Anglia Telecom Ltd
Industry :
Telecommunications
Scenarios : On-Line
Business Operations
UK Award winning Microsoft Navision e-commerce solution
provides Anglia Telecom with a significant competitive advantage.
Introduction
Founded in 1984, Anglia Telecom has over 19 years
experience as a successful telecommunications organisation. The company,
part of AIM listed The Telecommunications Group plc, established its
reputation by using its expertise in helping hundreds of UK dealers succeed
in the highly competitive telecommunications sector. The company deals with
all four major networks – Vodafone, 02, T-Mobile and Orange and its
objective is to become the countries leading distributor in cellular
distribution.
Anglia Telecom realised that targeted technology was the key to managing
successful growth. The requirement was a solution that provided a flow of
information across the company about what was really happening to their
customers and products. The key was to ensure that the selected system
supported all operations in ensuring timely deliveries of quality products.
A totally integrated Microsoft Navision solution provided the base for an
e-commerce system that provided their dealers with improved access to
information. Working with Cambridge based Anglia Business Solutions the
company deployed a state of the art e-commerce system tailored specifically
to meet the needs of the business. The system has helped to improve the
company’s efficiency in servicing its dealer base leading to a significant
increase in customer satisfaction.
Company background
Anglia Telecom was established in 1984 and is one of the UK’s leading
privately owned telecommunications distribution organisations. The company
has a full ISO 9002 accreditation. The main activities of the company
include the distribution of mobile phones as well as the provision of fixed
line telephone network services.
The key to its success is the partnering approach with dealers designed to
assist them to succeed in the highly competitive telecommunications market
place. This frequently involved providing exceptional administrative support
services designed to reduce the dealers’ paperwork while providing them with
timely and accurate information.
The Business Need
The company needed a flexible, powerful, modern company
wide business management system capable of meeting its very specific
requirements. Apart from the normal financial reporting requirements, the
system also had to cater for a number of discrete applications specific to
the telecoms industry.
Anglia Telecom selected the Navision ERP system as the platform of choice
based on its combination of powerful functionality and integrated
development facilities. As Managing Director Aidan Coughlan explained “We
were very impressed with the functionality of the Microsoft Navision
product. As a high tech company we understood the design concepts of the
system. However, it was the integrated development environment that really
appealed. We needed a billing system that precisely matched our way of
working. The development facilities were vital in tailoring the solution to
meet our very specific needs. Once this was delivered, we could focus on
reducing our internal administration costs while providing the dealers with
unparalleled access to relevant information”.
A further critical requirement for the new system was the ability to keep
track of all activations of mobile phones sold through Anglia Telecom and to
store this data indefinitely. Equally important was a need in detailed
analysis of activation data as the company has to be competitive often
operating on narrow commission margins. Therefore sophisticated activation
features were developed within Navision that allows users to record all
relevant information on Activation Cards.
The flexible and easy-to-use Navision integrated development environment
made it possible to provide a seamless link between bespoke Activation part
of the system and standard Navision Sales and General Ledger functionality.
That gave management a great opportunity to collate tens of thousands of
transactions into a wider analytic picture that can be viewed from different
perspectives thanks to powerful Navision Report Designer capabilities.
The system automatically calculates how much commission the dealers are
entitled to within a given period. Account managers can then preview and
issue “self-billed” sales invoices. This, on one hand, allows them to be
fully in control of the sales process. On the other hand, it makes Anglia
Telecom more attractive as a vendor for the dealers as it significantly
reduces their administrative costs. The Activation system also calculates
how much commission the company can expect from service providers and how
much has been received. Again, detailed reports have been built helping
managers to see a full profitability picture.
Once the complete billing and activation system was deployed and refined,
the benefits became obvious. Operating from one central system as opposed to
a variety of database meant that data duplication was greatly reduced. It
also meant that management had immediate access to vital business trends and
were able to react to what was going on in a fast moving environment.
However, now that the company had a sophisticated integrated back office
system, it was keen to embrace the on-line opportunities provided by the
Internet.
“We recognised that we would have to adopt an e-business operating model if
we were to fully realise our market leading potential” said Aidan Coughlan
“The integrated e-commerce facilities were key factors in our initial
decision to adopt Navision. We were conscious that these would provide us
with further significant efficiency improvements as operating on-line became
a more accepted business practice”
The e-Business Solution
The e-business solution had to cater for access to ordering and financial
information from the dealer community sales channels. The solution was built
using Microsoft .NET components using a Joint Rapid Application development
(JRAD) methodology. This enabled the dealer connection web-site to be
quickly established.
At the same time, seamless links were established with the Microsoft
Navision business management system. This provided dealers with on-line
access to the key information that helped them to manage their businesses.
Once logged into the system, dealers could check on stock availability,
place orders, interrogate the activations system and view their commission
payments.
The Approach
The process of transferring part of the business to an on-line operating
mode required careful planning as Anglia Business Solutions Development
Manager Richard Jones explains: “During the 10 day implementation period for
this project, it was important that the customer was fully involved in the
process at all stages. The Anglia .NET technology toolbox of components
allowed us to very rapidly create working prototypes of the Anglia Telecom
solution.
As the functionality was created, Anglia Telecom personnel were able to log
into the new site. They could then simulate how the system would work using
actual data. This provided us with immediate feedback on how the system
could best meet their very specific needs. This meant that when deployed,
the system worked in a way that precisely met the needs of the business. It
was an excellent example of a partnership in action”.
Business Benefits
The new management reporting system has already provided Anglia Telecom
with significant advantages over the previous method of operation. It
greatly reduced the data duplication activities throughout the organisation
and improved the accuracy of information. This has helped to reduce overall
administration costs while providing instant access to vital management
information on the growing volume of business now being handled by the
company.
As Aidan Coughlan explains “Our partnership approach with our dealers means
that it is vital to keep them informed of changes to either the costs or
delivery timing of orders undertaken on their behalf. This was extremely
difficult and time consuming under the old way of working. The Microsoft
Navision suite and tailored billing solution handled this superbly. However,
we saw the e-commerce initiative as a vital aid in improving our dealer
service.
We were delighted at how quickly and efficiently Anglia Business Solutions
designed and deployed the on line solution. We had heard of the .NET
concepts but didn’t realise how powerful they were until this system was
implemented.
The system was deployed to reflect exactly how we wished to work. The
project was completed to very tight timescales and within budget. We can now
offer our dealers an unparalleled information service that will enable them
to grow their businesses. In return, retention of their loyalty will help us
to realise our future ambitious growth plans.”
Products
Windows 2000
MS SQL Server 2000
MS Office
Microsoft Navision 3.60
Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1
Anglia’s Toolbox of .NET Components
Services Required
Business Consultancy
Project Management
Windows 2000 Server Set-Up & Optimisation
Exchange integration
SQL 2000 Set-up & Integration
Workstation installation & Optimisation
Firewall Technology Deployment
Microsoft Navision Bespoke Design
Microsoft Navision Programming & Testing
Microsoft Navision Financials Integration & Testing
ASP.NET Development