accolade

Challenge
To ensure better customer service by replacing existing paper-based ordering system with EDI (Electronic Data Interchange)

Solution
Bespoke EDI system, running via BT X-Link UK lines

Results
Substantial savings in time and money
Enhanced control, reduced errors
Increased efficiency and customer satisfaction

 
"We're not taking the human element out of the equation - just the drudgery...freeing people from checking invoices so they can concentrate on keeping our customers happy."

                 William Gray, Managing Director
                 Accolade Office Supplies Ltd

BUSINESS ACTIVITY

Accolade has been around since 1980, its name
derived from the Fit For Work Award, achieved in
recognition of the firm's commitment to employing
people with disabilities.

Growth has been steady, even throughout the recession: "When I came here seven years ago," says William, "there were eight of us. We now need 20 to handle the volume of business so we must be doing something right!"

The company supplies office products "a mature and highly competitive marketplace" dealing primarily with large customers throughout mainland Britain.

British Telecom has been a major customer since 1987, rating Accolade a Five Star Vendor for dependability and low price across a large range of quality office products.

Accolade have been committed to communications and computer technology from the early days, but until recently the purchase ordering system essentially ran on paper: "With upwards of 12,500 product lines, even
something like updating prices was an enormously time-consuming exercise. When you add things like invoice checking - with every line of every invoice having to be cross-referenced manually you can see what a nightmare the most basic functions involved."
They were approached by Interactive Products Ltd a software specialist spun-off from Spicers Ltd, one of their main suppliers - and were immediately interested.

"What IPL were offering is basically Electronic Data Interchange - but in a format designed specifically to meet the needs of our industry," says William. "It's state of the art at the moment and I'm not exaggerating when I say it's one of the main things that's helped us not just survive but grow through the recession." It was IPL who specified BT X-Link UK as the communications medium for the system, and "that was fine by us. With any other company, there's always the slight doubt that's attached to an unknown quantity. We felt that with BT we knew where we stood. Also they had the expertise to deliver a good technical solution. Their commitment to service and support back-up - which we've experienced in other dealings with them gave us confidence that they wouldn't let us down, so in turn we wouldn't let our customers down."

CHALLENGE
"Before we installed the system, we used to have to check every single invoice line. Now the system does that for us automatically, flagging up those items - and only those items - that don't seem to tally. Obviously that's a major saving in time. But it also helps safeguard our margins. The time lag in the old
system could play havoc: very often, you'd bill your customer before you received the invoice from a supplier. By the time you got their invoice, and discovered the price had gone up, it was too late: an already slim profit margin was further eroded, sometimes to the point that you'd actually be losing on the sale."

But keeping the numbers in line is only one element albeit an important one - in the financial equation. "We're in business to keep customers happy. Office Supplies is perceived a commodity market, with price-pressure from competitors such as American mail-order outfits increasing all the time. One has to try harder and harder if you want to stay competitive and sustain the customer loyalty. That's what has kept us in business throughout the recession. Instant stock interrogation and reservation plays a big part in that. A customer rings up wanting price and delivery on 100 reams of a particular paper. With a few key strokes I(can check our stock, and the manufacturers' stock as well. I can even reserve the stock I need in their warehouse, and once I've 'tagged' it as ours, no competitor can nip in and grab it. That means during the initial call I can tell my customer that I can fulfil his order, when and at what price. When the deal goes ahead, our computer will place the necessary order, taking into account what we have in stock, what our supplier has in stock, and also any back-order that are still waiting to be processed through the system."

SOLUTION
In a nutshell, Accolade can now rapidly and efficiently:

• Achieve stock interrogation and reservation - locating and 'tagging' supplies whether in Accolade's warehouse or a manufacturer's
• Send order batches, and receive near-instant confirmation of receipt - resulting in fewer errors,
  and an audit trail to clearly identify who's responsible if and when errors do occur
• Receive invoices from suppliers direct to the system, thereby saving time on re-keying, and drastically reducing errors
• Receive instant and automatic price-updates, on 12,500 product lines - saying hours of tedious and detail-critical drudgery
• Send remittance advice to suppliers - quickly, easily, and at lower cost than using paper
  
  

"Even at the most basic level," says William, "it's given us dramatic cost reductions and increases in productivity. Almost as important is the way it's helped us cut out the hassle of silly errors, and improve levels of customer satisfaction. For example, most errors arise
out of re-keying mistakes - products are ordered by code and, of course, one digit wrong and you receive the wrong item. You also get billed for it. So in addition to having the wrong goods moving round the system, you have the resultant paperwork as well - credit notes and so on all needing to be cross-referenced.
With this system, there is no re-keying: you just make up the order - off-line, and in your own good time - check it through, and then squirt it down the wire. So no problems at the supplier end."

RESULTS
Accolade have no doubts about EDI. "Over the next few years," says William, "we'll be using EDI more and more in our dealings with manufacturers and with an increasing number of customers too. Our Chairman, David Arnott, is also a Director of OSTA the Office Supplies Trading Association Britain's largest
independent office supplies wholesaler. He's persuaded the management at their central warehouse in Barnsley, Yorkshire to adopt the computer and communications system we use. Our IT specialist, Steven, helped them install EDI to their order processing routines - this will result in enormous savings both for them and for all the companies equipped to deal with them electronically.
We're advocates for electronic trading, and though there'll always be a hard core of people who just don't like anything new - we're finding people increasingly willing to listen. It just makes such obviously good sense."

And what of BT, who underpin the entire exercise? "Well we did have one glitch in the early days," says William. "When the first BT invoice came through, and we had difficulty working out just how much we were being charged and for what. We raised it with BT, and they immediately included us in a customer survey, effectively helping them answer the question: 'How can we make your life easier?' I thought, 'here's a big corporation going out of its way - off its own bat - to
serve its customers better. Brilliant!'

"And as for the performance of the basic systems - it's proved so trustworthy and reliable that I haven't given it a second thought in all the years it's been running. I just take it totally for granted - what more can you say?"