The chamber of commerce is a public symbol of a city’s business vitality. For the Arlington (Texas) Chamber of Commerce, adopting leading edge technology was the key to positively positioning the city in the minds of members and prospecting businesses. Adopting an integrated solution from NEC enabled the chamber to reduce communication costs, increase employee productivity and foster a more collaborative working environment with Arlington’s business community.
Randy Paine arrived at the Arlington Chamber of Commerce as IT Manager just after the organization’s decision to expand in November 2008. The Arlington Chamber was taking over the Arlington Technology Incubator Building (now known as the Arlington Business Accelerator) and one of the first items on Randy’s agenda was to upgrade the chamber’s telephony and communications solutions.
At that time, the organization was being asked to take over telephone service and Internet access at the Arlington Business Accelerator about a block away. (The University of Texas at Arlington had provided those services to the unit for years; but the Arlington Business Accelerator directly serves the chamber’s development mission.)
In addition, Paine noted employees would retrieve e-mail and voice messages from two different inboxes, and faxes from various fax machines spread over two floors. With many projects, maintaining relevant messages together in date order is crucial to documentation and project management. Once more, Paine became aware of the challenges employees faced staying in touch with one another: Time was often wasted as employees walked to another office to see if someone was in. Business decisions were often delayed because someone could not be reached.