This document provides summaries of events at Intergen and discusses technologies the company has been working on with Microsoft. It includes: 1. An update on Intergen's Christchurch office after the earthquake, which is temporarily operating from portacoms on site while the new office is under construction. 2. A summary of keynote demos Intergen has built for Microsoft conferences, including a demo for 9,300 people at Microsoft Convergence 2011 highlighting new CRM and AX technologies. 3. An overview of accessibility technologies Intergen has been developing with Microsoft, including tools to make Office documents and PowerPoint presentations more accessible to those with disabilities.

1. INTERGENITES OUT & ABOUT >> 2
THE ART OF STORYTELLING >>
6TOP TEN TRENDS CRM >>
7
8INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT - RETAIL
9THOUGHTS ON THE INDUSTRY >>
10MICROSOFT DYNAMICS CRM >>
11THE CLOUD: ONLINE SERVICES >>
12
>> HOT NEWS:
WEB STRATEGY >> 3
ACCESSIBILITY >> 4
>> T H E I N T E L L I G E N T B U S I N E S S M AG A Z I N E I S S U E 2 5
>>
MICROSOFT DYNAMICS NAV >>
5
< Copyright 2011 Intergen Limited. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the permission of Intergen Limited >
Engagement in all things
Intergen Christchurch on the move
With our old Christchurch office still out of bounds,
the fit-out for our new premises in Russley Road is
underway and our staff are either working from home
or in one of the three Portacoms we’ve secured at the
site of the new offices in the Airport Business Park.
Building keynote demos for
crowds of thousands
When Steve Ballmer and the Microsoft Dynamics team
need to showcase the latest Microsoft technologies
to the world, who do they call on? Why, us, of course.
Chris Auld shares our latest keynote triumphs and looks
at the art of building engaging demos on page 5.
SHAREPOINT DESIGN >>
Recent events have reminded us that Mother
Nature has her own plans. We’ve had numerous
customers and staff directly affected by the
recent natural disasters in Queensland
and Christchurch; the after effects are
immense, and will continue to be.
We were very lucky in that none of our Christchurch
staff or their families were injured in the earthquake
but the disruption to people’s lives has been
significant. Our staff have been fantastic throughout
this period. Outwardly it is business as usual despite the
difficult circumstances, both at work and at home.
You will see throughout this issue of SMARTS continuing
evidence of us moving from being purely a technology vendor to
being much more focused on our clients’ business outcomes. Technology is
still our passion, but what really excites us is the things that it can do to help
our clients reach their potential.
Our Engaged Web Report shows how, by engaging with their website visitors,
organisations can greatly enhance the benefit they gain from their website.
This is less about the content management solution you choose and more
about how you use the tools and techniques available to deliver to your users.
We’re lucky that, as part of the 360 degree relationship we have with
Microsoft, we get to do work for them that is exciting, innovative
and, in many cases, high pressured and high profile. Over the
past year we’ve developed a number of cool demos for keynote
speeches at some of Microsoft’s biggest conferences. Working
with the very early releases of products can be a minefield
but the experience our developers and consultants
gain is invaluable. We also develop a lot of training
material and samples that are used to train developers
and consultants worldwide on how to use the new systems.
This, again, is very rewarding for our staff and a great educational
opportunity.
2011 is well and truly underway. I hope we can put the shaky start behind us
and look forward to a more stable year. We look forward to understanding
your plans for the remainder of the year and helping you to help your
organisation reach its potential.
tony.stewart@intergen.co.nz

2. >>2 >> I N T E R G E N I T E O U T & A B O U T < S M A R T S - T H E I N T E L L I G E N T B U S I N E S S M A G A Z I N E . I S S U E T W E N T Y F I V E >
>> INTERGENITE:
Cheryl Adams
What do you do?
I’m the General Manager in Dunedin,
responsible for the growth and success of our
Dunedin office. It’s my job to empower the
amazing team we’ve got here in Dunedin to
deliver outstanding value to our clients.
How do you make a difference?
I love solving problems and delivering
results, analysing complex problems and
extracting the essential issues. I develop
strong relationships based on respect and
trust and am dedicated to using resources
efficiently. I use these attributes every day,
be it helping a graduate developer embark
on their career or working with clients to
determine the best path forward.
What do you love about your job?
Intergen has upwards of 270 enthusiastic,
intelligent and articulate people who all
take real ownership of the projects they’re
working on. That, alongside the awesome
efficacy of a mature Project Management
Office and the real focus on strong
customer relationships, makes coming to
work every day an absolute pleasure.
A bit about yourself…
Born a farmer’s daughter in Mid Canterbury
I now live on a ‘no-lifestyle’ block just out of
Port Chalmers with my partner and two pre-
school boys. I love the South Island of New
Zealand and seize any opportunity to be
out in it – tramping, fishing, boating, diving,
running, biking or just plain old relaxing.
9
1. Dressed to the nines Clockwise from left: Faranak Torabi,
Greg Olsen, Phil Warin and Aben Samuel enjoy a day at the
Auckland Cup.
2. This year’s grad intake hits the bowling alley.
3. Catch of the day. Joe Newton shows off his haul after a day on
the Auckland Harbour.
4. Lee Herd dons his whites for the Wellington Social Club cricket
match.
