Spica in partnership with Aruba Hewlett Packard Enterprise solutions

About Selectium Adriatics: representative of Hewlett Packard Enterprise and its solutions

Selectium Adriatics, d. o. o., known in Slovenia under the name of Hewlett Packard Enterprise operated by Selectium, is the local representative of Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE). It is a technology company that operates on a basis of a partnership model.

"That means that we sell our products, solutions and services through a trusted partner channel. Aruba, a leading global provider of wired, wireless and SD-WAN solutions that use artificial intelligence to ensure network automation and security from the edge of networks to the cloud, is owned by HPE. That's why our portfolio includes their solutions," explains Anja Ciglarič, Sales and HR Support Specialist at Selectium Adriatics, who is also responsible for branding.

"A good seven years ago, when Hewlett Packard underwent a reorganization, the company split into two segments - Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), consisting of our company and HP Inc., which is well known for its printers and laptops. When the information about the Slovenian branch closing came out, our team refused to give in. We found a solution in the international business group Midis Group, which is based in Lebanon. Today we are their wholly owned subsidiary.

At that time, we changed our name, and the company continued its operations. Midis has been present in Slovenia since 1999. Its subsidiaries are Apcom and iStyle, which are best known as distributors of Apple devices. Just to give you a feel of how the group operates: Midis Group consists of around 170 companies from 70 countries and has around 5,000 employees. Our business model has proved successful, as some neighboring and African countries soon joined in. There are currently seven Selectium branches representing HPE - in Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria and three African countries (Morocco, Kenya and Nigeria)," Anja Ciglarič describes the company's transformation  

"Selectium Adriatics, which is known in Slovenia under the name of Hewlett Packard Enterprise operated by Selectium, is a local representative of Hewlett Packard Enterprise." Anja Ciglarič

 "Aruba is a subsidiary of HPE," adds Gorazd Kikelj, Key Customer Consultant who is also in charge of Aruba network pre-sales support. In terms of market share, Aruba is the second leading company in the world within its field.

Although Hewlett Packard Enterprise operated by Selectium may seem like a small enterprise, it is nevertheless a very significant player in the information technology (IT) market. They don't merely engage in sales, but also have their own engineering team as well as a wide range of local partners in Slovenia who sell their products and provide customer support.

"Meanwhile, we make sure that these partners are properly certified and possess the appropriate knowledge," says Gorazd Kikelj.

The company thus serves as a local office for both HPE and its associates. The owner of Hewlett Packard Enterprise operated by Selectium is another large corporation, Midis Group. Within the group there are companies that operate on a similar representative model and offer managed IT services and consulting, systems integration, cloud and data center capabilities, infrastructure, software and hardware solutions, as well as technology distribution and retail. Selectium Adriatics thus finds itself at the intersection between two large corporations as well as a large number of customers and partners.

"According to the latest Gartner quadrant, Aruba has been ranking as a leading company in the field of wired and wireless LAN for 17 years. Our portfolio includes a number of different products, from small devices for small and medium-sized companies to the most complex of devices for the largest corporations. We are known for Aruba wireless networks and data center networks on the market, where we are among the world's biggest players," explains Gorazd Kikelj.

Challenge: Time-consuming clocking checks

At Hewlett Packard Enterprise operated by Selectium, the arrival of employees at the office is automatically recorded via a wireless network login. Despite this, employees would always have to fill out an Excel sheet at the end of the month. In it, they had to indicate their presence (work from home, business trips, vacations, sick leave...) whenever the office network failed to record it. Reviewing the Excel sheets generated an increased workload for the accounting department.

"The accountant had to collect individual data entered into the Excel sheets every month. Furthermore, she had to ask employees additional questions, double-check individual presence data, and finally import them into the computer program Pantheon," recalls Mladen Vukadinović, Key Business Solutions Specialist who engages in solutions tailored to individual customers and innovations such as the integration of Aruba solutions with the Spica All Hours application.

The company was looking for a partner with whose help they could connect complementary systems. “Each party has its own customers, but we all have some customers in common. We were interested in the automatic time and attendance tracking via an appropriate network authentication and clocking at the workplace," says Mladen Vukadinović. 

"Data recording is automatic. The number of working hours spent on recording attendance is now close to zero." Maja Dernovšek

Accountant Maja Dernovšek already recognized the advantages of the combined solutions in the initial testing phase, as they had made keeping track of the clocking in process much easier. "Data recording is automatic. Employees enter presence data into the Spica All Hours application, and from there, the data is automatically imported into Pantheon. The number of working hours spent on recording attendance is now close to zero," the accountant rejoices.

