New technology foundations by Optus for CouriersPlease

Nationwide small parcel delivery specialist, CouriersPlease, is changing the logistics industry and satisfying more customers every day with its innovative technological advances and operational success during the pandemic  

Operating since 1983, CouriersPlease is a franchise organisation comprising over 800 independent small business owners and is in the midst of an exciting new period of growth. 

Today, CouriersPlease is one of Australia’s largest eCommerce and parcel delivery organisations, winning multiple awards, including the ‘Excellence in Innovation’ and ‘Franchisor Social Responsibility’ categories at the 2021 FCA Excellence in Franchising awards and the 2021 Canstar Blue award for ‘Most Satisfied Customers’ in the Small Business Courier Segment. 

CouriersPlease not only distributes goods for consumers but also for large enterprises such as Amazon, making it a vital enabler for inter-business activity. 

With ambitious plans to grow its business rapidly over the next three years – fuelled in part by the COVID-19 boom in eCommerce and delivery demand – CouriersPlease knew it needed a solid strategic technology partner. CouriersPlease was after someone who could provide it with a strong foundation for the future, a growth-support model and commercial construct that rewarded the volume of business on offer. 

Optus’ Enterprise and Business team has provided CouriersPlease' enterprise mobility services since 2019 and had already established an excellent working relationship. CouriersPlease was impressed by Optus’ level of executive engagement, personalised services, proactive thought leadership, and strategic understanding of its whole-of-business challenges. 

As a result, Optus was awarded a five year whole of business contract and CouriersPlease moved its entire vendor landscape to Optus who now supports the business with: 

• Fixed data
• Evolve Internet
• Managed Fortinet SD-WAN with Cisco switching and Wi-Fi
• Microsoft Teams Calling
• Corporate Mobile Fleet – corporate users and drivers’ fleet
• Contact Centre with inbound and outbound numbers
• Azure Managed Services
• Azure Consumption
• Office 365 licensing
• Innovative IoT asset tracking solution with third-party partner, Thinxtra.

CouriersPlease faced several challenges across its business, including insufficient network resiliency, problematic integration between the network and its security and CCTV platform, as well as an absence of support for its contact centre. These issues were critical given the platform is the main communication channel with customers and drivers, in addition to the nature of the industry and the high volumes of calls received daily. 

CouriersPlease recently solved the problem of lost and underutilised delivery cages during a crucial period of rapid growth, with manual counting proving both time-consuming and inaccurate. Some infrastructure needed remediation, and CouriersPlease was also keen to move to cloud-hosted solutions where possible. 

It was looking for a partner that could understand its business context and provide strategic advice on the right technology solutions to deliver the functionality and operational efficiencies demanded by day-to-day operations and future growth plans.  

CouriersPlease was concerned with the business impact of transitioning its mobile fleet. However, Optus established a robust transition plan well in advance, giving CouriersPlease the confidence to move ahead.

Having previously tested solutions to track -freight cages with no success, finding them either prohibitively expensive or technically unfit, CouriersPlease was delighted with the results of a PoC carried out by Optus. 

CouriersPlease, Optus, and Thinxtra, Australia’s only IoT telco and enabler of Massive IoT came together for this solution and solved CouriersPlease' cage-loss problem with a cost-effective and sustainable long-term IoT solution.

The solution involved fitting an LPWAN-based, battery-powered asset tracker to the cages that sends the GPS location of each cage once per day. The solution also comes with a software platform that allows CouriersPlease to set up geofencing around distribution centres and customer sites and provides them with reports and analytics on the number and location of the cages. 

Since only small amounts of data were to be transmitted (i.e. location of a cage), this elegant solution provided CouriersPlease with country-wide coverage with low energy consumption and low cost. The battery powered IoT location tracking device lasts up to five years while maintaining the perfect data update frequency for CouriersPlease' needs.

After a successful six-month trial and supporting CouriersPlease with its internal business case, the company placed an order for 1,500 trackers to be fitted to its cages. 

CouriersPlease has also recently completed a rollout of Evolve Internet, Fortinet SD-WAN, Microsoft Teams Calling, and Office 365 with Optus. 

The engagement will see the ongoing deployment of a number of new solutions, including SMS Gateway, strengthening security posture and exploring chatbots and AI for the Contact Centre and strengthening security posture.

Optus’ support model for CouriersPlease' growth involves a dual focus on operational efficiency and client advocacy, fully supported by engagement from Optus’ Enterprise and Business Leadership team. 

Several Optus resources are dedicated to the CouriersPlease Account, including an Account Manager, Consulting Architect and Client Delivery Managers to ensure day-to-day operations and longer-term strategic needs are met.

Having already successfully transitioned its enterprise fleet and deployed the IoT asset tracking solution, CouriersPlease has realised significant cost savings for CouriersPlease on its parcel crate costs alone. 

This solution has also delivered operational efficiencies. There is no longer a need to ship empty parcel containers around the country or check with customers if they had any CouriersPlease cages sitting in their loading dock. 

Over the course of the contract, CouriersPlease will also benefit from: 

• Infrastructure remediation
• Deployment of Cloud-hosted solutions
• Redundancy at all sites.

Most importantly, CouriersPlease has a trusted end-to-end IT service provider and strategic partner who understands its business challenges, thinks proactively and works alongside the CouriersPlease team to achieve key strategic and business goals.

If you would like to continue this conversation further, please reach out to your Optus Account Manager, contact us here for a callback or phone 1800 555 937.