Companies like yours
Azyra is used in the UK, Ireland, Netherlands, Czech Republic, Hungary, Lithuania, Romania, Hong Kong and mainland China.
This is a selection from the 40 companies, large and small, who use Azyra for all their marketing, operations, financial and management information needs. Some of the case studies are short and precise – in others the managers share their views on Azyra. We regularly rotate the companies featured in our case studies so add this page to your favourites and visit it regularly.
Ace Express Group
The Ace Express Group, one of Ireland’s largest freight businesses, consists of 4 companies in Ireland and the UK handling international, UK/Ireland and domestic freight.
All these activities are handled by a single multi-company Azyra database. This allows the 4 companies to work seamlessly together while preserving their own identity for marketing, management and financial purposes.
Azyra handles everything from marketing, through quotations and all aspects of operations including EDI and Online Web Service to financial reporting and management information.
Ace Express Pallets
Ace Express Pallets operates Ireland's largest hub service with 10 regional member companies who operate online via broadband connections.
Azyra provides an extensive range of special facilities for the hub operations. Barcoded pallets are tracked at every stage to provide live hub traffic monitoring at summary, detail and individual pallet level. This plays a vital role in achieving high service levels. Hub customers have online tracking and POD viewing for every pallet via the Azyra Online Web Service.
Azyra handles the hub finances from automatic invoicing to member companies through ledgers and bank accounts to financial reporting.
Aerly Bird Transglobal
With headquarters close to Dublin Airport, Aerly Bird Tranglobal is one of Ireland’s leading freight companies offering a comprehensive range of services including Air, International Courier, Road Groupage, Deep Sea, Hazardous Cargo Handling and Customs Clearance. The company has carved a niche in the film production, medical, software and advertising sectors.
Gilbert Mc Cool, MD with Aerly Bird, looked at a number of freight software systems and rated Azyra as the best product around. “It surpassed all of the others in terms of functionality, ease of use and flexibility,” Gilbert says.“Azyra effectively runs our whole business - we have operations, sales and accounts all contained in the same system. For our organisation, the operations module is the one that is most critical to how we function. Our operators depend on it completely for processing their daily workload."
“We find the flow of information within the system terrific. For instance, a job that is entered into Azyra will be invoiced by the system automatically. Given the large number of small jobs that we process every day, this is vital to our profitability as a company. In an industry where margins are tight and we have a large volume of low value transactions, we need to be able to establish the profitability of every job and Azyra does this easily."
In an industry where finding good staff is a big issue, the intuitive nature and ease of use of the system is an enormous advantage in Gilbert’s opinion. “New people joining find it very easy to navigate their way around the system. We have no formal training programme in place for new operators, therefore the ease of use within Azyra is enormously beneficial to us. A good system also maintains high staff satisfaction which is very important to us.”
“We don’t often call the Azyra support team, but when we do, they are very helpful. The frequent automatic upgrades incorporate lots of requests and suggestions from ourselves and other users – you don’t get that from many software suppliers.”
“We’re moving to the paperless office with Azyra.” Gilbert says, “Our PODs are automatically scanned and linked to Online Web Service and we intend to use Azyra’s document imaging and electronic filing for everything possible. Azyra is a very important part of this company’s future,” concludes Gilbert.
Avant Air and Sea
The Avant group has 4 companies in Dublin, Hong Kong and mainland China employing 45 staff engaged in freight forwarding by air, road and sea. They also provide supply chain facilities for major retail and industrial companies.
All the companies use a single Azyra Microsoft Sql Server database located in Dublin with the companies in China accessing the system via broadband using Microsoft Terminal Services. This gives dramatic advantages in efficiency and customer service.
For example an export job entered by a company in China appears to a Dublin company as an import and both companies use Azyra for local transport, costing and invoicing. Azyra handles electronic customs clearance for the import with automatic sales and purchase invoicing of Customs taxes.
Avant’s involvement in major supply chain operations brings demanding requirements for system integration, and EDI. Azyra’s outstanding Microsoft Sql Server database design and EDI facilities enable Avant’s IT department to meet these challenges by building rapidly on a solid foundation.
Bellville Rodair Group
The European companies of the Bellville Rodair group are located in London, Heathrow, Hungary, Lithuania, Romania, Netherlands and Czech Republic. All their IT needs are handled by a single Azyra installation on a Microsoft Sql Server in the head office near Tower Bridge in London.
