GSW "in the process of evaluating acquisition targets", page-46

That's a good example. When I was working in the business, the weakest link was the last mile. We had a combination of our own delivery van for local deliveries and used pretty much every other delivery company over the years for long haul. Our system tracked in-house items really well, until they went out the warehouse door.

People ask what this software does that is so different. Firstly, transparency. When a customer phones, fuming because they have been waiting an hour, all we could do at our business was phone the driver and hope he picked up. If it was in the hands of a third party, we were even more limited in what information we could get.

Secondly, smart scheduling. Our own delivery guys were good, they were honest and dependable, but they weren't, how should I say, details people. In terms of scheduling the smartest, quickest way to get the local deliveries out, they didn't have much of a clue. It would have been a lot easier if they could have been given the fastest routing and order of deliveries on some kind of handheld.

Thirdly, customer confirmation and feedback on deliveries. We were in the dark about that, although we got a signed delivery sheet - one laptop was delivered to the wrong place and signed for, by Mickey Mouse. We never got it back and Mr M. Mouse got a free laptop. If you've got a linked GPS system that takes them to the correct address, this would have been avoided. And with feedback we could access, we would have been able to see who got their deliveries on time and who was unhappy. Unhappy customers often don't give you their return business, and even if you use a 3rd party to deliver, you get the blame anyway and labelled a poor company to deal with.