Company Profile

New Zealand’s largest media intelligence company, Chong Newztel Ltd, has been in the business for more than 50 years. Having pioneered New Zealand’s media information industry in the 1950’s, the company has continued to focus on providing leading edge technology to its clients. Introducing New Zealand’s first digital press clipping production system in 2003 was only the beginning of the digital revolution at Chong Newztel – the company has a host of media intelligence firsts under its belt, including internet monitoring, full colour clippings, press summaries, and keyword underlining.

The Challenges

Phillip Smith, I.T. Manager for Chong Newztel, was tasked with developing a fully digital workflow for the company in a short six-month timeframe. With New Zealand’s most comprehensive publication list, all of which must be read and processed each month, not only did Chong Newztel need technology that wasn’t yet available on the market, but they also needed it as quickly as Smith could develop it.

There were three key requirements to fit into Chong Newztel’s digital workflow development:

Security – Maintaining Chong Newztel’s internal security was paramount. Virus attacks on their system, affecting both their hardware and workflow, were a significant threat that needed to be addressed with any new IT developments.

Support - With a small internal team looking after Chong Newztel’s IT infrastructure and development, time-consuming support requests were not an option.

Storage – Due to the enormous amount of data flowing through Chong Newztel, a high-powered server and storage solution was necessary.

The Solution

Smith chose a combination of Apple hardware and software, integrated with existing PC-based equipment to formulate the company’s new digital workflow. This included Apple Xserve servers and Xserve RAID storage solutions along with a number of Apple desktop computers for managing the company’s huge data requirements.

The Key Benefits

Chong Newztel’s three key requirements were well managed by Apple solutions.

The total Apple solution was scoped, implemented and managed by Apple Channel Partner MagnumMac, for less than a third of the cost of an alternative turnkey solution that Smith was offered. This Apple solution represented an amazingly quick Return On Investment for Chong and enabled them to realise the following key benefits immediately.

Security – While Window’s machines are notorious for attracting and harbouring viruses; Apple alternatives are resilient against attacks . The secure UNIX foundation that all Mac’s are built upon combined with advanced security features that come as standard, means both Chong Newztel’s data and their new system is secure.

Support – Support interruptions are often time-consuming and cut into the small IT team’s critical development time. Since introducing the Apple platform, a significant addition of hardware onto the premises, there hasn’t been any need to increase the amount of support staff required.

Storage – With tens of thousands of files passing through the Chong Newztel system everyday, the company needed a robust server and storage arrangement. After investigating Apple Xserve and an Xserve RAID technology, it became clear that it was an affordable, cost-efficient and easily scalable option, able to handle Chong Newztel’s rigorous daily demands. “We would have struggled to meet the demands of our clients without the throughput and reliability that the Xserve and Xserve RAID combination provides.” says Smith.

In addition to the key requirements identified prior to the beginning of the development, Apple was able to help on a very important fourth requirement – Speed.

Speed - Utilising Apple products enabled Smith to create the new workflow in less than six months, and ahead of schedule. Key to this speedy result was the use of Apple-based development tools, like AppleScript, RealBasic and Cocoa. AppleScript was particularly helpful in automating many of the workflow components, whilst providing consistency, accuracy and speed with reduced time drain on staff. An added benefit is the ease of ongoing development for the team, as they are able to custom build information solutions for clients on demand.

“Utilising Apple products enabled us to create the new workflow in less than 6 months, and ahead of schedule.”
Philip Smith, I.T Manager - Chong Newztel.

Conclusion

With this revolution in digital content management, Smith has catapulted the company into an era of continual development. Having raised the bar by completing the workflow development within the tight timeframe, he was then entrusted with creating a new web portal for the company, allowing client interactivity with their clippings. In partnership with outside developer, Andrew Lindesay, a fully working model was built in six months.

This brought the company’s web offerings ahead of market movements, and provided Chong Newztel the flexibility of adding new components to the portal as they were created.