The other locations require only PCs and printers to operate via broadband internet with Microsoft Terminal Services. So all the hassle of managing servers, networks and backups is eliminated from these offices. The response times are very impressive.
Bellville used Crystal Reports to modify the standard Azyra documents and reports to meet the special requirements of their companies in different countries.
The training and installation history of Azyra in the group is remarkable. We provided a few days training for the initial installation in London. Then Bellville rolled out the system to the other countries without assistance from ourselves.
Bellville’s Financial Director, Abigail Haran, gave us this account of Azyra’s contribution to her department:
“Our non-executive directors wanted to know how we produce the financial statements and management reports for all our companies the day after the month end. ‘We just print them like this’ I said. Of course you need to ensure that jobs are accrued and invoiced promptly but Azyra makes that easy and it has a great effect on cash flow. The excellent Azyra nominal ledger facilities makes short work of the month-end adjustments for our numerous companies.”
“The month's results are never a surprise - as the month progresses, the profitability reports give us an exact picture of how everything is going. We can quickly spot things going out of line and rectify them immediately.”
“Seamless integration of the financial and operational activities gives us totally accurate reporting of gross margins and accruals. The financial statements agree with the operational and marketing reports because they come from the same database.”
“The financial statements include budget and prior year comparisons by department, by company and consolidated. You can enquire easily on nominal accounts and sub accounts across departments and periods in a range of useful formats. You can drill down not just to the transactions but to the jobs and freight movements.”
“We've been very impressed by the Azyra support team who always respond promptly. They are very helpful and knowlegeable and they explain things clearly. Azyra will make it easy for us to expand into other countries.”
EFL International Distribution
EFL International Distribution Ltd. offers a broad range of freight services worldwide to a customer list which includes major multi-national corporations. While the company’s core activity is driver accompanied services to and from many European countries, EFL is also one of Ireland’s main air freight forwarders and has a deep sea department that handles traffic to and from 200 points throughout the globe.
The company’s management had searched for some time for a replacement for their previous system which they found to be cumbersome. “Azyra fitted the bill better than any of the others that we saw”, states Eddie Mullin, Managing Director of EFL. “One of Azyra’s advantages is the easy access to information that if offers our operating staff," continues Eddie, “it is also very flexible and much more user friendly than any of the other systems that we looked at. This has great benefits when we recruit new staff as the training required on Azyra is minimal because it’s so easy to use.”
EFL are particularly happy with the fully integrated nature of the Azyra - “It just runs the whole operation for us”, Eddie states. Pauline McEvoy, our Financial Controller, is very happy with the financials in Azyra. “I find it much easier to produce profitability reports”, Pauline says, “I can produce these on almost any aspect of the business such as profitability by customer, by salesperson, by job etc, the kind of information that is invaluable for a business like ours where margins are tight and the industry is very competitive”. Tracking trends has become a way of life for EFL and has also meant that they can be more responsive to the changing requirements of their customers, giving them a distinct competitive advantage.
An extension of the fully integrated nature of Azyra can be seen in the way it is integrates seamlessly with Microsoft Outllook, Word and Excel. “Being able to easily prepare quotations and email them directly not only saves our operators time, but also means that they are more responsive to our customers. Easy enquiry allows us to offer an immediate response to any of their queries. Very often they may require specific information about the nature of a particular transaction that may have taken place, we are in a position to provide them with this immediately.”
When asked about the relationship with Azyra Systems, Eddie recounts, “In the years that we have been customers of Azyra Systems our experience has been a very positive one. We have seen great improvements in functionality over the years as Azyra constantly keeps abreast of changes within the freight industry and also to respond to the demands of customers like ourselves. They produce a steady flow of painless upgrades and each one brings us new features requested by users such as ourselves – now that’s impressive”
Eddie’s team has always found it very easy to deal with the Azyra support team. “The support team are knowledgeable, eager to help and mindful of our deadlines,” Eddie says, “what you would expect from a good support desk.”
Eddie sums up his opinion of Azyra by saying “It runs our operation professionally, provides us with competitive advantage and keeps our staff happy, what more could we ask for?”
