Any company with a sizeable sales force out on the road relies heavily on a rock solid supply chain and logistics supplier. Its success in attracting new customers and retaining existing ones depends on them being able to access materials and samples when they need them, while not losing precious time waiting for those materials to be delivered to them.
More and more of this type of blue chip company are turning to ByBox to make use of its unique UK network of secure dropboxes to help them achieve this, cutting down-time and guaranteeing pre-8am deliveries each day.
Among these is Teva, one of the world's top 20 pharmaceutical companies and a leader in the development, production and marketing of generic and proprietary-branded pharmaceuticals. It has a large presence in the UK and around 80 field sales reps out on the road supporting customers and promoting its products.
The Teva field sales reps have a wide area to cover, visiting customers and delivering the various materials to GP surgeries and hospitals. It was felt they could be more productive and be spending more time with their customers if they weren't subject to the inevitable delivery delays they were experiencing. So they contacted ByBox two years ago to look at how it could help.
While the products are not time-critical, like they would be if they were spares for a vital piece of machinery being shipped out to an engineer, they are nonetheless just as important to the smooth running of the company and the effectiveness of its field sales force.
Becky Robson, of Teva, said: "It is vital that we get the materials out to our sales teams as quickly as possible. Any time spent waiting around for deliveries is dead time so we need a logistics partner we can rely on and who proves each day that they can deliver to high service level agreements.
"We have a team of about 80 sales operatives out on the road who need daily access to stocks of sales materials and stock. They are able to order materials directly from a dedicated ByBox website portal, ensuring what they need is delivered the next day and streamlining the process.
"From our point of view, the whole system is transparent so we are able to track stock very simply and ensure that materials are always available to be shipped out to the staff in the field. If anything is in danger of falling out of stock, we can replenish supplies straight away so there is never a shortfall.
"Since I have been involved, there have been very few issues but if there is a problem, there is someone from ByBox on hand who know us and the account and can get things sorted out as quickly as possible.
"We are very happy with the service from ByBox and feel it gives us an edge over our competitors."
The distribution system ByBox set up for Teva utilises its existing UK network of 18,000 boxes situated at 1,200 boxbanks around the country. These are served by a central hub and 11 distribution centres, with everything controlled by the company's revolutionary Thinventory system, a single platform that manages the supply chain from end to end.