Net Group — Business class IT solutions

Sandman Group Ltd.

Sandman Group Ltd (hereinafter referred to as ”Sandman”) is the leading wholesale distributor of domestic appliances, audio-visual devices, television sets, IT, multimedia and photography products in Estonia. Besides the domestic market, the company is also active in Latvia, Lithuania and Finland where it is represented by its affiliate Sandman Nordic OY. Besides wholesale, the corporation includes PlussMiinus Elektroonika and retail chains of Euronics, and several web shops. The company’s goal is to continue as market leader in Estonia, and achieve the same position also in Latvia and Finland (http://www.sandman.ee/est/sandman_grupp).

Net Group created integration platform to Sandman, basing it on BizTalk Server technology. The created platform integrated all systems which Sandman uses, and most of the business flows pass this platform. The adoption of BizTalk has simplified the business processes of the company, made them more transparent and enabled the company to enlarge rapidly.

Sandman chose Net Group as its partner thanks to the broad experience of Net Group in business integration.

Thanks to the created system, business processes are now faster, there has been considerable reduction in human resources needed for maintaining daily business processes, and data in information systems are correct and up-to-date.

Tallink Group Ltd.

Tallink Group Ltd is the operator of passenger ships, representing trademark Tallink. The company organises passenger and freight transport between Tallinn and Helsinki, Tallinn and Stockholm, Paldiski and Kapellskär, Helsinki and Rostock, Helsinki and Stockholm, Turku and Stockholm / Kapellskär, and Riga and Stockholm.

All ships which bear the trademark of Tallink meet the strict technical requirements of modern shipping trade. Tallink Group Ltd is listed on Tallinn Stock Exchange owned by OMX (http://www.tallink.ee/ee/mainMenu/company/).

For years, Tallink has been using innovaphone VoIP technology. The transition to VoIP was a logical step because high-quality IP network over the whole corporation was necessary anyway. The transport of telephone communications to IP network improved the efficiency of the network, and eliminated costs on alternative connections, and reduced current communications costs.

For an international company like Tallink, it was important to have a logical solution which would be uniform for all branches and affiliates, at the same time maintaining local communications in the case of disturbances in international data communication network.

Net Group chose innovaphone as its main partner in VoIP technology already years ago, and innovaphone has proved to be professional and operational also in big systems like that implemented in Tallink.

Baltic Tours

Baltic Tours is one of the oldest travel agencies in Estonia with a range of various services related to travelling and tourism – both for local inhabitants and foreign tourists visiting our country. Baltic Tours provides integrated travel organisation service to its customers: the service package includes both direct travel service (business and holiday trips, conference packages and hobby travelling, plane and ferry tickets, accommodation, etc.) and other services related to travelling (insurance, car rental, visa services, etc.). Baltic Tours renders its services both in Estonia and Latvia (source: http://www.baltictours.ee/firmast).

For fruitful organisation of sales and operative feedback, Net Group recommended customer-centred sales system on Microsoft .net platform which had been joined with Microsoft Reporting Services reporting solution. To speed up work, the solution is interfaced with plane tickets and accommodation reservation systems, whereby source data of reservations move from the sales system directly to the service provider, and reservation responses move from the service provider to the sales system. Invoices are automatically forwarded to financial accounting system.

With the adoption of the solution provided by Net Group, the time spent on drawing up offers has reduced, the company is more customer-based and the operative abilities of meters necessary for its daily management have improved. Baltic Tours chose Net Group as its partner because Net Group offered a needs-based development process to its customer, valuing very close co-operation with the customer.

The Central Society of Estonian Consumers Co-operatives

The Central Society of Estonian Consumers Co-operatives (hereinafter referred to as ”CSECC”) is the biggest joint group in retail trade in Estonia, based on Estonian capital. The members of CSECC include 19 consumers’ co-operatives from all over Estonia, and CSECC group comprises 366 sales and services units, including chain stores Maksimarket, Konsum, A ja O, and E-Ehituskeskus. The stores of CSECC Group all have a long and respectable history dating back to 1902 (http://www2.etk.ee/et/ettevottest).