Solution: WiFi and Bluetooth area for automatic recording

The new partnership came about because of the amazing complementary nature of the Spica All Hours and Aruba solutions.

"We already have a system that records employee presence. We export data every month, the accounting department receives it and imports it into the Pantheon accounting program. There is no such thing as clocking in/out at our company. Due to the nature of our work, we have flexible working hours. However, what we wanted to achieve was for our accountant not to have to double-check whether the data is correct. We wanted our employees to be able to select to work from home in the application and for the solution to automatically record arrivals and departures to and from the company. The newly created solution brings new business opportunities for a joint interaction with the existing and new customers," says Mladen Vukadinović.

The new solution enables automatic clocking in on each employee's work phone. It records their arrival at the company and their departure from the business premises. According to Gorazd Kikelj, this is important for the company because of the calculation of travel expenses and compensation allowances for working from home. For accounting, it is important to know who is working at the office and who is working from home or is not at the office for other reasons.

The integrated Spica All Hours and Aruba solutions enable wireless and automatic recording of the employee's arrival to and departure from the company's premises. All the employees have to do is have the company phone on them. This integration allows employees to automatically clock in via a wireless network and Bluetooth with the help of an app add-in. Aruba recognizes the phone and sends a signal to Spica All Hours. The system also detects if an employee is away from the company's premises for more than five minutes and clocks them out.

All employees have work phones. The company's rules stipulate that every employee must log in to the work network through a secure system. The authentication system prevents anyone else from logging in.

"When testing the solution, the employees saw the greatest advantage in the fact that they did not have to indicate when they arrived at work or were going home." Gorazd Kikelj

"Automating the recording of employee activities is gaining popularity and represents a move away from unnecessary administrative tasks that are a burden to the employees and distract them from their main goal – customer satisfaction," says Boštjan Kosi, CEO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise operated by Selectium.

"Our team includes mobile employees. Their work requires many departures and late arrivals due to meetings with clients and partners. Remote work is also a common practice. Employees do not have to come to the office every day. Because of the diverse jobs, manual recording of time and attendance is an additional requirement. The data in question is the data that management and accounting need every month. Since Aruba Networks already contains tools that can automatically track attendance, we decided to connect this data with a tool that would record and display the information accordingly. We saw an opportunity in partnering with Spica. The technological advantages offered by our equipment can be paired perfectly with the Spica All Hours product."

This is how things work at Hewlett Packard Enterprise operated by Selectium, and the joint solution is ideal for many new customers.

Gorazd Kikelj: "We have Bluetooth systems with which we can tell where a person is located with an accuracy of a few meters. When using Wi-Fi, this the range extends to 10-15 meters. The new technology, which has built-in GPS, achieves an accuracy of one meter.”

Going to and from rooms or regions could also be recorded in Spica All Hours. This technology's new open standard allows the phone to receive a signal via GPS location directly from access points. This applies to places where there is no access to a satellite signal. If Spica All Hours decodes this signal, it is able to determine the location inside the building in the same way it does in the open.

This is often important for safety reasons, in production tracking and in hospitals - for trolleys, semi-finished products, transport equipment in hospitals, etc. Factories are a good example, as workers on later shifts look for trolleys that workers on the earlier shift have misplaced.

The combined solution also brings advantages to smaller companies. Since the two cloud services, Aruba Central and Špica All Hours, have been connected, data from Aruba Central can be automatically transferred to Spica All Hours. Thus, small-scale users no longer need to buy expensive clocking devices.

"We were interested in the automatic time and attendance tracking via an appropriate network authentication and clocking at the workplace." Mladen Vukadinović

Results

There are several advantages:

• For employees: Each employee can indicate themselves whether they are working at the office or remotely. Furthermore, they do not need to clock in when they arrive to and depart from the workplace, because this is done automatically.
• For accounting: Automatic transfer of data all the way to the Pantheon accounting program. This saves time that used to be dedicated solely to double-checking data.
• For existing and new customers of Spica and Hewlett Packard Enterprise operated by Selectium: when purchasing Aruba solutions, customers can now also get automatic arrival and departure recording. The solutions can be used anywhere in the world, wherever Aruba is used.

Photo: Žiga Intihar