Winnipeg-based Manitoba Telecom Services Inc. (MTS) recently launched Qunara e-solutions, an e-business division residing in MTS Advanced Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of MTS.
According to Tim Nickerson, general manger of Qunara, the company offers a full range of e-commerce products and consulting services for small-medium to medium-large size companies looking to gain presence on the Internet.
Specializing in business to consumer (B2C) and business to business (B2B) e-commerce, Nickerson said the company provides a complete end-to-end solution opportunity for its clients.
“For example, if you are a new company or a legacy company, but you have no presence on the Internet, you would come to a company like Qunara to set up a complete portal which would help you deal with your customers on a relationship basis,” he said. “Then you might want to commerce-enable you portal to be able to sell your products to your customer base.
We can host and manage that in a centralized network environment where it’s offered 7-24-365.”
Nickerson explained that under normal circumstances, clients would have to go to several different companies, which he said in a lot of cases would mean revisiting a lot of work that has already been done.
“If we’ve already designed an e-business suite, we can very quickly commerce-enable it without having to go into a full understanding of how it is designed,” he said. “Speed and flexibility is a complete end-to-end solutions offering. We will move with you as you grow.”
According to the company, Qunara offers an Internet Data Centre that provides hosting, tape back-up services, database management and firewall services. It also offers e-commerce services to enable management of the entire on-line selling process, as well as Web site traffic reporting and analysis tools to assist with planning and management of on-line business.
Ottawa-based DAI Group, whose roots are in IT consulting and management consulting, and is now a developer of the Internet City for the Government of Canada, has been using Qunara’s services since February of this year while it was operating under the name nGage Electronic Commerce. Colin Williams, vice-president of Web design for DAI Group, said Qunara will assist the company in financial clearing.
“We really liked the Qunara package in that it really is more than just a payment gateway,” Williams said. “Right out of the box we were giving our customers a full service package.”
Though Williams said DAI Group has no interest in looking at other options, he said Qunara isn’t exactly what he expected.
“For an on-line company, they’re not as on-line as you would expect,” he said. “For example, they were doing a survey of their customers and they were doing it by mail. Also, if we wanted to turn up a new store we have to phone them instead of just filling out a form on-line. It strikes me as a little odd.”
Williams noted that Qunara’s services are well-rounded and meet many of the requirements of e-business.
“In regard to our relationship with Qunara, we’re quite happy,” Williams said. “The tools aren’t as polished as we thought, (but) they all work.”
Pricing for Qunara services varies on a case-by-case basis. The company is on the Web at www.qunara.com.
