KC Hosting helps Axida deliver a competitive edge to its customers

"We're a Hull-based firm providing business-critical services to international household names, and I'm pleased we're able to use another local firm to provide the services we need to do this efficiently." Wayne Holgate, Director, Axida

With UK online sales hitting £52.1bn in 2010, there’s no denying that online retailing is big business. Every high street chain has an online presence and small fortunes are being spent on advertising to drive online shoppers to them.

But the transaction’s not over once an online order has been placed – far from it. For online and catalogue retailers alike, the process for getting the goods to the customer’s door is just as important as the ordering process.

That’s something local technology firm Axida is well aware of. It provides intelligent home delivery solutions that help retailers and logistics firms make deliveries in a way that increases customer satisfaction and gives them a competitive edge. Its success has led to it counting some of the UK’s biggest brand names amongst its clients, including Habitat, Laura Ashley, IKEA, Wickes, Tesco, M&S, Best Buy, CEVA and Wincanton.

Delivering customer satisfaction

Axida’s Home Delivery solution (HDi) makes it easy for retailers and logistics companies to manage home deliveries where the customer needs to be present to receive the goods. The system allows retailers to offer specific delivery time slots to their customers so that they can arrange to be at home.

It increases both efficiency and customer satisfaction by reducing the cost per delivery, improving the first-time delivery rate and giving early visibility of instances where deliveries can’t be made at the correct time so that customer expectations can be managed and an alternative delivery time arranged.

Axida’s Parcel Management Solution (PPD) reduces the time between order and delivery by integrating with a retailer’s or distributor’s website so that minutes after an order is placed it can be selected from a warehouse ready for dispatch. The system can also advise retailers on where best-selling items of popular groups of items should be sited within the warehouse for maximum efficiency. 

Axida’s success led to it being named as one of five “Cool Vendors” offering supply chain management by leading technology analyst Gartner last year. It was selected from companies that offer technologies that provide real business impact rather than technology for its own sake.

Innovative technology – backed up with reliable, secure hosting

Axida Director Wayne Holgate knows that investing in the development of new solutions that help save his clients money and give them a competitive edge with customers is vital to Axida’s continued growth.

Another important factor in Axida’s success is the reliability and availability of the technology it provides to clients, which is why the firm has chosen KC as its hosting partner.

He said: “It doesn’t matter how sophisticated and efficient our solutions are if our customers can’t access them because a server somewhere is down or not able to handle all the traffic it’s getting.

“Our aim for the future is to continue to provide our clients with solutions that save them time and money, and which help to give their customers a great experience.

“KC’s managed server hosting and co-located hosting give us peace of mind that the solutions we’re providing are backed up with a fast, flexible and secure hosting service.

“We’re a Hull-based firm providing business-critical services to international household names, and I’m pleased we’re able to use another local firm to provide the services we need to do this efficiently.

Ben O’Leary, Axida’s Account Manager at KC, said: “Hosting is one of those services that’s invisible if you get it right but has the potential to cause major headaches if it’s not.