In 1949, Joseph J. Zilber entered the real estate market when it appeared that his options were limited with his current employer, and he has never looked back. Towne Realty, Inc. started as a single real estate brokerage office. From that small beginning, Towne's operations would one day form the core of what would become Mr. Zilber's family owned holding company, Zilber Ltd. Today Zilber Ltd. and Towne Realty have operations throughout the United States. Our subsidiaries operate under the Homes by Towner, Towne Island Homes and Towne Investments trade names. Under these brands we develop, build and sell single family and condominium homes and develop, build, sell and own offices, warehouses, light manufacturing facilities, medical offices and industrial parks across the United States.
The Marketing Department of Zilber Ltd. produces and manages all of the marketing materials required by its regional offices, including brochures, ads, mailers and more. About four years ago, the company was looking for a better way to manage its workflow, particularly between the Art Department and the Marketing Account staff. According to Terri Bratz, Services Manager, "When we received a job request from one of our regional offices, there was no organized way to assign the work and follow through to make sure deadlines were met. We looked at a number of solutions that could help us establish a more formal production schedule between Marketing and the Art Department, and MetaCommunications' Virtual Ticket was the only solution we found that met our needs."
Bratz points out that the primary requirement other solutions were not able to meet was cross-platform operation between Macs and PCs. She says, "In Marketing, we are using PCs, and the Art Department, of course, uses Macs. We needed a solution that worked equally well on both, and with Virtual Ticket, we are able to accomplish that."
All of the information we need is readily accessible in one location, whether it is the artist looking for job specifications or the next assignment, or the Director of Marketing viewing the overall Art Department workload.
Terri Bratz, Services Manager
Zilber found that Virtual Ticket met its needs right out of the box, with some limited customization of forms. Today, seven members of the Marketing Department and three members of the Art Department are using the system in a formalized production workflow that has made them much more efficient. Bratz says, "When one of our offices has a brochure or ad that needs to be produced, they submit the digital assets for the project through their account executive. We then enter all of the information into Virtual Ticket, and our lead artist is notified that there is a job in the queue. She can then easily review the job and assign it electronically to one of the artists."
The other advantage of Virtual Ticket, according to Bratz, is that once a job is entered, all activities associated with that job are tracked. She adds, "Now we can easily determine what the status of any item is without needing to interrupt the artists. And their workflow is streamlined as well, with easy electronic job assignments rather than a paper-based in-basket that three people have to look through to find the next job they will be working on." Virtual Ticket also presents a work list to each artist so they know exactly what their workload is, what the deadlines are and what they will be working on next. "Virtual Ticket is very easy to use," said Bratz. "That is important to us as well, both from the perspective of training our users and having them use the solution effectively."
With Virtual Ticket, Zilber achieved its objectives of establishing a production schedule for the Art Department. Bratz says, "Virtual Ticket has made our operation much more streamlined and efficient. All of the information we need is readily accessible in one location, whether it is the artist looking for job specifications or the next assignment, or the Director of Marketing viewing the overall Art Department workload."
Bratz has also enjoyed working with the customer support staff at MetaCommunications. She says, "They are very responsive. We don't have a lot of issues, but when we do, they are there for us. And they are very attuned to customer feedback. I reported a minor formatting issue I experienced with an upgrade, and I was extremely pleased to see it corrected in the very next release!"
