GreenStone Farm Credit Services  

Evaluation & Selection

"Our ultimate intent in this entire project was to enable our business to meet our customers needs more effectively in terms of time. To be able to meet changes in the market place, to do it more cost effectively, and really to enable our staff to be able to do more with less. Thats really a term that you hear a lot today, but just like every other company were faced with cost constraints and we wanted to make sure that were providing the best value for our customers; applying technology in a way that makes us more productive, not just for the sake of having cool technologies.

So we started with an idea of integrating our applications, giving our customer service representatives and our Financial Service Officers the tools they needed to get a complete picture of our customers - the products they have with GreenStone - and to be able to do that in an integrated fashion. And now were moving down the line in terms of converging our data and voice networks and allowing us to bring in the Voice Over IP so that we bring our VOIP system in as just part of the technical tools that our staff are using. And then eventually we want to look toward utilizing video and different converging technologies to be able to put information in the hands of our staff to be able to meet our customers needs.

Our major concerns were finding the right partners for a long-term solution. One of GreenStones biggest business assets is our customer relationships and relationships in general. And we have some customers that have been with GreenStone for a long time, sometimes multi-generational. One of the things that GreenStone brings to the market is our expertise in the market. Also our steadfastness, that were there during good times, during bad times, were gonna be there for our customer. Were there through the thick and thin and they can count on us. We take those same kind of relationships that we value with our customers and we apply them to our relationships with our vendors. So we just dont pick a vendor based on, 'Okay, they have a solution and its the cheapest solution, lets slam it in place.' Were really pretty picky when we look for a vendor, because were looking for a partner. We went through an evaluation process and we realized that we needed to convert our WAN from a frame relay system to MPLS. and we looked at quite a few out there. We put our WAN partner through its paces and we feel we found a long term relationship and partner in Qwest."

Why Qwest

"Well, as you look for any solution and as we considered WAN providers, we were an MCI customer and they were meeting our needs some - as good as they could from a frame perspective. We thought that we could do better from a price perspective. We were purchasing that service from our central bank and we decided to start to evaluate alternatives as a direct relationship from GreenStone to our eventual vendor. We partner with Analysts International out of East Lansing, and they help us. We really see them as a technology partner, and they really helped us to help evaluate exactly what we needed. They brought in kind of a specialist in the area, Renodis, that helped us to really evaluate WAN providers, and they did it from our perspective as a completely unbiased partner because they really represented everybody.

So as we went through our evaluation process and were able to determine our needs we evaluated staying with MCI, we looked at SBC, AT&T;, and Sprint, and Qwest as well. And we really found that from our perspective as a customer that the services that were being provided were in some respect commoditized. Anybody was going to give us connectivity, we were pleased to see that Qwests product from the MPLS perspective was among the tops from a technical perspective, so that certainly helped them rise to the top. But still connectivity is connectivity and anybody can provide that. For us it really was the customer service aspect and it was trying to find out which vendor really wanted to work with GreenStone long-term and wanted to be a long-term partner. From the evaluation process that we went through it was very clear to us that Qwest wanted our business. We werent just going to be another number, we were going to be a full-service partner, and they fought for our business and earned it."

Implementation

"Well, of course this solution that were implementing at GreenStone isnt just a six-month solution. Its been an evolution, but we really started with converting our infrastructure from a Novell base to a Microsoft stack. We heavily use the Microsoft technologies. Microsoft CRM is the core of our application suite that we provide a starting point and a launching point for our applications. We also have partnered with Cisco to provide our Voice over IP solution. And when we decided on Cisco as a partner we really did that from an application standpoint because of the way they interacted and worked with our Microsoft CRM solution. Once we decided we were going to go to VoIP, of course, the next logical solution was we need to look at this frame relay system that we have - this frame relay wide area network that we have. We had several of our 37 locations that were still at a 128K, another notch or another tier that were at 256, a handful at 512, and one or two that were utilizing T-1 connections, which we knew was not going to be adequate as we moved down this convergence path. So we started to evaluate WAN vendors, and we really found the best solution in GreenStones needs was to work with Qwest and to partner with Qwest with their MPLS solution.

We were concerned about a conversion, obviously, because we still had a business to run. We wanted to make sure that we completed this WAN conversion before we did our VOIP implementation, so we were on a little bit of a time table. We were extremely pleased in the fact that our conversion went very well, very few, if any, hiccups, did not slow the business down at all, and, of course, as an IT guy Im doing my job well if Im completely transparent. When things go wrong my phone rings, so the phone didnt ring that much at all. We had a great conversion. Most of our branches realized real performance increases the next day, and that put us in a position to continue on with our application suite and our solution implementation, which were in the midst of doing now with our VOIP install. We began this process, I believe, in the late summer of 2005, with really starting the implementation in September time frame, and we were able to complete that at 37 locations by the beginning of November at the latest."

Non-Financial Benefits

"The results of this project has changed GreenStones business by allowing GreenStone to be flexible enough to meet our customers where they are. And to be able to utilize GreenStones staff more productively to provide a better customer service experience for our customers. And what I always remind our group in the information services department is that we happen to be responsible for technology at GreenStone, but GreenStone is in the business of giving money to farmers. And we really use technology to do that, and that part of what were doing with Qwest. IQ networking in terms of technology at GreenStone has meant the realization of the convergence dream or the convergence talk that we were talking up at GreenStone; that we really could bring our networks together in terms of voice, in terms of data, and we could provide all of the services that we needed to over one backbone. One of the non-business drivers, but certainly one from an IT perspective, is one in utilizing the fully meshed capability and the disaster recovery aspects of the MPLS network. It gives us so much more flexibility, the ability to recover a particular branch office that much faster and to satisfy some regulatory needs as well."