5. Entries in the Northern Region photo competition.
6. Mel Highet shows how it’s done on the golf course.
7. A good excuse for a barbie. Andrew Watson celebrates a
successful project launch.
8. Cramped (but fortunately temporary) quarters. The
Christchurch office Portacom.
9. Nik Johnson gets some bowling tips from Glen McGrath.
1 2 3
4 5
8
6 7

3. >>3>> W E B S T R A T E G Y < S M A R T S - T H E I N T E L L I G E N T B U S I N E S S M A G A Z I N E . I S S U E T W E N T Y F I V E >
And the name of the game is engagement
Intergen launches the Engaged Web in
New Zealand Report
March for us was all about the Engaged Web. Of course, we’re always about
web engagement, any month of the year, but in March we launched the
Engaged Web in New Zealand Report, a survey of 50 of New Zealand’s top
(most highly trafficked) websites across 10 sectors (Automotive, Business &
Finance, education, Entertainment, Food & Beverage, Government, Health &
Medical, Lifestyle, News & Media, Shopping & Classifieds). We partnered with
Experian Hitwise and received their data for the study, and used EPiServer’s
Engaged Web methodology as the basis for our investigation into the
engagement levels of some of our best known and most frequently visited sites.
Why did we do it?
Gone are the days when a company’s web presence could thrive merely as a
static shop window or an online brochure rack stuffed full of information.
If you’re failing to really engage with your website visitors, you’re missing out on
huge opportunities. But how do you know what you’re missing out on? What
websites are engaging well, and in which sectors? With no benchmark study of
this kind in New Zealand, we decided to find out the answers to these questions,
and to provide practical and constructive tips and tricks using real examples.
What did we find?
In a nutshell we found that kiwi businesses could be doing more to engage
and interact with their customers online.
While 75% of the websites benchmarked featured an online community, the
majority of these were using Facebook or Twitter. 48% of these major sites did
not have a blog and only 45% allowed visitors to share website content.
In general, the websites made strong use of multimedia (81% of websites),
personalisation (87% of websites) and sticky content (98% of websites), but
lacked other forms of engagement. Email, phone and web forms were still the
most commonly advertised contact channels, despite the rise in popularity
of online channels such as Facebook and Twitter. 60% of the sites promoted
their Facebook page on their homepage.
>>3
Giles Brown is Intergen’s Web Strategist
What does it mean? What learnings can we take from the results?
While many of New Zealand’s most popular websites strive to continually
improve the level of engagement they provide, many other sites are still
too static and are missing opportunities to do business online. The sites
we benchmarked were some of New Zealand’s most popular websites.
They attract huge audiences, but in some cases they aren’t allowing users
to interact through the tools many people would expect, such as blogs,
communities or social media.
The best websites are those that stay restless and continually improve
themselves. There is no such thing as a finished website, and these interactive
tools allow businesses to constantly update their content and engage with
their audience. In many ways, launching or relaunching your site is easy, it’s
what’s you do in the weeks and months that follow that counts. Too many
companies take a “launch and leave” approach with their website, which
results in stagnation and poor engagement.
While there are some excellent websites, many organisations are still stuck
in a ‘project delivery’ mindset, where their website is seen as something
they ‘do’ rather than something they should ‘nurture and grow’. This is a
dangerous position to be in. The online environment is an incredibly fickle
and transitory place, so if your website isn’t moving with your audience,
they can and will go elsewhere.
So… the moral of the story? Don’t be afraid
to engage. As a web user yourself, you know
what works. Even if you’re not consciously
noting it at the time, you know when a
website is engaging you. The same principles
apply for your own business website.
Go forth and connect.
Want to read the report for yourself? You
can download it for free at: www.intergen.
co.nz/engagedweb
Want a good old fashioned hard copy of
the report? Email marketing@intergen.
co.nz with your name and address, telling
us you’d like to get your hands on a copy (or
several).
giles.brown@intergen.co.nz
Entertainment, Automotive, and News & Media websites were most likely
to have engaging features, while Government and Food & Beverage sector
websites were found to be less engaging.
100
80
60
40
20
0
Mutlimedia
OnlineCommunities
Personalisation
StickyContent
Blogs
SocialMedia
Dialogue
40
80
62
80
39 32
70
Engaged Web results across all 10 sectors surveyed.

4. >>4 >> A C C E S S I B I L I T Y < S M A R T S - T H E I N T E L L I G E N T B U S I N E S S M A G A Z I N E . I S S U E T W E N T Y F I V E >
To me, with equal opportunities engagement
in mind, one of the most interesting things I
noted throughout the coverage of the aftermath
of Christchurch’s earthquake was that each of
the televised daily briefings included a live sign
language translation.
We’re lucky in what we do here at Intergen. We get to build stuff that helps
people in their daily lives, and a big part of this involves making technology
accessible to everyone. We’ve long been about embracing accessibility in the
things we build. And to that end it’s refreshing to see – and be a part of – new
solutions that offer far greater accessibility features without scrimping on
functionality.
For the longest time, particularly in government circles, with web standards
guidelines dictating a suite of restrictions in the name of accessibility, people
shied away from rich technologies, choosing to opt instead for pared back
technology. By working closely with Microsoft on accessibility features that are
destined to become part and parcel of our most-used daily productivity tools,
we’ve been able to prove that it’s not a case of either/or. You really can have
the best of both worlds.