Geodis Ireland
Geodis Ireland are part of one of Europe's largest freight and logistics groups. They have 200 staff located at two offices in Dublin and handle well over 100,000 jobs per year - by air, road and sea. Up to 180 trailers and containers are consolidated per week. Azyra's EDI, regular jobs, automatic tariff pricing and transport planning play a major role in handling these volumes with maximum efficiency.
Azyra EDI facilities exchange operational information on jobs, transport and PODs with a variety of group companies and agents. The information exchanged includes job status and links to POD images. This allows tracking information and POD images held on agents systems to be easily viewed by Geodis Ireland’s customers via the Azyra Online Web Service. It also works the other way allowing agents and their customers to track jobs and view PODs stored on Geodis Ireland’s system.
Many large freight companies lack detailed and accurate costing and rely on turnover to measure performance. In contrast, Geodis Ireland use Azyra's costing and reporting to monitor the detailed profitability of every one of the 100,000 jobs per year. Profitability by consolidation and by route on a day to day basis are key operating measures. Profitability by customer and sales representative are vital to the management of their sales team.
An important part of the business of Geodis Ireland is a major supply chain handling all the freight and customs clearance, inbound and outbound, for one of Europe's largest electronics manufacturing plants which employs 3,500 people. This contract has unique reporting and invoicing requirements which are handled by the Azyra bulk invoicing facility and special reports which are exported to Excel.
Horner Agencies
With offices in Dublin, Belfast and Cork, Horner Agencies is one of Ireland’s leading overseas freight companies. As agents for CMA-CGM and Emskip, they provide specialist service in worldwide container movements and are acknowledged as Ireland’s leading specialist in the sea freight consolidation.
Alan Horner said that when he looked around for a new system "Azyra appeared to be the best system out there, it was certainly the most comprehensive, however we decided to consult a number of liner agencies in the business to see what they were using. The message came back to us loud and clear from the industry – Azyra was the best system available to meet our requirements.”
“There are a number of key advantages that Azyra provides to our organisation,” Alan continues, “not least of these is the way that the system handles communication with customs. This has always been a tedious part of our business, but Azyra streamlines it. This is extremely useful to our operating staff, saving them time and effort.”
The fact that the system is fully integrated is another major plus for Horner Agencies. “Azyra handles the sales, operations and accounts aspects of our organisation allowing us to get on with the business of meeting our customers’ requirements effectively,” Alan says. “The fact that we don’t have a requirement for third party products to make our core system function is a key advantage of Azyra.”
“What is also useful is the fact that any operator can pick up information on any customer or prospect within the system at any time. For instance, if a quotation has been sent to a prospect by one operator, another member of staff will be able to handle any queries that may arise simply by looking at the details within Azyra. This very often speeds up the sales process and allows the prospect to place the order with any of our operators at any time. Clearly this gives us an edge on our competitors.”
Although the company occupies a unique position within the Irish marketplace, Horner Agencies competes with companies of all sizes from the small indigenous ones to the large corporates and margins are tight. “We believe that Azyra offers us a number of key advantages over our competitors in terms of how it has streamlined the way we do business“ Alan comments.
The relationship between Horner Agencies and Azyra Systems is very good. “An excellent training course was provided by Azyra Systems to our senior management. Since then we have always had assistance when we required it and have found all members of staff to be both knowledgeable and courteous. The updates that we receive are also very useful and we have made requests for enhancements which have come through in subsequent releases which is very useful.”
A special feature for Horner Agencies is an EDI Interface which brings jobs complete with all financial details from the CMA-CGM shipping line system into Azyra. This allows Azyra to handle not only all the local transportation but also the financial and credit control aspects of the liner agency. Azyra also allows forwarding jobs and consolidations enabling Horner Agencies to provide a comprehensive service to their customers from a single system.
IFB
IFB provide their multi-modal freight forwarding service to the Ceramic Industry and many other types of business in the Midlands and North West. After IFB Limited underwent a management buy out the new board of directors sought to acquire a modern IT system to move the business forward and handle the pressure of 35 users with 5,000 jobs per month spread across the spectrum of Sea, Air, Courier and European Road Services.
After researching the market for freight systems, Azyra quickly became the front runner on the short list for many reasons – ease of training and installation, seamless integration of all requirements, excellent financials, reliability and ongoing leading edge development. “A major factor where Azyra scored against its competitors was the company behind it, Azyra Systems whose track record in support, development and innovation put them head and shoulders above others” comments Phil Smith, MD of IFB.
