Case Study: AUSTRAL Media

Case Study Outline

AUSTRAL Media engaged The SMART Group in 2010 to consult in the implementation of a new technology platform within its organisation. The company, a media organisation that managed the printing and distribution of magazines for clients such as the Australian Federal Police, Australian Firefighters and the Salvation Army required specialist services to implement new contact / call centre technology. Over a period of 5 months, The SMART Group installed sophisticated IT infrastructure, provisioned new PC’s, developed an account management system for staff, and streamlined all paper-based processes throughout the business.

Problem

After 25 years, AUSTRAL Media was a powerful business that relied on paper-based processes in order to target prospects, manage existing customers and communicate – with fax services accounting for the majority of customer interactions. This had an effect of minimising the productivity of the sales workforce, who were tasked with writing all sales order sheets, managing a filofax of contacts and gathering prospect information from paper based directories. With the introduction of a new management team, business decisions were made to increase efficiencies wherever possible.

Solution

The SMART Group initially performed a comprehensive Optimisation review, which focused on process mapping all existing paper based work, and identifying key aspects of the process that could be improved. After the initial 2 week review phase, The SMART Group set about installing all necessary hardware in parallel with developing an account management system, that allowed staff to manage their client base, process sales, and digitally send and receive faxes, emails and letters.

In addition to this, the administration team were provided a separate level of access to the system, that facilitated post-sale account management work, and sophisticated workflow processes meant that the two separate teams could communicate through the system, with relevant flags providing the sales staff with a clear indication of the next action that should take place – from prospect, all the way to a printed advertisement complete with typesetting and payment.

Success

• Significant increases in the productivity of sales staff, and an estimated increase of 15% in overall sales rates through better workflow.

• Removal of all paper based communications processes, such as faxes, emails and letters.

• Streamlined administrative functionality that automatically scheduled a follow up call to confirm advertisement and payment 3 days after initial contact.

• Created various ‘work types’ in a sophisticated process flow, to ensure that from the first point of contact, each and every customer was able to be managed based on the next appropriate action, with date / time scheduling and Service Level agreements.

• Provided management with clear visibility into the ongoing operations through a web based reporting suited that consolidated all important metrics.