Here’s what we’ve been working on with Microsoft, with accessibility in mind.
DAISY add-in
Save as Daisy for Office 2010 helps you convert Word Open XML files to the
Digital Accessible Information System (DAISY) format. DAISY powers digital
talking books and compatible software and Braille readers for people with
print disabilities or limited vision.
With Save as DAISY for Office 2010, you can transform Word 2003, 2007 and
2010 Open XML documents into accessible multimedia formats for people
who can’t read print. These formats include synchronised text and .MP3 audio
that can be played directly within Windows 7 or DAISY XML, which works with
compatible software readers and talking book/Braille devices.
ButtercupReader
The first of our forays into accessible software, ButtercupReader is a
Silverlight application that allows visually impaired people to read DAISY
talking books and better access the information contained within Word
documents. No special hardware required, and no cost to the user. The only
thing needed is Microsoft Silverlight, which is free and takes just a few
minutes to download. There are a number of readers on the market, but none
so accessible or easy to obtain. All you need to do is open your browser.
You can try ButtercupReader yourself at: http://www.buttercupreader.net
STAMP
STAMP (the Subtitling Add-In for Microsoft PowerPoint) lets you add closed
captions to the video and audio files in your PowerPoint presentations, so no
one misses a word of what you have to say. With STAMP you can also subtitle
videos or audio files in another language. People with hearing disabilities can
also use STAMP to caption their own videos for those who don’t understand
sign language, opening up whole new communication possibilities.
Bringing technology to the widest possible audience
E Q U A L O P P O R T U N I T I E S E N G A G E M E N T :
SaveAsDAISY Microsoft Word toolbar.
Chris Auld is Intergen’s Chief Technology Officer.
You can download the betas for DAISY
and STAMP directly from SourceForge at:
www.sourceforge.net/projects/stamp-
addin/ and www.sourceforge.net/
projects/openxml-daisy/.
We’d love to get your feedback on
these projects. You can email us at
chris.auld@intergen.co.nz
(DAISY/Buttercup) and
jim.hunter@intergen.co.nz (STAMP).
STAMP PowerPoint captions.

5. < S M A R T S - T H E I N T E L L I G E N T B U S I N E S S M A G A Z I N E . I S S U E T W E N T Y F I V E > >>5>> T H E A R T O F S T O R Y T E L L I N G
Building engaging demos
Successful demonstrations are all about engagement, immediacy and
believability. They’re ultimately an exercise in storytelling. The story needs
to be compelling. It needs to connect with its viewers and to offer real world
scenarios that resonate and ring true.
We’re often called on by Microsoft Corporation to build their keynote demos for
major events. We’ve built them for most of the major Microsoft global conferences
over the past few years. Like many of the projects we build for Microsoft
themselves (they’re among our biggest customers), these demos involve short
timelines and hard deadlines, adrenalised late nights and tireless long hours, with
brainstorms and caffeinated drinks aplenty. We live for this stuff!
With each keynote demo we form a team and we work together to create
a narrative that will really exemplify and bring to life the key technical
innovations being demonstrated. What better way to make an impression
on your audience than to captivate them with a scenario they can relate to?
It’s certainly testament to our expertise on the Microsoft platform that these
projects are entrusted to our team.
So what significant demos have we worked on so far this year?
Microsoft Convergence 2011 Keynote Demo, Atlanta
Presented by Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO and Kirill Tatarinov, Corporate Vice
President, Microsoft Business Solutions, building this keynote called on the
skills of many of our Dynamics experts right across the organisation. Working
in utmost secrecy, even within Intergen’s ‘four walls’, together we created
demos for the latest and future Microsoft Dynamics technologies – CRM 2011
and AX 2012.
The keynote was presented to more than 9,300 people – not the kind of
audience you’d typically encounter closer to home down here in Australasia!
It went off without a hitch and I’m told – which is the best measure of success
of all – that the audience was well and truly fired up by what they saw. Our
GM of Sales, Bruce Smith, tells me people were almost “up out of their seats”
the enthusiasm was so palpable.
Steve and Kirill stressed that the Dynamics vision is about simplicity, value
and agility. It’s about maximising the productivity of your people by taking
advantage of communications and collaboration technologies. It’s about
systems that are vibrant, connected and interactive.
This was our brief, our story to tell, and these qualities were borne out in the
demo materials we created. Real, engaging examples of simplicity, value and
agility at work. You can see a video of the keynote at www.intergen.co.nz/
convergencedemo. The demo starts at 1 hour 45.
Microsoft’s Virtual Launch of CRM 2011
In February, CRM 2011 was officially released into the world via a virtual launch,
and we were engaged to create the demo to showcase CRM 2011 in action. Our
accomplished team of demo-makers got together to create a business scenario
that would really capture CRM 2011’s full potential and get the world enthused
about it. And thus Contoso Property Management was born. It’s a portal powered
by Azure, findable by property seekers via Microsoft Tag or Microsoft adCenter
(Bing Ads). It connects to Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online to provide real-time
information about Contoso’s property listings. Property locations can be seen
through a Microsoft Silverlight Bing Maps control, with handy information
overlaid, like commuting data and nearby attractions. Once a person enters their
details on the portal, a new lead is generated in Microsoft CRM.
