ANC increases efficiency with automated reporting

About ANC

ANC is a leading provider of dedicated last-mile delivery solutions across Australia, supporting some of the country’s most recognized brands. With a strong emphasis on customer experience and operational performance, ANC specializes in tailored logistics services, including complex B2B and B2C delivery requirements. Their national footprint and commitment to service excellence make them a trusted partner in the transport and logistics industry.

Challenge:

The reporting processes of some businesses are inherently complex, especially when the businesses they support include sophisticated multinational operations. In a fundamentally complicated, high-pressure sector, managers at ANC recognized that Administration Manager Deen Hamaker had, “one of the most complex reports we’ve ever seen.”

“I came on when ANC took over what was Overseas Courier Services (OCS).The OCS network is a very large international courier network.” Deen says. When ANC took over the business, there was still a lot of reporting back to Japan required, and Japan has very specific reporting requirements. The relationship between Japan and Australia also involves reporting on the complex cross-charging relationship between the entities.

“Solvexia has made a significant difference in the allocation of my time. I can now focus on the higher value parts of my job, which is better for our business, and frankly, more rewarding for me.”

– Deen Hamaker, Administration Manager

Solution:

Deen did not need much persuasion when management suggested that he try to minimize that complexity by making use of Solvexia with the added incentive that, if it worked, “we’d roll it out across the company.”

Deen says setting up a custom report in Solvexia is straightforward. “In Solvexia, to build a report, you put the raw data in, transfer it over on to a sheet that has the formula in it and it automatically creates the finished report for you. You focus on the design of business process and let technology drive the repeatable execution. This allows you to use your time where it will be most valuable for the business.”

“Once the report is created, Solvexia then goes through and checks the report for any inconsistencies and puts them on a different sheet, identifying line items for review and checking.”

“The system and its outputs are also robust and utterly dependable,” he says.

Deen says, “Solvexia makes it easy to change and adapt your automated processes. If you’ve been doing a report for some time, it is extremely easy to make specific changes such as when the standard format for international consignment note numbers changed, it was a two-minute job.”

"I’ve been shocked in a good way, in that, instead of having to spend three or four days producing a report, I could put all of my data into Solvexia, go out for a coffee and come back to find the information I wanted sitting in my email.”

– Deen Hamaker, Administration Manager

Results:

Deen explains that the increased control Solvexia has given him over the hefty Excel spreadsheets and complex process steps involved in his business reporting is remarkable. ANC is an aggressive user of Excel, as it is a powerful and flexible tool, but on its own it lacked some elements of control.

Excel on its own cannot provide the consistency, control or process reliability demanded of critical business reporting data such as ANC’s. Deen says, “We achieved this huge time saving because of Solvexia. When you have to change information manually it means actually going through each line and adjusting the data by hand – this can take a very long time.”

“And we’re talking about very large Excel spreadsheets here, with seven or eight thousand lines on a sheet.” By contrast, Deen says, “Solvexia has given us a highly standardized, repeatable and efficient process.

”He says, “Initially, I ran two of those complex monthly reports on Solvexia, but even after the first one I knew Solvexia was the right solution for us.”

“By the second month, the time savings generated by using Solvexia were clear to everyone. Over the cycle of running the four different monthly reports configured on the Solvexia platform, I had the process of reporting down from ten days to three days –that is a huge jump in efficiency.”

“Solvexia has massively reduced the process of creating the monthly statement that passes between us and Japan,” Deen says. “Some of the reports we were getting from Japan were also from an older type of software. Solvexia has since made light work of this challenge. There are various different ways that Solvexia has been able to achieve this result and Solvexia ensures that documentation is always accurate,” Deen says.

“Solvexia has in effect allowed us to bring very different IT systems together to produce a single set of cohesive results.”

Deen says, Solvexia can reduce the risk of key-person dependency. “If I get hit by a bus, it’s all in the system, all they have to do is sign into Solvexia and it’s all there. And because Solvexia has automated a lot more of the reporting, I’ve been able to move into more complex administration and analysis.”solvexia.com

Solvexia has provided ANC with a new and reliable competitive weapon. “We produce a lot of KPI reports for clients, which is common for distribution and delivery companies,” Deen says. “A lot of our big clients have customized reports they want us to produce, not based on what comes out of our software or the reporting we produce for ourselves, but on what they want.”

“The delivery parameters for a specific client may be that the delivery takes no longer than four hours from location A to location B. They want a report that tells them on a daily basis what percentage of arrivals were within the time period and what percentage were outside of it, and how many were early or late within five-minute increments, and listed by ‘p’s, and the length of delay.”

“The sales team will come to me and say, this is the report they were getting from someone before and this is the report they want, can you do it, and with Solvexia, we really haven’t had a problem to date.”

“If you can reduce an operator taking 45 minutes to do a daily report so that, by putting it into Solvexia, it’s now taking five, that’s a really significant saving. Solvexia makes us competitively stronger in our sector, because we can serve our clients better.”

“With a solid, satisfying experience from using Solvexia, ANC is looking to expand its use,” Deen says.

“We’ve got several more KPI reports to develop, so we’re now looking at expanding our use of Solvexia, not just in the number of reports, but in the number of staff that use it on a daily basis, across the whole group and across Australia.”

As for dealing with Solvexia itself, Deen is unequivocal about the service he hasexperienced. “They are fantastic to work with. They’ve been really helpful andsupportive, anything we ever needed, they were there.”

“I use a lot of self-service and that’s allowed me to be very independent, so when somebody in the company comes to me and says, I want to use Solvexia to help me make this report, I can create all the modules necessary to do it.”