Colleges & Associations

Offshore/Onshore Technologies Association of Nova Scotia

Systems Review and Support

Customer Profile

The Offshore/Onshore Technologies Association of Nova Scotia (OTANS) is a not-for-profit organization representing the interests of organizations in the oil and gas industry in Atlantic Canada. Since its inception in 1982, the membership of OTANS has grown from a dozen to over 400 member organizations throughout Atlantic Canada. The mandate of OTANS is to support the maximization of Atlantic Canadian participation in the supply of both goods and services to meet the needs of the offshore/onshore oil and gas industry. Its purpose is to identify, promote and support the development of opportunities in hydrocarbon and associated energy industries.

Business Situation

The steady growth in membership also meant that the size of the OTANS staff must increase as well as its reliance on information technology. Although the staffing level has increased, it is still a relatively small organization, considering its mandate. Thus, OTANS has a very strong reliance on its computer systems to ensure the staff has a high level of productivity. OTANS does not have its own technical support staff and rely on outside assistance for this service. Unfortunately, the IT support company being used was not able to provide the level of technical support or the fast level of response that was required by OTANS.

Solution

OTANS went through a comprehensive selection process to find a new technical support company and Nicom was asked to take over the servicing of IT for the organization. Nicom quickly fixed a number of the nagging problems OTANS was experiencing and then installed a new Windows Server for the organization. Mass e-mailing is used extensively by OTANS and the e-mail service being used was not working very effectively. By switching to use the MS Exchange Server on their own server, the problems with e-mailing disappeared.

Benefits

OTANS staff are now able to concentrate on the business of the organization, rather than having to deal with on-going computer problems.

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