And then there’s powerful dashboarding, embedded Bing search, Twitter
widgets and Wikipedia links. And any emails sent through the system make
use of an Office 365 account, with inter-
company communication taken care of
by Lync Online. All the tools the business
needs can be sourced online – no need
for IT infrastructure, just a laptop, internet
access and Microsoft Office.
How’s that for integrated, intuitive
computing at the cutting edge? This was
a truly multinational distributed team
with many members conributing from their
summer holiday locations such as mid-
winter Japan.
Kirill Tatarinov, Steve Ballmer and Microsoft Dynamics in action (above and bottom right).

6. >>6 < S M A R T S - T H E I N T E L L I G E N T B U S I N E S S M A G A Z I N E . I S S U E T W E N T Y F I V E >>> T O P T E N T R E N D S C R M
This year's top 10 trends in CRM innovation Steven Foster is Intergen’s CRM Product Manager
T Y F I V E >
4. Growth of mobile applications and the empowerment of
customer-facing employees
With the growth of mobile devices and apps, businesses are realising the value
these devices can bring to the employee in the way in which they engage
with customers and capture information. Although wide-scale adoption of
mobile CRM applications in a pure CRM sense is unlikely, I do see a greater
opportunity to select specific business processes that can be implemented on
a mobile phone or tablet to improve customer-facing employees’ productivity.
5. Growth of SaaS understanding and impact on business
SaaS (Software as a Service) and cloud-based solutions reached a tipping
point in 2010. In 2011, with the introduction of Microsoft CRM 2011Online
as a subscription-based service provided by Microsoft, SaaS will become
increasingly mainstream.
6. Extending CRM to realise greater ROI across the business
CRM can be extended to drive greater ROI and integration into other business-
critical processes, not just within the Sales and Marketing functions. If we look
at why some CRM implementations fail, it’s often because they are only ever
deployed to a single department and never progress beyond it. CRM needs
to be a long-term commitment with optimisation and improvement activity
planned every financial year.
7. Continued alignment of companies and web experience
Organisations’ web presences will continue to grow, and so will the need to
take advantage of customer data through informative and interactive web
channels. This will be aided by CRM applications becoming better integrated
with web-based channels. Businesses should therefore focus on how they
can take advantage of the ever-growing web, community-driven sales and
self-maintenance of customer data, with their CRM system as a central part
of this picture.
8. Greater choice demands consistency in approach
To win in an environment where data is easily accessible, businesses need to
drive competitive advantage through consistent customer interaction at all
levels and through all channels – whether it’s
the web, a mobile application or face-to-face.
Consistent interaction can be orchestrated
through a CRM system using business process
automation, dialogue-based interactions and
accessible, useable information. Service will
therefore become an increasingly important
differentiator.
9. Customer Data Management best
practice continues to be an issue
Although it remains key for all businesses,
the management of customer data is still a
challenge for organisations and CRM systems.
Organisations need to focus on the quality of
customer master data and task the ‘business
owners’ with taking responsibility for its quality.
10. Repeatability of engagements
A common reason for the failure of CRM
systems is that processes are reinvented for
each engagement and lessons learnt are not
revisited. A well implemented CRM system
and document management solution can drive
consistency, reduce cost and improve visibility
of engagements across a wider user base. CRM
solutions need to encourage repeatability
through standardised processes, interactions
and document management through the
customer lifecycle.
steven.foster@intergen.co.nz
In 2010 CRM efforts were largely focused on
results-oriented activity, sustainability and
customer retention. CRM was primarily used as a
platform for nurturing and developing a better
understanding of customers and using this
increased knowledge to develop relationships.
This was critical to businesses as a result of the economic climate and the
changing dynamics of customers and internal resources that this climate
created. We saw an increasing number of organisations evaluating cloud-
based solutions and starting to use social media.
1. Social Customer Engagement
With customers increasingly asking why should we do business with you?,
driving brand awareness and differentiation will be key to business success,
and social media is one way of doing this. With advancements in CRM
software and the concept of social connectors, access to social media content
will be that much easier.
2. Streamlining Marketing and Sales to drive revenue-based
outcomes and a move away from activity-based outcomes
Marketing and Sales need to be aligned to ensure that they are working together
to drive the same outcomes – not just generating activity, but activity that is
converted into revenue. CRM systems offer continued business process automation,
greater access to shared data and goals and greater visibility of activity. And, more
importantly, they show how and where this activity has turned into revenue.
3. Greater access to data and metrics at a personal user level
Users today expect more from their CRM system than ever before. They expect
to have access to their data in a personalised format that works for them.
Executives should expect their CRM system to deliver user-friendly dashboards
that can be personalised by the end user and provide visual cues that will
allow employees to focus on high priority activities.

7. >>7< S M A R T S - T H E I N T E L L I G E N T B U S I N E S S M A G A Z I N E . I S S U E T W E N T Y F I V E >>> SHAREPOINT DESIGN
5 things your designer
needs to know about
SharePoint
If you are a User Experience
Designer working in the
SharePoint world, chances are
you have been asked whether
you can make “SharePoint not
look like SharePoint”. There is
still scepticism relating to the
use of SharePoint for public
websites and how much control
we have over branding as it
applies to the user interface.
The truth is, SharePoint is a
great platform for delivering
public facing websites which
have that highly sought after
‘wow factor’.
