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Mail Plus Pty Ltd, a franchise based mail and distribution business, has in the past 12 months achieved an exhilarating business growth rate of 300%.
With a view to providing “total franchise support” it is the practice of Mail Plus to process every single invoice on behalf of its franchisee base. This administrative process involves tasks such as collating data from franchisees for monthly invoicing; recording receipts; preparing monthly franchisee reporting; and sending payments.
Directors of Mail Plus, Stephen Giderson and Chris Burgess, recognised the need to review and improve their IT systems in light of such projected growth, to ensure that a franchisee customer service excellence model could be maintained.
Huon Computer Consultants were briefed to work in co-operation with the Directors to define a comprehensive “Technology Strategy” for the business. This strategy required a solution to accomplish a number of key issues for the success of Mail Plus operations:
• Directors and staff need to be able to work from anywhere at anytime, as interstate travel is high on the agenda whilst the business gains market share in new territories around Australia.
• The franchisee administration business process must be streamlined to require minimum manual input whilst providing a rich management reporting framework.
• The system must be capable of providing equal performance as received in Head Office for existing and new remote offices in other states.
• The system must be scalable to meet projected future growth.
A new FileMaker software solution along with remote access infrastructure was designed and costed. Return on investment was assessed and fell within a pleasing range on the basis of predicted productivity benefits and additional services being offered to franchisees. On completion of the assessment phase the system was developed, prototyped, and implemented to upgrade and replace existing systems.
The new business software developed within FileMaker Pro integrates the company’s franchisee website with internal business processing systems and accounting software. The technology infrastructure provides a secure web interface for directors and staff to log into the office from anywhere and receive exceptional performance as though they were in the office. This flexibility has allowed directors and staff to work from hotels, Qantas Club’s etc., and w irelessly on the road whilst they continue to expand their business.
Today, the system has been operational for five months and directors report that the productivity benefits have well and truly exceeded original expectations. Administrative staff advise that processes which previously took 30 minutes per franchisee now take less than three minutes. The remarkable growth of Mail Plus has been achieved seamlessly, without any additional staffing. Stephen Giderson reports the implementation by Huon Computer Consultants has been an outstanding success and thanks to the intelligence of the new system, the business continues its impressive expansion throughout Australia!