Paul Mason Consulting HDi Review
Complete fulfilment …?
Customers are becoming ever more demanding, their expectations are growing and a retailer’s home delivery service needs to fit their customers’ increasingly busy lifestyles. Whether you are selling flat pack furniture or kitchen appliances the cost of mismanaging deliveries and poor coordination of supporting services can be high.
How often do failed deliveries lead to goods being returned and then lost in a quagmire of paper based returns procedures? With the ever increasing growth of multi-channel sales, order fulfilment is becoming a major issue for big ticket retailers who traditionally rely on manual systems or heavily customised merchandise management systems to control their home delivery and returns process.
Purpose
Established in 1995, and using their first hand experience of a leading white goods retailer, the Axida team has developed a well focused suite of programmes that support sales order capture, order management and the fulfilment process. Axida’s stated objective is to increase first time delivery success rates, provide the retailer with improved visibility of the sales to fulfilment process and, consequently, to drive improved resource utilisation and customer satisfaction.
The Product
Based on Microsoft’s architecture using SQL server with applications written in Visual Basic, Axida have created HDi (Home Delivery and installation). Designed to help manage a retailer’s entire service delivery process, HDi is highly configurable and can be integrated with existing and third party sales and fulfilment systems. The system addresses the tasks associated with booking customer deliveries, resource management, routing, sourcing supply, distribution and delivery debriefing. With integrated workflow and item level tracking the system highlights failed deliveries and will flag overdue commitments.
The system allows the customer or sales assistant to book a specific delivery time and date from a graphically displayed list of options based on predefined geographic and resource parameters. Specific services such as on site assembly, or connection to the customer’s gas supply, can be appended to the stored delivery instructions. For a mid size operation the Axida system can support warehouse stock management including picking requirements, tracking supplier deliveries, goods out and returns.
Access to the system can be via the Internet, from store or central base, which provides for flexible implementation and adaptation to the retailer’s needs. Being SQL based the database offers comprehensive enquiry facilities enabling the system to support call centre type customer queries on the status of orders and deliveries. B2B modules can be employed to manage the link between a retailer’s existing Web based order system and a third party fulfilment system offering good potential to increase range without the need to handle stock.
When combined with Axida’s new GPRS / PDA based "assisted ordering" system HDi offers a seductive approach to selling catalogued items such as CD’s through to big ticket items that may require supported installation. Orders placed can then be tracked and routed through to successful fulfilment.
Partners
Axida’s technology partners include Microsoft and Retail Logic.
Who's using it
Axida’s clients include CEVA, Laura Ashley, Habitat, Ikea, Wickes and Wincanton.
PMC's Opinion
This is an interesting suite of well thought through products that offer practical solutions to the problems associated with order management and service orientated fulfilment. The system provides comprehensive control over the delivery and returns process addressing several of the challenges that retailers face when operating a home delivery service. Combined with their evolving POS offering and a B2C Web based sales channel, Axida have clearly set their sights on fulfilling a growing need and offer a more cost-effective solution than some of the bigger players in the market.