Azyra lived up to all of these expectations beginning with installation - the system was fully operational within 3 weeks of being ordered. Staff quickly became accustomed to Azyra in the most demanding circumstances in all departments. It was soon realised that the operational and financial efficiencies would benefit the business enormously. Director Steve Shepley remarked – “The Azyra system gives no-one any place to hide, we all now work from the same database whether we’re in Sales, Operations or Finance and the management reporting enables us to drive the business forward.”
Rhenus Logistics
Rhenus Logistics Ireland, (formerly IHG/Hamann International) is one of the leading providers of logistics services in Ireland and part of the large international group Interspe Hamann. They provide road services to Europe and beyond via hubs in Germany to eastern Europe. As liner agents for COSCO, they connect Ireland with the Middle East, Far East, and the United States of America. Their services are rounded off by including extensive air freight services. in us to meet all their logistics and freight forwarding requirements.
Carolin Devaney, IT Manager, said “As the person responsible for selecting the system, I took a long hard look at what was available in the marketplace and I rated Azyra as being way ahead of its competitors in a variety of ways. One of the key factors for us was to identify a fully integrated system incorporating operations, sales, accounts and management financial reporting in a single system. In my view, Azyra was the only system that could deliver that effectively to us. Our previous system which ran on Unix was much more complex but did not meet many of our requirements. In addition, the accounting function was not integrated. When we started using Azyra, we couldn’t believe the amount of time that we save by having everything in one system. Our operators bought into the benefits of the system immediately as they recognised the amount of time it could save them on a day to day basis.”
Being part of an international group, IHG Ireland has very demanding reporting requirements to meet both at group and local level. Carolin finds the reporting functionality in Azyra excellent – both the standard reports and the DIY reporting with tools such as Crystal Reports and Excel. “The database structures is very well designed”, Carolin states, “this makes it really easy to manipulate the data using other applications where required.”
“Another major advantage that Azyra brings to our organisation is its seamless integration with Microsoft Office and Outlook. This has streamlined the way many of our operators work and means that we are moving towards the paperless office that everyone aspires to” Carolin says.
When asked how she feels about the Azyra Systems as her system supplier, Carolin responded by saying, “Azyra Systems view their relationship with us as a partnership, that is probably the best way to sum it up. Right from implementation through to ongoing daily support we feel that we can depend on them to assist us and to respond to our requirements. The staff are friendly, helpful and above all knowledgeable. In particular, if we hit a serious issue, which is very rare, they will concentrate all of their efforts to assist us resolve it as quickly as possible.”
“We have made various suggestions for functional items that they could add to the system and they have responded by adding those that they felt would be beneficial to users in general. We download regular upgrades with new functionality and these are completely automatic and painless. We believe that Azyra gives us serious competitive advantage in the way that it streamlines our business processes and our staff wouldn’t be without it now.”
Trans-Globe Express
Trans Globe Express are based in Belfast and Dublin. They run daily services to and from all major cities in Ireland, the UK and mainland Europe, as well as regular services around the globe. Their rush service can ensure same day or next day shipments to any destination in Ireland and Mainland UK. Trans-Globe utilises its own vehicles for local collections and deliveries.
Paul Lavery, Managing Director of Trans-Globe spent some time researching the marketplace for a freight system and having enquired from a number of his counterparts in the industry, he learned about Azyra. Upon seeing the software, Paul knew instantly that Azyra was the perfect fit - "I decided there and then that it was the one that we wanted. The product is simple but highly effective – exactly what we had in mind. What also swayed us was the fact that it is fully integrated - with operations, accounts and sales contained in the same system and everything is fully integrated with email. Operators are very impressed with the full access to information that the system provides to everyone on the team. For instance, if an automatic credit warning appears when taking entering a booking, and the customer wants to know why, the operator can drill into the account immediately – they can even email statements and copy invoices . This is very useful and acts as a great credit control facility.”
Azyra’s Document Imaging and Electronic Filing are other facilities about which Paul is enthusiastic. “These are very impressive and greatly improved our efficiency. As well as reducing the volume of paperwork, the Electronic Filing takes care of emails and faxes puts them where you’d expect to find them. When you’re dealing with anything, be it a job, a trailer, a customer, a quotation, a bank account or next year’s budget, you have everything at your fingertips."
