Valley Yellow Pages is the largest independent phone directory publisher in Northern California and the third largest independent publisher in the nation. Headquartered in Fresno, California, Valley Yellow Pages maintains 16 sales offices throughout Northern and Central California and publishes directories to households and businesses that reach more than 14 million people.

The sales productivity killer

Bill Wynne, technical support supervisor at Valley Yellow Pages, needed to provide computing access to over 500 account executives working out of sales offices spread throughout California. Account executives needed computing resources for Web access to e-mail, for in-house sales management software, and office productivity.

Sales teams were organized in groups of six to eight account executives reporting to a district sales manager. Each team shared just two PCs that could only be accessed one at a time. “This created bottlenecks, frustration, and a lot of administrative overhead for us in the information systems department,” said Wynne.

Wynne and his staff considered purchasing PCs for each account executive but decided that PCs would be overkill. Support would have been an enormous issue because our IT department is at our corporate office in Fresno and the sales offices are scattered around California,” said Wynne.

Enabling their sales teams with guaranteed computing access would enhance Valley Yellow Pages’ competitiveness and operational efficiency.

Computing access for each account executive

Valley Yellow Pages deployed the NComputing L-series to give each salesperson access to computing at any time. While Valley Yellow Pages was already sharing PCs, they were limited to one user at a time even if the processor’s average utilization was less than 5%. NComputing harnesses the unused power of a PC to share it among multiple users, and it does so at a fraction of the cost of individual PCs. In addition, this highly efficient system requires less electricity, less space, and less time to setup and manage, making it an ideal fit for the branches at Valley Yellow Pages.

Today, each district sales manager has a PC that simultaneously serves all users in their team of six to eight account executives. The PC runs a 2.8 GHz processor with 4 GB RAM and is connected to NComputing L-series virtual desktops.

Referring to the peripherals used, Wynne stated, “The L-series has no USB ports, which is very attractive to us. We connect only a flat-panel monitor, PS/2 keyboard and mouse. If an account executive needs to burn a CD or connect a camera, then the district sales manager’s machine must be used. This gives us an acceptable level of security and control.”

The sales teams use the NComputing systems primarily to run applications developed in-house. These tools enable account executives to research accounts, prepare for sales calls, and report sales results. The team also uses graphics software to create advertisements for their customers. Standard office applications are used for web access to e-mail and for other typical office tasks.

A competitive advantage

The NComputing solution helped Valley Yellow Pages give computing access to each account executive. This ensured that they could continue to provide a differentiated and competitive directory. While the challenges of deploying individual PCs to each account executive would have been substantial, “the L-series negated most of these problems,” said Wynne.

With 16 offices ranging from 16 users to 48 users each spread throughout California, Valley Yellow Pages found that the NComputing solution kept computer management simple. Since the L-series has no moving parts and no local operating system, Wynne has found them to be “more reliable than PCs.” Summing up the benefits to his team, Wynne said, “The NComputing L-series virtual desktops are affordable, reliable, easy to deploy, and add very little administrative overhead.