Repair company's in-house phone system a good call

Tisco's internet-based phone system has attracted interest from other businesses

An internal technology makeover at TV repairer Tisco has resulted in the development of an internet-based phone system the company is considering marketing to other businesses.

When Ken Shilling and his wife bought the Tisco master franchise in 1999, they took on a nationwide repair chain weighed down with paper-based systems that were hindering the business.

Shilling says it was clear that unless the company's systems were automated, it would struggle to survive because the ever-reducing cost of the technology Tisco was repairing meant average repair job costs were also falling.

The 33-store franchise has since invested heavily in information technology with the aim of reducing as much paper-shifting as possible.

"In essence we have achieved that," Shilling says. "Certainly the web is the most important tool we have today."

The sophisticated management applications now run by the company enable both Tisco staff and major corporate clients to check on the state of repair jobs.

"We've developed that in-house to make the whole process seamless, live 24/7, and accessible by the interested parties. That has led us on to a raft of other IP [internet protocol] initiatives," Shilling says.

Those other initiatives include a franchise-wide internet-based phone system based on an open-source application, but modified extensively to fit the business' needs.

As a result, in the Auckland market alone - where Tisco has seven branches - the company halved communication costs during the first 10 months of using the phone system "and that's more than paid for our investment", he says.

Fred van Iddekinge, a former Telecom engineer turned Tisco sales manager, has overseen the development of the PBX project to the point where the first deal to supply it to an external customer is imminent.

"The economics of VoIP stack up when you've got multiple branches around the place and you want to call between them," he says.

"You've got your broadband connection for all the other reasons apart from telephony. When you add this on top it's actually not too big a bandwidth requirement on what you're already using."

The set-up includes many of the functions available on high-end systems run by large corporates including caller display, the ability to retrieve and listen to voicemail by logging in remotely over the internet, and direct dialling of calls from PC-based databases.

As well as the one pending deal, Tisco has received other interest in its phone system, despite not having actively marketed it.

Other IP-based initiatives that Tisco has developed internally include a network of internet-based cameras that have been used both for store security and franchise-to-franchise meetings.

Another component of Shilling's "paperless office" regime has involved replacing thousands of repair manuals and other servicing documents with digital versions, saving technicians considerable time in tracking down required information.

Tisco was established 47 years ago and became a household name in television and radio repair.

It has recently broadened its activities to include a mobile computer repair service and is also involved in a wider range of home electronic services including security systems, satellite TV and home automation - control of everything from home heating to remote-controlled curtains.

TISCO

Who: Ken Shilling, managing director.

Where: 33 franchises nationwide.

What: An unexpected sideline in internet phone systems for businesses for a company more used to servicing home electronic equipment.

Why: "We had our own in-house capability to write software, [so] we elected to take an open-source application and develop it from there."