D E S I G N I N G F O R S H A R E P O I N T
Find out how Intergen’s User-Centred Design approach
can benefit your web or application project.
Contact Mark Delaney at mark.delaney@intergen.co.nz
The following pointers provides some
insight and a few tips and tricks to help
you get started.
1. The role of the designer
As a designer you play an extremely crucial
role. Not only are you tasked with creating
stunning branded user interfaces that are
usable, accessible and a pleasure to use, you
also act as a conduit between the business,
end users and developers. Designers must more
than ever be evangelists for User Experience
Design (UXD).
There is more than enough information
available regarding UXD, however there are
not many resources of this content as it
applies to SharePoint. One of the reasons for
this is that originally SharePoint was focused on
collaboration. The challenges of working with
SharePoint in its infancy combined with the
design customisation limitations made it very
difficult to focus on User Experience Design
(UXD). SharePoint 2010 has dramatically
changed this and we finally have the platform
to incorporate UXD.
2. Know your customers
You’ve probably heard it a thousand times
before. A successful user interface focuses on
customers and their tasks. This is pivotal,
and too many developers do not have the
skills or insight to create a good user
experience. For a SharePoint project, the
inclusion of a designer is a must.
3. The design process
You can follow one of any number of
processes when designing the presentation
layer for SharePoint. You will already have
one. However, I would suggest that you
consider an Agile approach. For most people
the user interface is the product. The bottom
line is that they don’t care about fantastic
lines of code or the size of your server farms.
All they want to see is the user interface.
4. The business context
In order to get the most out of SharePoint
you must first establish the business context
and what level of investment you are
designing for – i.e. low (out-of-the-box),
medium (new theme and CSS) or high (full
custom interface). You can then tailor your
design effort (and budget) accordingly. You
need to define if what the client is asking
for is actually what they need – i.e. “I want
SharePoint but I don’t want it to look like
SharePoint”.
5. Making SharePoint Look Good
Typically the greater the investment, the fewer
restrictions there are around what you can
achieve from a branding perspective. At the
high end of the spectrum a fully customised
SharePoint front-end (i.e. custom master
page, page layouts, theme/CSS and web
parts) is no different than designing for any
website on any platform. All the standard
best practice usability principles apply. At
the end of the day what SharePoint
produces is HTML and CSS, which as designers
and developers, we have direct control over.
Designers no longer need to flee at the
mere mention of “SharePoint”. With the
proper knowledge and tools, designing for
SharePoint is no different than designing for
any website or application. The bottom line
is that you need to establish the business
context and design accordingly.

8. >>8 >> I N D U S T R Y S P O T L I G H T – R E T A I L < S M A R T S - T H E I N T E L L I G E N T B U S I N E S S M A G A Z I N E . I S S U E T W E N T Y F I V E >E N T Y F I V E >
Online and mobile shopping has changed
retailing dramatically over the past decade.
Consumers have taken to the internet, social
media and mobile technology to help in
their buying decisions, and now have high
expectations of what’s available, at what price,
and how quickly. The upshot? Retailers have
no choice but to keep up with consumers in the
new online world.
The NZ Retail Show in Auckland at the beginning of April gave real insight
into how retailers understand and keep up with these changes. Over two days,
they could attend seminars on topics ranging from customer relationship
management to inventory management and converting e-commerce websites.
Intergen’s two seminars looked at the customer journey and web strategy, and
how suppliers are using mobile devices to improve category management and
restocking.
Customers may want to buy online, or they may want to research, compare and
even order online, then make the actual purchase in store. Retailers are coming
to understand the idea of a customer journey, through different routes, to
buying – and they’re learning what roadblocks may stop them getting there.
Customers no longer relate to retailers simply as bricks-and-mortar stores
that can provide the goods they want when they want them. They can travel
multiple channels, taking various routes before they purchase. To keep them,
across all those channels, retailers need to create loyalty, provide what
customers want, when and how they want it, and through an experience they
want to repeat.
To do all this you must know how customers operate online, and how they want
to interact with you. For some smaller retailers, creating a website may be their
first step into the online world. The idea is to engage with your customers, to
build loyalty, to give them a reason to end their journey with you.
Your online presence may start with third-party sites such as Trade Me or
GrabOne. It may also, and probably should, involve social media such as
Facebook and Twitter. Using social media such as a Facebook or Twitter does not
cost a lot, or even any, money; it just requires time and a willingness to engage.
Social media provides a great channel for building relationships with prospective
customers, finding out their preferences, their habits, and gaining their loyalty.
The key is to realise these are not old-fashioned marketing and promotional
channels – if you engage in advertising or hard selling you will lose customers.
Social media success involves getting customers talking to you, getting them to
“like” you and “retweet” you and recommend you
to their friends.
Eventually, you will need a website. A
Neilsen survey last year showed 45% of New
Zealanders now shop online and more than
1.4 million bought online between April
2009 and April 2010. You can’t afford to not
have a presence.
The increasing popularity of mobile devices
such as smart phones, iPads and tablets means
most retailers also need to think about how
they are going to use mobile channels to build
their brands.
Applications such as Foursquare, which allows
users to “check in” when they are at your premises
and provides you with ways of rewarding their
loyalty, are possibilities. But there are more – if a
prospective customer is in a competitor’s store and
wants to check the price of an item via their smart
phone before buying, can they check your prices?
