Argility MultiTRAX deployment provides control, management of deliveries for one of SA’s leading furniture retailers

Argility MultiTRAX deployment provides control and management of deliveries for one of SA’s leading furniture retailers.

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Argility, which positions itself as a leading innovator and implementer of software and data analytics solutions for retailers, part of the Data and Technology cluster of global enterprise Smollan, has implemented the MultiTRAX delivery management and scheduling solution to help a leading furniture retailer enhance management and control of deliveries.

As a proudly South African furniture retailer with over 76 stores and nine warehouses nationwide, this retailer has grown solidly over the past 30 years and has a tradition of harnessing digital technology for ongoing operational improvement.

Conquering the business challenge of growing complexity

With a footprint across South Africa, the retailer uses third-party delivery companies to facilitate the delivery of orders to its customers as quickly, efficiently and cost-effectively as possible, and this presented complications in logistics management, with each partner using a different delivery and logistics system.

To manage costs effectively and ensure deliveries lived up to the brand promise, the retailer wanted greater visibility over its delivery partners’ operations, drivers and the time and costs associated with deliveries.

Another challenge related to the often poorly demarcated streets and addresses impacting timely deliveries and to improve customer experience, the retailer needed to ensure that drivers could reach customers as quickly as possible, and that customers could track where their delivery drivers were.

Eamon McCann, Executive at Argility Technology Group, says Argility has worked with this retailer for many years and has a deep understanding of their business.

A year ago, Argility noted the frustrations being experienced by its customer around their lack of real-time visibility into deliveries. “The company has been growing and its environment has become more complex. We proposed MultiTRAX as a solution to bring greater visibility and enhanced efficiency around customer deliveries,” he says.

Argility’s expert team implemented the solution, making this retailer the first Argility customer in this sector to harness MultiTRAX.

McCann notes that because the solution is cloud-based, implementation, integrations and training proceeded quickly and without any hitches. “The drivers simply downloaded the app, while management used the web portal, and with the system being intuitive, adoption was fairly easy,” he says.

The MultiTRAX cloud-based delivery management system offers organisations complete control over their entire delivery ecosystem, with intelligent route planning, driver scheduling, and with either order system integrations or AI-powered optical character recognition (OCR) technology available to access data more accurately and process it faster.

MultiTRAX also overcomes the challenge of finding home addresses by allowing customers to validate their address against Google maps and sending the driver an accurate location pin identifying the physical location for a successful delivery. Drivers receive their day’s schedule and routes on their mobile app, creating more efficiency and reducing time spent trying to locate end customers.

MultiTRAX automatically receives and securely stores proof of delivery confirmations, unsuccessful deliveries and photographs of delivery sites, and makes all artefacts and data instantly available to the team.

With the MultiTRAX dashboard, drivers and vehicles can be monitored and scheduled for optimal route planning and cost savings.

Customer experience is also enhanced through pre-delivery notifications with estimated arrival times, allowing customers to track their delivery driver’s progress via a visualised route map with GPS tracking, and enabling them to accept and confirm delivery via their mobile devices. After delivery, the customer can give feedback on the experience.

MultiTRAX also features comprehensive dashboards, reports and data analytics for ongoing improvement.

MultiTRAX has brought about significant improvements for the customer, McCann says. “In the past, they had limited visibility into how long deliveries took and the costs associated with that. MultiTRAX gives them full visibility so they can manage their costs more effectively. MultiTRAX offers them a better experience all round – from planning to warehouse operations to the customer experience,” he concludes.