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Crowley Maritime Corporation provides diversified transportation services to customers around the world through five lines of business: liner services, logistics, marine services, technical services and petroleum services. The company employs approximately 4,300 people and provides its services using a fleet of more than 280 tankers, tugs, barges and other vessels. Crowley’s land-based facilities and equipment include terminals, warehouses, tank farms, office buildings, trucks, trailers, containers, chassis, cranes and specialized vehicles.
The Challenge
The global nature of Crowley Maritime’s business means that company executives and sales people often travel around the world to places like Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Russia and Korea, in addition to extreme parts of Alaska in the United States, and various countries in Europe.
“Despite the challenges of travel and communications in these locations, it is important for our company and sales executives to be connected to the business no matter where they are,” said Leo Fields, Director of Network Services for Crowley Maritime. “Our customers expect it and our executives want to be as productive and efficient as possible while they are out of the office.”
Keeping Crowley’s road warriors connected required them to carry multiple devices including a laptop, cellular phone and sometimes a paging device. This made staying in touch a complicated process of starting up devices, connecting to the network, logging in, syncing up and then logging off. Multiple devices also increased the “hassle factor” of international travel. “This approach wasn’t working,” said Fields. “It was clear that we needed a better system.”
The Solution — Good Mobile Messaging, the Palm Treo and Carrier Service from AT&T In the not too distant past, when many workers relied on laptop computers for mobility, the president of Crowley Maritime envisioned a time when people wouldn’t need a laptop and cell phone at all, and could communicate and work from the same device.
It’s no wonder then that Crowley Maritime was an early adopter of Good Mobile Messaging to create a centrally-managed, wireless messaging system for e-mail, contacts and calendaring on an integrated handheld that did not rely on the end user to log in or synchronize to stay current. “Although we’re not at the point where laptops are no longer needed, integrated devices such as the Palm Treo with Good Mobile Messaging are getting us closer than we’ve ever been,” said Fields. Crowley Maritime now has close to 230 people using Good Mobile Messaging on the Palm Treo. “Our people really appreciate the integrated e-mail and phone functionality,” said Fields.
For carrier service, Crowley Maritime selected AT&T. “With AT&T, we get great GSM, or Global System for Mobile communications service, which is important to us since it is the best service for keeping our executives connected no matter where they are,” said Fields.
THE RESULTS
“By giving our company and sales executives the ability to stay connected with the business and respond to customers faster, Good’s wireless messaging system has increased productivity and improved customer service,” said Fields. “I remember one executive who was traveling in Russia and needed to stay in contact with an important customer. When he lost his phone connection, he was still able to communicate via e-mail.”
Good Mobile Messaging also provided the only means of communication for employees following the devastating hurricanes of Katrina and Wilma. Crowley’s offices and facilities in New Orleans, Gulfport, Mississippi, Miami and Port Everglades, Florida, were all impacted by the hurricanes. When Crowley personnel were dispatched to restore service, they used their Good Mobile Messaging handhelds to communicate, since all other services were still unavailable. In Miami, even after power was restored using a generator, Good Mobile Messaging was the only way employees could access e-mail for several days. “Being able to communicate at a critical time, even when all other services were unavailable, was a tremendous benefit,” said Fields. “We were able to stay in touch with customers and get our business back up and running much faster because of Good Mobile Messaging.”
In the future, Crowley Maritime wants to take advantage of Good’s support for a wide variety of handhelds and operating systems. “We believe the Windows®-based devices may provide better support for attachments,” said Fields. “It’s also nice to know we have a choice. As more devices become available with the Windows Mobile® operating system, we’ll begin looking at using Good Mobile Messaging on these devices.”
“As an early adopter of Good Mobile Messaging, we have been impressed with how the product has evolved,” said Fields. “From additional features, to improvements in reliability and security, to support for more devices and operating systems, Good Mobile Messaging has continued to impress us and deliver just the wireless messaging system we need.”
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