Client: Londis (Holdings) Ltd

Business Applications: Form Design, Data Capture and Analysis

The Company: Londis (Holdings) Ltd is a wholesale supplier of goods and services to  over 2140 independent retailers in England, Scotland and Wales. Retailers join Londis on a voluntary membership basis in order to obtain bulk-buying advantages, marketing support and expertise provided in all areas essential for growing their business.

'Londis Retailing 2002 - The Main Event' is one of the premier trade events in the convenience retail sector. In order to differentiate itself from its competitors, the company runs 4,500mē shows at four different venues across the country over a two-week period. Critical to the success of the events is Londis' ability to offer 'show only' deals as an incentive for its retailers to attend.

The Challenge: Sales orders from trade shows were being manually processed in-house using temporary staff. The process was lengthy and accuracy unreliable. The company originally planned to purchase Captiva's FormWare software to scan sales order forms. Captiva, however, suggested a less expensive alternative would be to outsource the work and recommended ADS, a re-seller of its software.

ADS Managing Director Robin Prior and IT Programmer June Drummond met with Londis Trade Marketing Director Ross Halliday in February to discuss alternatives. The order form was re-designed for easier scanning and the contract won. Booklets arrived at ADS in Glasgow in April. They were then processed and the data sent back to Middlesex in the form of an ascii text file.

The new system has been so successful that Londis now use ADS to handle other big campaign orders, such as pre-sells on Christmas and spring confectionery. To date 35,000 orders have been automatically processed.

Benefits:

The speed and accuracy of the service ensures that:

• Orders are processed automatically in days rather than weeks.
• Accuracy is in excess of 99%.
• Retailers' orders arrive in the correct quantity at the right place.
• There has been no costly investment in software and training.
• Processing, delivery lead times and credit calculation reduced by up to 90%.

"In 2002 there were in excess of 380 different deals made available to all attendees. The number of order books received exceeded all expectations. ADS worked extremely hard between shows to process all the orders received in order that we could arrange delivery of the stock in the shortest possible time."

Ross Halliday, Trade Marketing Director,
Londis (Holdings) Ltd