CSECC uses information management solution developed on Microsoft SharePoint platform by Net Group; this includes the functionalities of intranet, document management and invoice management. CSECC needed to introduce this solution because as a huge organisation with different branches, CSECC needed a solution which would simplify internal communication, facilitate operative exchange of information, and make work and management processes – which had so far been done on paper – more effective.

To achieve this goal, Net Group suggested a solution based on Microsoft SharePoint as this platform permits to join several different functionalities and solutions into a logically functioning information management engine. With this solution based on Microsoft SharePoint, CSECC got itself an integrated information management solution: intranet enables operative exchange of information; in addition to operative exchange of information, document management allows to replace paper-centred document processes with electronic ones and get rid of time-consuming paper management. The electronic processing of invoices considerably sped up the processing of incoming invoices as received invoices could be digitised on their arrival, and therefore the paper- and time-consuming process would cease to exist.  

Toyota Baltic AS

Toyota Baltic AS is the biggest importer of cars into the Baltic countries. The company imports Toyota and Lexus models in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. In addition to selling new cars, effective follow-up service of customers and high-quality service are also important (http://www.toyota.ee/).

Net Group has created the kind of solution to the importer which is closely integrated with the information systems of car dealers. Together with the customer, the goal of Net Group was to guarantee faster sales process of cars, and get an overview of how the customer and the sold car are doing after the purchase has been concluded. After the system has been finished, staff of Toyota Baltic AS will be able to get an overview of car sales and follow-up maintenance, and make related analyses and forecasts.

Tallinna Kaubamaja

Tallinna Kaubamaja is one of Estonia’s leading retail companies whose history dates back to the year 1960. Both at work and in communication with its customers, Tallinna Kaubamaja values:

• creativity – every new solution that helps to better serve the customers is worth considering;
• will – the willingness to set and achieve higher objectives is something that determines the contribution to the development of Kaubamaja and society in general;
• honesty – honesty is the basis for long-term relationships, saves emotions and time; 
• co-operation – co-operation in business relations means acting together for the sake of common long-term goals that will benefit both parties (http://www.kaubamaja.ee/16318).  

Due to the developing virtualisation technologies, Tallinna Kaubamaja – as a progressive company – decided to adopt a new approach to central server / disk massive infrastructure. As the company has experienced rather rapid development in recent years, then quite many necessary services emerged which were each located on a separate physical server together with their internal disks.

In summer 2009, Tallinna Kaubamaja chose Net Group as its partner, and bought central Fibre Channel controller disk massive from EMC, starting wide-ranging server virtualisation on VMware platform.

ADP Dealer Services Eesti

ADP Dealer Services Eesti (hereinafter referred to as ”ADP“) provides broad modern information technology solutions to the sales and services sector of vehicles. The solutions cover all fields: retail sales of vehicles, import, rental, management and service. Well-scalable solutions are suitable for both small and big car companies.

AutoMaster DMS is a modern and flexible software package, designed for car dealer companies and importers. Its design is modular, its solution scalable and equipped with user interfaces for different accounting programmes and other third-party packages (http://www.adpdsi.com/ee/default.asp).

Net Group OÜ provides operational server environment for the functioning of AutoMaster. In this server environment, ADP provides its customers with AutoMaster service. Car companies themselves have quite big difficulties with supplying their branches with operational central system because it would presuppose the development of expensive server environment. Moreover, many car companies lack specialists who would be able to manage a complex server environment.

AutoMaster service in Net Group’s high-availability server system is equally well accessible all over Estonia. In addition to that, ADP customers save considerably on costs which would be necessary for developing a server centre. Permanent costs are also lower because the work of Net Group’s server centre is effective.