Tyres4U is New Zealand’s largest tyre wholesaler, with more than 650 active customers ordering every month.

Specialising in the import and distribution of agricultural, industrial, truck, light truck and passenger tyres, Tyres4U is not directly connected with any manufacturing, retailing or franchising organisation, so is independent in the truest sense of the word.

Tyres4U holds exclusive and non-exclusive agencies for tyre brands manufactured in overseas countries.

As the major wholesaler of tyres to tyre retailers in New Zealand, including well known tyre retailers and just about every single independent tyre retailer with brands such as GT Radial, Continental, Double Coin truck tyres and Maxxis to mention just a few. Tyres4U deals with stock requests from around the country - on average 6000 per month - for a massive range of tyres, from tractor tyres to European speciality tyres to 4WD tyres.

Tyres are an absolute necessity for any driver – or company managing a fleet of industrial vehicles.

Being able to get the right tyre onto your vehicle when you need it is essential – no one expects to have to wait even a few days for a new tyre. For Tyres4U, supplying the right tyres to its customers when they need them is mission critical.

Managing stock levels essential
The challenge Tyres4U faced was ensuring it was carrying the right level of stock to satisfy customer demands in a timely manner, without requiring excessive warehouse space for unnecessary stock.

“All our tyres are imported,” says Tyres4U General Manager Perry Scarfe.

“To get stock in can take anything from several weeks to up to 3 or 4 months, so it’s crucial that we have accurate information not only about our existing stock levels, but our customers’ ordering patterns in order to accurately supply tyres.”

To provide real-time information to its sales team when they’re in the field, Tyres4U extended their existing web-based CRM and stock applications to BlackBerry devices.

Key reasons for selecting BlackBerry and browser-based architecture included the short development cycle, cost-effectiveness and ease of deployment.

In fact the turn-around time to get the BlackBerry solution up and running for Tyres4U was astoundingly short. It took just one week of an IT programmer’s time to develop the front-end of the CRM and stock systems for the BlackBerry environment.

It then took one day for a person in the IT team to deploy the solution to a live environment. The only development required was to optimise the web interface so that the stock ordering and CRM applications appeared correctly on the screen of BlackBerry devices.

“Moving to a real-time stock and ordering system has saved our 10 nationwide sales reps many hours in time wasted travelling back to base to check stock levels. Now they can find out right away what tyres we have stock of and if we happen to be out of stock on the tyre the customer has ordered, our system will automatically suggest suitable alternatives,” says Scarfe.

“Having access to that information has been a real bonus for our guys, and its improved customer satisfaction as well.”

Vodafone-only products and services seal the deal After trialling the BlackBerry stock and CRM system with a handful of BlackBerrys for 4 months, Tyres4U has rolled out the system to its entire sales team.

“We’ve seen such huge benefits for our staff in terms of time saved that it would justify the investment in the BlackBerrys,” says Scarfe. “Add to that the fact that its better for our customers, and you’ve got a winning solution.”

Tyres4U’s Australian head office is now looking into rolling out the solution in Australia. “Vodafone provides us with several ‘only on Vodafone’ solutions and plans that just can’t be matched,” says Scarfe.

“Vodafone not only provided us the BlackBerrys, which have really set our sales team free, but offer the fantastic time saving service Aangel, as well as the incredibly competitive talk-ZoneZero calling plan.

“Aangel is truly a god-send, says Duane Keil, National Operations Manager.

“For a small monthly fee, we can quickly add contacts or appointments to our diaries or make notes while we’re on the go. A quick call to 808 is all it takes to keep on top of our busy schedules.”

TalkZoneZero has also improved internal communication at Tyres4U.

“TalkZoneZero can’t be beaten in terms of value,” says Scarfe.

“It means all our staff can talk to each other as much as they need to – regardless of where in New Zealand they are. The upshot is that our team can quickly ask and answer questions of each other, while saving the business money that would otherwise be spent on toll calls,” he says.

“Vodafone has really helped us improve our business – we’ve kept the tyres rolling out the door to our customers, and improved life for our sales team, our call centre team and our customers.”

For more information
Vodafone
www.vodafone.co.nz/casestudies

September 2007