ITeMGroup works with a major distribution company to bring their Distribution Network Online

Background
The distribution company operates a large network delivering advertising material to household letterboxes.It has a sizeable operation in Australia and New Zealand, and a growing number of large clients with increasingly sophisticated delivery requirements.

Having previously completed the development and commissioning of the company’s core operating system in Australia and New Zealand, ITeMGroup turned its attention to new and better ways for the company to utilise technology.

The Challenge
The distribution company contracts its household letterbox distribution activities to more than 900 Distributors Australia wide. These Distributors manage around 20,000 letterbox deliverers, who walk the streets to deliver in excess of 4 billion items a year.

With such a large network to manage, the area of paper and telephone-based communication was seen to provide major opportunities for cost savings and for improved communication to the field.

How ITeMGroup met the challenge!
ITeMGroup developed an Internet-based system prototype to bring the 900 Distributors online. The prototype approach allowed the company’s management team to see how easily a system could be built with the technologies available.

ITeMGroup brought a comprehensive set of skills to the project including:
• Project management
• Change management
• Software analysis
• Design & development
• Documentation services
• Hardware architecture and Internet deployment skills

By forging a strong, collaborative working relationship, ITeMGroup was able to successfully develop and deploy an Internet based system for the company's network.

Over the next six months the project was systematically implemented in Australia, with New Zealand following.

During implementation, ITeMGroup delivered training to the company's internal staff, who were then deployed to train contract distributors within the company’s delivery network.

How the system delivers business success for the company.
This system is the company’s primary communication link with its delivery network.

Streetlink performs the following functions:
• Upcoming jobs are notified to Distributors
• Enables production of Deliverer worksheets (Run sheets)
• Enables printing of delivery maps
• Enables production of invoices
• Notifies any late changes to the relevant Distributor
• Enables the signing of contracts
• Provides for e-mail communication if required

With the system, real business benefits have been experienced including:
• 25% decrease in transaction costs
• The achievement of record profit levels by being able to deliver huge volumes (in excess of 4 billion items in 2001) without system failure
• Effective management of 20,000 contract Distributors and letterbox Deliverers
• A reduction in systems support numbers by 75%

From a systems perspective, the benefits are:
• 99.8% uptime in tandem with major system changes
• Continual performance monitoring and capacity planning
• Support for large numbers of users
• High levels of system data loss protection
• A stable support team, managed by ITeM Group
• Interface with the company's core business system