QAS & Harcourt Education

Ian Cavey

E-Learning & Online Manager

Who are we?

• Member of the Reed Elsevier group of companies

• Leading school and FE publisher, with operations in U.K, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa

• Brands include Heinemann, Rigby, Ginn, Payne Gallway

Why is data accuracy important?

E-commerce facilities are a growing part of our business

Key drivers for data accuracy:• Customer Satisfaction

– Ease of use, goods get delivered quickly (and to the right place!)• Cost Reduction

– Cost of sale reduced, sales support staff focus on taking orders not sorting problems

• Legal Requirements– Data Protection

How it was

• E-commerce facility had been in place since September 2002

• >50,000 credit card customers – teachers, students, parents

• Order, warehousing and distribution system on AS400 running System 21

Customer Details

• Too much flexibility !• Customer creativeness / helpfulness /typos

– East Riding of Yorkshire– Flintshire (formerly Clwyd)– South Pembrokeshire– ???????– SP1O 3HY

The Result

AS400 unable to handle the variations, so automatic order processing fails. Customer Services staff then have to enter the order manually, leading to extended delivery times, customer dissatisfaction and increased cost of sale

Why QAS?

• Market Leader

• High Quality Product

• Comprehensive Support

• Recommendation – other companies in the group use it

The situation now

Implementation

• C#.Net

• Excellent support from QAS

• From start to working implementation less than 2 days

Initial Results

• Very positive feedback regarding ease of use and accuracy

• ‘we know where you live!’

• Customer Services staff delighted at the drop in orders that they need to sort out