OTC Market-Maker Herzog Uses IPC Turet Add-On To Manage Calls

Herzog Heine Geduld is using a new application from IPC Information Systems to help its head trader and trading desk managers allocate and track incoming calls. The system was deployed at the OTC market-maker's 145-position facility in Jersey City, N.J.

Herzog is using the new application--which has been dubbed, rather lengthily, the Head Trader's Call Status Monitor--to enable head trader and firm president Buzzy Geduld, and others, monitor the trading floor's phone center productivity by viewing a single workstation display screen. Specifically, Call Status Monitor indicates how many calls are coming in, how many times calls ring before they get picked up, how long they stay on hold and the order in which they have been placed.

According to Geduld, before the firm began using the application, he "had lots of problems" efficiently servicing clients because traders had no way to prioritize calls. "We probably have 500 to 600 direct lines on our floor; so for us to have information about each line on one screen is fabulous," he says. "We're using the system to find out what calls are on hold and what calls are incoming; so at just one glance I can see all of the activity going on."

IPC develop the system application based on the applications programming interface of its Tradenet MX turret system, which Herzog has relied since it moved into its current premises in 1995. Although IPC initially developed it in response to a request from Herzog, the vendor is now offering it to other customers. According to Rick Bozzuto, chief information and technology officer at the turret vendor, another large trading firm is "particularly interested" in having IPC develop a caller-ID version of the system, whereby it would be possible to have the callers' identities posted on an overhead board. The additional information would help head traders further prioritize calls.

Based upon his discussions with customers who are interested in this new application, Bozzuto expects IPC will wind up integrating custom versions for those firms that ultimately opt to buy it. "I'd love to be able to create some killer app and sell a thousand copies of it, but it seems that the real value of this is that we can go ahead and tailor it to the specific requirements of firms," he says. Indeed, Geduld says it is the customization that tipped the scales. "The real key here is that IPC worked with us developing [it]. We told them what we needed, and in a matter of weeks they came up with a product for us," he says.

Herzog Heine Geduld has been a customer of IPC for some time, and, in fact, remained a customer when moving to its new trading floor in Jersey City in mid-1995 (TST, October 30, 1995). The facility includes a proprietary OTC trading and market data display system delivering data and applications to two-headed Unix-based Sun Microsystems Sparcstations on traders' desktops.

The firm maintains one other trading floor in North Miami, which seats 15 people, as well as two traders in Philadelphia. These floors being considerably smaller, the firm has no need for software to monitor calls there.