Can they buy online via their mobile?
Online technology has changed the retail world
forever, and retailers today must in many ways
adopt a different mindset from retailers of a
generation ago. But, in one important aspect,
the mindset is the same – it’s all about the
customers, what they want, how they behave
and how you can meet their needs. If you start
from that basis, keeping up online becomes a
much easier task.
daniel.munns@intergen.co.nz
Daniel Munns is Intergen’s Industry Lead - Retail SpecialistSelling smarter using technology
Giles Brown and Daniel Munns look at the future of web in retail at the Auckland Retail Show.

9. >>9< S M A R T S - T H E I N T E L L I G E N T B U S I N E S S M A G A Z I N E . I S S U E T W E N T Y F I V E >>> T H O U G H T S O N T H E I N D U S T R Y
Imagine being able to get more information on
a product by simply waving your phone at it.
Recent innovations in mobile technologies are about to open up a myriad of
ways to interact with systems, websites and people. No longer do you have to
manually enter information; you can simply “wave” your phone or photograph
an image to perform an action, whether that action is to transfer contact
details, be directed to a URL or complete a transaction.
There are two main areas that are increasingly entering the mainstream:
mobile tags, such as QR (Quick Response: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
QR_code) codes and Microsoft Tag (http://tag.microsoft.com); and Near
Field Communications, or NFC. Both work differently, but they represent new
ways of interacting with people – physically or online.
Playing Tag
Mobile tags offer a unique opportunity for organisations to interact with
existing and potential customers.
Similar to traditional bar codes, tags can be easily generated and applied to
almost any surface. The idea is simple: you aim your smart phone’s camera
at the tag, and an application scans the tag and directs you to a particular
online destination – whether that is online content, contact information,
maps, promotions or virtually any other online reference. Increasingly used in
print media, signage and in some online initiatives, tags are on their way to
becoming mainstream.
Tags are ideal in a retail context: when a shopper scans a mobile tag, they can also
receive a deeper level of information that will help them decide about the purchase
of a product. Marketers are also using the technology to provide an insider’s view
about a brand. Scan-to-pay and loyalty rewards offerings are also being explored,
although these options will require integration with supporting back-end systems
and there are many complexities that need to be considered here.
Connecting real life and the online world
Tags can also be used to enhance customer service. For example, how-to
instructions, directions to support information or specific contacts can be
made easily accessible with the simple capture of a mobile tag.
On the way: Near Field Communications
If you’re not familiar with the term Near Field Communications, or NFC, you
soon will be – it’s about to emerge as a common way of interacting with
people and “things”.
Near Field Communication is a set of short-range wireless technologies that
typically require a distance of four centimetres or less to work. You physically
hold a NFC-compatible device near a target, and it works similarly to mobile
tags: NFC targets can be simple form factors such as tags, stickers, key fobs, or
cards that don’t require batteries.
Before the end of 2011, NFC technology will be built into a number of the
leading smartphones. Google’s Android already features the technology;
Microsoft Windows Phone 7 is purported to be supporting the technology in
its next release, while Blackberry manufacturer Research in Motion (RIM) and
Apple’s iPhone are expected to support NFC in the not-too-distant future.
NFC represents a new set of opportunities for organisations of all types. Like
any new hardware feature, the ability to get value from it will come down to
software and being able to develop new features or applications that take
advantage of its capabilities. In fact, it won’t be until the applications are
developed that NFC will be more than simply a capability on these devices.
Pundits have long expected this technology to enable our smartphones to
become mobile wallets, where we hold up our phone to a NFC reader which
then processes the payment automatically. Visa and Mastercard are already
trialling this technology. The challenge is less to do with the technology than
its safe implementation – where there’s money, there’s fraud, and significant
amounts of infrastructure may be needed to ensure mobile wallets can work in
a safe, reputable way.
NFC chips can be produced for small
sums – well under one dollar – making the
cost of these stickers minimal, although
investment would be required to implement
the technology and integrate it with your
other systems.
While the “mobile wallet” may require
significant consideration around
infrastructure and process, this doesn’t
mean that NFC should be ignored in the
short term. If any of these scenarios sounds
valid to your business, start investigating
what’s possible now and take advantage of
the opportunities that will emerge over the
next few months.
tim.howell@intergen.co.nz
Tim Howell is Intergen’s Marketing Manager
>>
Microsoft Tag. Snap this on your phone
and see where it takes you.

10. >>10 >> M I C R O S O F T D Y N A M I C S C R M
The Situation
Spectrum Care is an independent charitable trust
that provides services for children, young people and
adults with disabilities and their families.
Spectrum Care’s core focus is to offer person-centred services and options that focus
on individual needs, working with its service users to identify their personal goals
and aspirations, and help them achieve their immediate and lifelong objectives.
As innovators and leaders in the disability sector, Spectrum Care needed a “world-
class” customer relationship management (CRM) system that would give them an
all-important centralised view of their service users. They wanted a user-friendly
system that would underpin and bring together every area of the business,
increasing the value, visibility and usability of information, streamlining business
processes and enabling enhanced and more timely and meaningful reporting.
The Pain
The previous system didn’t encompass the goals and needs of the whole organisation.
