first reason 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 Cape Town, it made no sense. So we decided to set up a server room there.” The second reason was that the company wanted to have a help desk there. “Back in the 80s,” 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 then technology changed. Firstly, Telkom introduced its ‘frame relay network’, and customers in Cape Town only needed to have a line to the nearest node – which was usually in the same suburb where they had their offices. “That,” said Garber, “eliminated the need for having a server in Cape Town, and we could concentrate all our computing power in Johannesburg. “As far as the help desk was concerned, because the one in Cape Town was necessarily smaller than the one in Johannesburg, many of the queries where simply referred to Johannesburg and the Cape Town help desk became a staging post. This introduced potential delays and loss of information on the way. “At the same time, customers began to directly phone our help desk in Johannesburg and so there was no need for a help desk in Cape Town.” But now there has been a new technological development which has made Compu-Clearing again look at opening an office in Cape Town. This is due to the development of the Internet and of programmes such as ‘Go To Meeting’ or ‘Team Viewer’, according to Garber. “It is now perfectly possible to run training for people in Cape Town with the trainer being in Johannesburg,” he said. So Compu-Clearing has set up a training and support centre in Cape Town - which will run all the company’s courses, but with the trainers in Johannesburg. “It works fantastically well,” said Garber. “You sit in a boardroom in Cape Town with a big screen and with loud speakers – and you can converse and interact with the trainer without any difficulties.” The official opening of the company’s centre in Cape Town is still waiting for air-conditioning to be installed and some partitions to be sorted out, according to Garber. “But, as soon as everything is ready, Compu-Clearing will do what it does when there is something happy happening – have a party!”