Varndean e-Learning have a computerised database stored in a database programme, (Microsoft Access), which holds details about all of the schools in the country. Because of this they must subscribe to the Data Protection Act. They send letters to all of the schools informing them about new products on sale, which is accompanied by a flyer giving them more information. They produce high quality colour flyers in a Graphics Package called Adobe PhotoShop.
The letters are produced in a Word Processing programme, (Microsoft Word), and they are personalised for each school by the use of Mail Merge between the Database Programme and the Word Processing Programme. This saves them a lot of time which would have been needed to type in all the names individually. To complete this task would be a near impossibility without the use of ICT – writing near on three thousand letters by hand would not only be time consuming but painful to the hands!
To send out the CD-ROM disks used for the demos and the full products, they use a large scale CD Copying Machine, which copies individual CDs and also prints the labels for them. The machine is made by a French company called Adixion.
Their main method of selling products is through their website. The website is produced in a programme called Macromedia Dreamweaver MX which is Developing/editing software which can be used not only to produce websites but to design/edit/produce programmes and applications. It can also be used to produce User Interfaces, (a page from which a used can navigate by means of hyperlinks to several programmes or to a piece of specific information).
They use an Email programme to receive letters from current customers and potential customers. They receive between 10 and 15 emails a day. Email is also used to send images/documents of the flyers to an industrial printing company to be printed. Without email they would have to send documents by post or by fax which is a lot slower in comparison.
Finance
When a product is purchased, a form is filled out by the customer, the details are entered into the Accounts Package on the computer and an invoice is printed out which is then sent to the customer.
Details retained by the company regarding sales are the customer’s address, the name of the person who ordered it and what the product(s) ordered were. Once an invoice is issued to the customer, they then have thirty days to pay.
The company keeps track of most of the money that has to come out of the company bank account, (e.g. expenses for hiring rooms for seminars, new computer components and office consumables like paper), by entering all the details into their Accounts Package, (Sage Instant Account) and money automatically comes out of the account. A statement can also be printed out. The accounts package is very useful as it saves the employees a lot of time which would have been used bookkeeping, and reduces the chance of an error in the figures.
The company’s accountants also use the same accounts package, Sage Instant Account. Because of this Varndean e-Learning can send their VAT statements and money to Customs and Exiles automatically through the system.
When customers purchase products, they can pay by sending a cheque through the post or by using the BACK system, which pays directly into the Varndean e-learning bank account.
Varndean e-learning work out their payroll once a month to pay all of their employees. They do this using special Payroll Software called ‘Sage Payroll’. They enter in the employee’s hours worked and other details, and a cheque is automatically printed for them. Because both of Varndean e-Learning’s finance programmes are made by the same company (Sage), they link up together using a feature called ‘Auto Link’. By using Auto link, the packages are inter-linked, and data entered in one of the programmes automatically shows up on the other. For example, if they pay their employees and print cheques out from Sage Payroll, the money will be taken away from their bank balance in Sage Instant Account.
Purchasing
Andy Leggett is one of the directors of Varndean e-Learning. He is usually the person who purchases items for the company, by means of the internet with debit cards, and occasionally from shops. They order most of the software they use from America so this is ordered over the internet.
Office consumables such as paper, paperclips, envelopes, toners and ink cartridges are their main purchases. They also purchase quite a few computer components like monitors and Cd copiers. The two types of monitor are TFT (flat-screen) and CRT (with picture tubes). They have also recently purchased two servers to run their website and office from.
A record of purchases they make is kept in the accounting package, (Sage Instant Accounts). They store information about all companies they order from, such as who the company is and what was purchased from them.
Varndean e-Learning like to track their purchases. If the company they have ordered from over the internet have an Online Tracking System the customers can look on the website, enter a special number and find out exactly where their product is. This tells the customer where the product is, (whether the product is still in the Warehouse, in a van or an aeroplane).
If a product they have ordered doesn’t turn up an employee from Varndean e-Learning will either phone or email the company they have ordered from to find out what has happened to it.
Operations
Andy Leggett, one of the directors of Varndean e-Learning has many roles within the small company, but his main role within the company is Product and Website development. The company’s three main areas of Operation are Multimedia Products, Database Tracking and Website Applications.
Multimedia Products are used on their computer network with Macromedia Authorware, which allows them to put together e-Learning packages. They can incorporate sound, pictures and videos into their packages by using Macromedia Authorware, which is a development tool, (used to develop software). They use a digital camcorder to record videos and a digital editing suite to edit the videos.
Database Tracking allows the e-Learning packages to communicate with the main database which contains information about what the students are doing at any one time. This feature uses ODBC technology, (Open Data-Base Connectivity) to communicate.
Website Applications are pieces of software used to create and edit websites. The Website Applications Varndean e-Learning use are Macromedia Dreamweaver MX and Microsoft Active Server. Microsoft Active Server uses ODBC technology, which in this case links to their database and customises the WebPages depending on who the user is, (for example it inserts the user’s name onto the WebPages and changes the difficulty level of the e-Learning packages).
In the Operations department, the main use of communication through ICT is the ability to retrieve information. Information they may want to find could be information about the software they use, programming languages or they may want to compare prices on the products the purchase and find the best price. When they are working with a new piece of software, it may be necessary to find more information on it, and this is made possible by the use of the internet. They may find the information on a website, in a discussion forum or they may have to send an email to request the information.
Another use of communication in this department is between employees, (internal communications). This can help to prevent the software developers overwriting each other’s work, if they both know what has been done to the package before hand. This could also speed up the development stages in that they won’t both be working on the same part of the software package.