It wasn’t user friendly or reliable and, as a consequence, information was stored in
many different places: within Excel, Access, on paper, in the finance team’s database
and in people’s heads. It presented an incomplete view of the organisation and its
service users, thus discouraging everyday use and suffering poor adoption.
The Vision
Spectrum Care’s vision for its CRM solution was clear and in line with its overall
business objectives: “In essence, it’s all about getting a central view of the service user
and using technology to work towards what, in the industry, we call Outcomes,” says
Justin Walsh, Spectrum Care’s Communications and Relationships Manager.
Spectrum Care achieves greater “person-centredness”
with Microsoft Dynamics CRM
>> INTERGENITE:
Michael Murphy
What do you do?
I am Intergen’s new Northern Regional
Manager, responsible for the function
and profitability of the Northern Region
and building our overall identity in the
Auckland marketplace.
How do you make a difference?
I have strengths in project governance
and add value by providing oversight in
this area. Having been in the IT industry
in New Zealand for 15 years, I have a very
strong network and a wealth of experience
from various roles.
What do you love about your job?
I’m looking forward to getting back to
what I know. In my last role I deliberately
made the career choice to take a sales
leadership role in an area in which I had
no domain knowledge (hardware). Now
I am looking forward to getting back to
a domain that is well known to me and
applying the general business and team
management skills I’ve developed in my
days at HP.
A bit about yourself…
I’m married to Hilary and have two sons,
John (14) and Christopher (11). I live in St
Heliers and came to New Zealand from the
UK 15 years ago, when we came here on
holiday and never left. My main hobby is
football and I keep myself busy outside of
work coaching two reasonably successful
youth football teams.
“The better we can be as an organisation, the more we’ll be able to achieve our vision of
‘People with disabilities living great lives’, and the introduction of a high-quality CRM
system has allowed us to take a significant step forward in modelling our objective of
‘excellence’,” he adds.
Spectrum Care’s IT Manager, Aaron Overington, explains, “By containing our
organisational knowledge in one central, searchable repository, we can gain greater
insights into our people’s needs and, as a result, we’re able to better serve them by
focusing our efforts where they can have the greatest impact.”
The Gain
In November 2010, the New Zealand Business Excellence Foundation presented Spectrum
Care with a prestigious silver award, the first organisation in the health and disability
sector and one of only 14 organisations nationally to receive an accolade at this level. This
success is, in part, attributable to the attention it has paid to its core IT systems.
Justin says, “In order to receive such an award, entrants must meet a wide variety of exacting
criteria relating to areas such as customer focus, leadership and process management and
measurement, analysis and knowledge management. In this regard, the introduction of a
robust, scalable and well-supported CRM system was of pivotal importance”.
Aaron adds: “Kudos to Intergen for taking the time to understand our business, seeing the
big picture and then designing a solution that really matched what we were aiming to
do. It’s great to be able to pull all the data sources together into ‘one version of truth’.”
As a leader in the disability sector, Spectrum Care has already received much attention
and praise for its CRM system, with the system playing an instrumental part in the
organisation’s journey towards becoming “truly word class”.
< S M A R T S - T H E I N T E L L I G E N T B U S I N E S S M A G A Z I N E . I S S U E T W E N T Y F I V E >

11. < S M A R T S - T H E I N T E L L I G E N T B U S I N E S S M A G A Z I N E . I S S U E T W E N T Y F I V E >>> T H E C L O U D : O N L I N E S E R V I C E S >>11
>> INTERGENITE:
The concept of using the cloud to allow computing
anywhere is nothing new. Businesses are rapidly
catching on and starting to make the move. And
that includes us.
Let’s use a few acronyms to tell the Intergen cloud story (because we know
the IT world loves acronyms…)
IBC (Intergen Before Cloud)
Before its move to the cloud in late 2010, Intergen ran Microsoft Exchange
purely on-premises for a staff of 240, with Exchange servers in each main
office. These servers were virtual machines running on Hyper-V server hosts.
With an extremely busy Information Systems (IS) team and a workforce spread
across offices in New Zealand, Australia and the United States, Intergen looked
to Microsoft’s Online Services as a way of taking some of the load off its IT staff,
freeing them up to focus on providing a first-rate service within the organisation.
With Exchange managed on-premise, the IS team had to manage the entire
Exchange infrastructure, the VM platform and the threat management
gateway. They were also responsible for backing up all data and the provision
of secondary data protection. These were resource-intensive exercises which
necessitated dedicated staff having Exchange knowledge and training.
By moving Intergen’s mailboxes online, time wasn’t the only resource being saved.
With Exchange running entirely on-premise, 20GB of RAM and 700GB of storage
were being consumed. In addition to reducing administrative maintenance and
winning back staff time, Intergen has now regained the hardware it had allocated
to running Exchange on-site and backing up 450GB of data.
TICV (The Intergen Cloud Vision)
“For Intergen the decision to move to the cloud was a ‘no-brainer’,” says Tony
Stewart, Intergen’s CEO. “As a Microsoft partner, we’re strongly committed
to Microsoft technologies and directions, and the cloud is a core part of this.
For the cloud, we’re all in – to borrow an expression from Steve Ballmer. We
advocate cloud solutions for our clients, and it made perfect sense for us to
lead by example.”
“By moving Intergen’s email online, we’re not spread so thinly,” he continues.
