Today our call center personnel can work from anywhere. Our center’s support applications are Internet-based. In the early 90’s, when Symbolic provided a call center to support Ciba-Geigy’s nationwide sales force (now part of Novartis), no one could get to the office; it was labeled “the storm of the century.” Fortunately, our disaster plan included call forwarding from our 800 line, home-based remote connections to the network and application sharing for our call center staff members just in case an emergency arose. The Ciba-Geigy sales reps never had any idea that the call center wasn’t in full operation. Our service was uninterrupted, except for postal mail, which wasn’t delivered that day!

When Sealand Relocated, It's Development Team Didn't

Sealand was relocating to North Carolina within three months. None of the development team accepted the relocation package. At the time, Sealand was two years into a three-year development and five-year implementation project. All seaport operations were being automated, including the management of trucks and containers entering and leaving the yard, container placement in the yard and on vessels, and all of the business and financial operations associated with this activity. At the time Symbolic was called, the system was partially implemented in two ports and slated for a worldwide rollout over the next few years.

Sealand engaged Symbolic to document the system. A new development and support team had not yet been hired and very little of the original specifications were accurate.

Symbolic brought in a programming and technical documentation development group. We documented the server side (SQL Server), the client side (PowerBuilder), the integration of databases and applications, and the cellular communications system used to provide input from hand-held devices. Since the development team was new, we also developed a video showing how the system was used from the trucker’s and the port user’s point of view. In this way, the new team would not only have the underlying technical information they’d need to continue the project, they’d have an understanding of the business of running a seaport, and a real life view of how the system fit into the company’s business objectives.