Case Studies
| MetaPack and Mothercare |  |
Background
When Mothercare, the UK’s mother and baby retailer, looked for a way to reduce the cost of their home delivery operation they found that MetaPack had the technology and expertise to help them do just that.
Less than 6 months later, MetaPack had helped Mothercare introduce a multi-carrier strategy, achieve a 15% reduction in carrier spend and significantly improve the delivery service offered by their online and catalogue channels.
"MetaPack has been the only company to offer us the flexibility that we require while enabling us to reduce our overall carrier costs" - Tim Curtis, Head of Direct, Mothercare
The Challenge
In 2002, Mothercare faced higher carrier charges resulting from a premium being introduced on non-conforming items. Whereas previously the company had worked with just two carriers to deliver a variety of products, they quickly realised they needed to use a combination of carriers to reduce their overall costs. Yet their existing operations relied on manual picking often resulting in expensive deliveries as well as non-generic labelling and processes. Ultimately this meant the integration of new carriers would prove difficult.
Mothercare required a system that could control and automatically manage the allocation of orders, cope with the different operational processes each carrier would have and provide the flexibility to add additional carrier’s quickly should business requirements change. However in order to deliver these functionalities the company was faced with the enormous challenge of building a bespoke system that would be both time consuming and costly.
Instead they needed a business partner, with a dedicated team who would understand their requirements and deliver the cost and service benefits demanded. They choose MetaPack.
The Solution
MetaPack implemented a Delivery Management System (DMS) that allowed Mothercare to:
• Reduce expenditure on carriers without reducing carrier rates
• Automate carrier allocation and inform customers of delivery service and cost at point of order
• Centralise control and introduce a reporting tool that gives complete visibility and measures home delivery performance
• Integrate new carriers cost effectively and with ease
Key to delivering the project was the successful integration of chosen carriers. This involved:
• Identifying a carriers niche strengths
• Agreeing business rules on how each parcel is allocated based on carrier capabilities
• Understanding the carriers contractual process
• Design of customer specific labels
• Test and sign-off of new customer interfaces
MetaPack completed these activities for each carrier to allow Mothercare’s goods to be dispatched using the most suitable partner and thus communicate these delivery details clearly to their customers.
The Result
Once MetaPack completed it’s implementation of DMS, Mothercare saw a 100% return on investment in just 6 months and when their volumes significantly increased in the first year, not only were Mothercare able to successfully deliver over 600,000 parcels they were still able to achieve a cost saving of 7%.
By increasing the number of carriers and leveraging their core competence, DMS has allowed Mothercare to get the best price from it carriers and maximise savings. In addition it has given them the ability to track parcel status and proactively respond to the unexpected so that customer expectations are fully managed.
MetaPack and Mothercare continue to work closely together at all levels and by developing a clear understanding of customer’s aspirations, Mothercare now has a home delivery operation that is flexible enough to meet changing business requirements as their online and catalogue channels continue to grow.
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