Automotive parts and accessories company Repco will upgrade its Zeacom communications infrastructure and then use a combination of presence and unified voicemail on BlackBerry devices.
"One of the reasons we have gone to version five is that we are going to bolt on the mobility package," says Alan Hodgson, Repco's Chief Information Officer (CIO).
"We run Blackberries across the organisation because we have people all over the world all the time and one of the challenges we have is making their lives easier. The idea is for our team to pick up the BlackBerry, say to themselves 'I want to speak to the CFO' and be able to see if he is in. If he is, they can call him."
Another tool the upgrade will bring is the ability to offer a single voicemail inbox for Repco staff, regardless of whether they are at their desks or in the field.
"We can now can change to one voicemail message instead of having multiple devices and messages," Hodgson says. "This means customers do not get frustrated by overlap or conflict."
Both the presence and the unified messaging functions come from the new version of the Zeacom product.
Repco has a fleet of 35 Blackberries and settled on the smartphones after Hodgson decided device proliferation was something his IT team could not support.
"One of the big problems we have with any tool is managing it and managing the peripherals," he says. "And who can expect IT to know about 25 different handsets?"
Repco started with the BlackBerry Pearl, migrated to the Curve and will now adopt the latest model, the Bold.
"If you can use a Pearl, you can use a Bold," Hodgson says.