Paul Ashworth, Managing Director, First Mile said:The First Mile provides a collection and recycling service to businesses, primarily in London. LBT are our IT partners who designed and developed our system. We wanted a system which provided the maximum flexibility possible, so that we could grow from an initial start-up, but scale up and scale out as we grew.
Our "ENQIX" application is browser-based and manages more than 6,000 client collection points through the website, which is also hosted and managed by LBT. Our drivers use PDAs (Mobile Phones running Windows mobile) to control our delivery and collection routes and automatically update the ENQIX database. So the system is "real time" and runs "24x7".
With minimum human intervention charges are raised automatically, invoices sent out electronically, and automated direct debit collections are made for a large proportion of our income.
Clients are able to "help themselves" to key documents, and copies of documents, through the web "Client Portal" at any time of day or night with secure log-ins to their own data.
Could we have grown to nearly £5m turnover without such a system?
No way!