“We’ve been able to streamline our efforts and reduce the number of
technologies our team needs to be skilled in. This means we can now afford
to focus our attention on future business improvements and on being more
responsive to the daily IT needs of Intergen’s staff.”
As a company in international growth mode, it also made sense to adopt a
more internationally focused IT strategy, with an emphasis on high availability
– business as usual from anywhere in the world and in any time zone.
IAC (Intergen After Cloud)
Intergen’s move to the cloud has meant less time spent managing systems;
less maintenance and fewer support issues; more time to channel and use
more productively elsewhere; not to mention getting back 700GB of disk
space and 20GB of memory.
Support is available around the clock and already has proved useful, easy to use
and responsive. The cloud also offers Intergen far greater agility and scalability.
As Intergen grows, all we need to do is buy additional licences and Microsoft
takes care of the rest.
Tony Stewart says, “We want
what our customers want: IT
systems that are just there,
and that just work, without
having to think too much
about them. And now in
hosting our emails online we
have this luxury.”
The future’s in the cloud, and Intergen
takes its email skywards
Moya Radley
What do you do?
I am a SharePoint Consultant working in
our Christchurch office.
How do you make a difference?
I’m trained in Social Anthropology and
my focus and interest has always been to
understand how users accept technology,
and to improve methods for user
experience.
What do you love about your job?
Seeing the difference that SharePoint
makes to a business when it is well
implemented. Helping users understand
and embrace technology. Encouraging
users toward an understanding of the
business benefits of SharePoint. Finding
creative change management techniques
and training methods.
A bit about yourself…
My husband and I are recent migrants
to New Zealand from South Africa,
landing in Christchurch from South
Africa on September 4, the day of the
first Christchurch quake. We see life in
Christchurch as an enormous opportunity to
contribute to the beautiful country that has
provided us with a new home. I am goofy
about anything with four-feet and was
actively involved in the domestic animal
rescue space in South Africa. Once settled
in Christchurch, I plan to become involved
in domestic animal welfare and volunteer
initiatives in the city during my spare time.
Ben Fox and James Newton-King hard at work
behind their yellow fortress

12. FIND OUT MORE ABOUT INTERGEN:
Auckland: +64 9 966 3070 info@intergen.co.nz
Wellington: +64 4 472 2021 www.intergen.co.nz
Christchurch: +64 3 964 0017
Dunedin: +64 3 477 5648
Sydney: +61 2 8211 0639 info@intergen.com.au
Perth: +61 8 9228 9990 www.intergen.com.au
< S M A R T S - T H E I N T E L L I G E N T B U S I N E S S M A G A Z I N E . I S S U E T W E N T Y F I V E >>> M I C R O S O F T D Y N A M I C S N A V
The Situation
As a full-service
landscaping company
based in Western Australia,
offering everything from
design and construction
to maintenance, and
employing more than 80
staff to carry out these
services, Tim Davies
Landscaping (TDL) needed
better tools to manage their
financial landscape.
Having reached the end of the road with
an overburdened MYOB system, TDL had
identified Microsoft Dynamics NAV as the
right tool for the job at hand, but an initial
project kick-off ran aground, leaving TDL once
bitten, twice shy.
TDL needed a partner it could trust to revive
the project and bring its new financial system
to life. At this point Intergen entered the
picture. With considerable experience in
Dynamics NAV, and a strong team on the
ground, Intergen proposed an approach
Tim Davies Landscaping cultivates a strong
financial landscape with Dynamics NAV
that would bring about tangible results quickly, with the greatest possible
certainty and the minimal amount of fuss.
The Pain
TDL’s financial systems had become “nightmarish”, TDL’s Chief Financial
Officer, Paul Mullins explains. “We just didn’t have the functionality that
we needed for the size of our business. With MYOB we had no visibility into
costing information and didn’t have any certainty that the information that
we could see was correct.
“We had separate general ledger accounts for every department, not to
mention lots of Excel spreadsheets, which meant there were lots of errors. And
the data file was so big it took half an hour just to run profit and loss reports.”
TDL’s ICT Manager, Graham Kimber, adds: “MYOB was proving to be a big
bottleneck for the business. It was difficult to make use of the information
that did exist, we couldn’t integrate it with anything, and only the accounts
department could access the information – and even then we had too many
users for the system, which was all extremely limiting.”
TDL needed low risk, cost certainty, quick wins and immediate evidence of
return on investment. Intergen’s approach delivered on all fronts.
The Gain
Less guesswork, greater visibility, unprecedented insight.
The project was delivered on time and on budget. TDL now has access to
financial information that is reliable, complete and accurate. Information is
collected from right across the business more directly and a true financial
picture can be viewed, drilled into, filtered and reported on.
Processes have been greatly streamlined and integrated with other systems across
the business, including Dynamics CRM and SharePoint. This has resulted in
greater business efficiencies and time saving; for example, payment runs and reporting now
take significantly less time, and time spent on the invoice maintenance process has been
cut in half, with direct integration into Dynamics CRM.
“We’re recording more, and we’re doing it better,” Graham says. “We have
information now that we’ve never had before, and because of this we’re making
fewer assumptions. And while we take more time to capture this information at the
outset, we’re saving a lot of time in the long run, and getting invaluable business
insights along the way.”