CitySprint, the UK’s leading same-day distribution network, is using the Qlik visual analytics platform to gain a better understanding of its day-to-day business operations and ensure its customers are receiving the best service possible. The company deployed Qlik through Elite Solution Provider, Data Technology, to consolidate operational data from various and disparate streams into a single source.
CitySprint is the UK’s leading same day courier service, with a network of over 3,000 self-employed couriers and over 40 wholly-owned service centers. The company also develops customised delivery solutions for clients with specific distribution needs, such as fresh-food delivery service, Hello Fresh. Before introducing Qlik, CitySprint was pulling together thousands of reports in spreadsheets for various business operations and individual customers. This was a process that could regularly take weeks to generate and a considerable amount of manpower. As the company’s core service is same-day deliveries, CitySprint needed a much faster way of gaining insights from its reports daily and as required by staff to make almost instant and accurate decisions, and provide an informed response to any urgent customer requests.
Chris Yates, data and analytics manager at CitySprint explains, “As the leading same-day delivery company, our company culture is all about getting things done as quickly and efficiently as possible. We don’t have the luxury of waiting two or three weeks for reports, we need to be able to get back to our customers the same day.”
Using Qlik, CitySprint is able to consolidate data from multiple systems and open up reporting to more of the business. The company created a single dashboard that includes figures on delivery performance and financial KPIs. This has enabled the team to instantly drill down into the data to gain an overview of the client, and view individual transactions and jobs without going through a central port of call. For example, Qlik is the first solution accessed by acquisition project management at the start of each day to track customer activity and delivery performance with up-to-date insight. Now they do not have to wait for a daily or weekly report to understand trading revenue and margin performance by acquisition, and can therefore act quickly to resolve any occurring issues. Qlik is also allowing users to bookmark regular searches for instant access and navigation of information on demand.
Martin Poole, head of operations, London at CitySprint adds, “I think Qlik speeds up access to a range of information that previously would have taken much longer to get to. It has been particularly useful with identifying specific accounts which may be dealt with across multiple service centers to measure service performance. Qlik has been one of the most valuable and user-friendly applications that we have deployed for some time.”
Qlik has also helped CitySprint to improve the quality of its data by spotting anomalies. Yates adds, “Whereas we used to just accept numbers as a given, we’re now able to spot trends and variances in the delivery data. This helps us to gain a better understanding of customer behavior, which helps us to understand when and why anomalies are happening. For example, where a courier got held up or had to wait for an extended period time.”
CitySprint is also using Qlik NPrinting to put together management information packs for clients. Previously the team was pulling data from multiple systems using spreadsheets, which account managers would use to put together PowerPoint presentations. The process was lengthy and took up far too much team resource. Using Qlik, CitySprint is now able to populate an NPrinting document which account managers PDF and take with them to client meetings. This has saved hours of time and has given the company the ability to scale its packs.
