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Even Attaché Alex would happily admit
that sometimes a stamp is the most efficient solution
— just not those of the postage variety.
Astron Industries in Thomastown, Melbourne, specialise
in the manufacturer of rubber stamp and marking
products to the trade.
According to Chris Maries, "We produce millions
of stamps per year. In the ten-week period when
GST was first introduced we produced over 1.2
million GST-related stamps. Even our competitors
were coming to us!"
Efficiency was also the reason Chris
first implemented Alex. Astron Industries fax
and email their invoices, credit adjustment notes,
statements, purchase orders, remittance advices,
and even some delivery dockets via Alex.
"If I could, I wouldn't send statements.
But now with Alex, there's no work at all. You
simply hit a button and move on to the next job.
"At month end in particular Alex helps
take the pressure off, at a very high pressure
time. For the day to day documents the benefits
are just as real, but month end is where you really
notice the difference.
"The start of the month is our busiest sales
period, and Alex helps us focus on the orders,
not the admin. For example," Chris explains,
"invoices would often be printed at the end
of the day but when we were busy they might get
held over. Now, with Alex, that just doesn't happen."
With 97% of Astron's customers and suppliers
now receiving documents by fax or email, Chris
found few problems getting them to accept electronic
delivery.
"One customer at first said he couldn't
receive either a fax or an email because his office
wasn't set up to print emails and the fax had
the wrong type of paper. But in the end he agreed
to try email.
"Just a few days later the same customer
rang back to tell us just how impressed he was.
He said he placed an order, and on the same day
he'd received the delivery docket advising that
the order had been issued. Plus he'd received
the invoice, which meant he'd been able to invoice
his customer on the same day he placed his order.
He thought that was great."
"As a matter of fact, we increased our sales
by 14% during 2002 and have managed the additional
workload with fewer people in administration —
thanks to Alex!
Visit
Astron's website
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