Postcode Anywhere News

Postcode Anywhere Launches International Address Validation for Sage CRM

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 1 February 2012 – Address data experts at Postcode Anywhere have unveiled a new international address auto-complete application for Sage CRM.

The free-to-download extension uses rapid postal code look-up, combined with auto-suggest technology which completes address fields as the user types - making address data entry “faster, easier and more accurate.”

Postcode Anywhere makes it possible to enter full and validated UK or international contact addresses up to 80% faster in Sage CRM.

Multiple postal address formats in international addresses

Postcode Anywhere Sales Director, Phil Rothwell said: “Recording and maintaining addresses in your customer database is a time-consuming and error-prone chore. When this is paired with the challenges of international character-sets, multiple address formats, unfamiliar accents and a myriad of languages entering an international address can be an arduous task, not just only for you, but your customer as well.

“The new Sage address look-up extension from Postcode Anywhere solves all of these problems by taking the legwork out of international addresses. By entering a postal code or typing the first few characters of the address, users can capture accurate and correctly formatted addresses in their CRM - without needing intimate knowledge of international addresses or country-specific mailing requirements. Moreover, users only need one simple licence to cover the whole globe. Every address entered is validated at the source so you won’t have the problem of confusing or corrupt addresses in your database.

“Address validation is essential for any organisation, internationally-trading or otherwise, which wants to benefit from reductions in undelivered mail, improved marketing and enhanced global communications.

“Nowhere is data accuracy more important than in a business management system. An inaccurate address is much more than an administrative minefield. It prevents you collecting outstanding amounts. It leads to missed postal deliveries, dissatisfied customers and ultimately missed sales opportunities.

“Without accurate data a business cannot understand their customer and prospect relationships, which is the main reason to implement a CRM system in the first place. In today’s volatile climate companies will need to maximise their productivity in all areas of the business - a customer database is the perfect place to start.”

Maintaining data quality “critical” to any CRM

Postcode Anywhere’s IT Director, Jamie Turner said: “This new integration allows us to offer a much broader range of countries than we’ve ever offered, as well as fully supporting mobile devices. On top of all this, it’s so easy to install from the Sage CRM Component Manger: no coding is needed whatsoever. And if for any reason you do wish to customise it, we have a support and integrations team who are more than happy to assist you with this at no cost.

“Maintaining data quality is critical to the success of any CRM system. This integration will enable users to trust the quality of their databases and reduce the time taken to capture customer details by up to 80%, leading to improved response times and operational efficiency. Simply put, it makes entering addresses faster, easier and more accurate.”

Established in 2001, Postcode Anywhere now serves over half the addresses that are looked up and auto-completed online in the UK.

Postcode Anywhere’s address validation extension for Sage is simple to install and fully customisable through Sage, with the integrations team on hand if users need any assistance.

For more information visit the Sage CRM Community Marketplace.

ENDS

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Postcode Anywhere Helps Great Midlands Fun Run Boost Entry Levels

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 24 January 2011 – Great Midlands Fun Run organisers will use Postcode Anywhere for the second time this year to prevent fundraising packs getting lost in the post.

The Great Midlands Fun Run is currently celebrating its tenth anniversary. In 2011, the event raised £228,000 for over 240 charities after reducing the number of lost entry packs to “less than 1%.”

Data accuracy is highly important to the “critical that we capture the correct address for each entrant.”

Event Director Mr Tracey Spare said: “We offered the Postcode Anywhere facility for those registering online for the first time last year, which undoubtedly reduced the number of incorrect addresses submitted on application forms.

“As a direct result, the number of information packs misplaced or lost in the post, when sent to individual entrants three weeks prior to the event, was significantly reduced to less than 1%. Those few that were lost or misplaced appeared to be down to other factors.

“Last year, a record-breaking £228,000 was raised and distributed to 240 nominated charities, voluntary organisations and community interest groups. For the second consecutive year, a capacity 6,000 entrants registered for the event with 75% of entrants choosing to register online.

“We’re delighted to be offering the facility again this year when we launch the 10^th Anniversary Great Midlands Fun Run on Friday 3 February. There are an additional thousand places available now we have introduced a new timing mechanism, and with a strong indication that an even higher percentage of entrants will use online as their preferred choice of entering, it’s even more critical that we capture the correct address for each entrant.

“This will be the largest-ever field assembled to participate in the 8.5 mile Fun Run through the streets of Sutton Coldfield and Sutton Park. With more entrants, we hope that 2012 can become the most successful event in the history of the Fun Run.”

Postcode Anywhere’s sales director Phil Rothwell said: “Putting processes online can be an incredibly cost-effective way to run parts of your operations, whether you operate in the public, private, or not-for-profit sector.

“However, a web page is only half the story if you need to deliver physical goods as well. Think of that smart-looking contact form as the tip of the iceberg – just under the surface are all the consequences of any errors in the contact data you collect. Every item lost in the post, redirected or returned to sender probably represents a lost customer, or in the case of the Great Midlands Fun Run, a lost fundraiser.

“Address auto-fill technology reliably solves the problem of contact data inaccuracies, and because it’s up to 80% faster than manual address entry, encourages a higher volume of sign-ups too. For that reason, we’re delighted to be able to offer Postcode Anywhere’s services to the team at Great Midlands Fun Run, to help ensure as few fundraising packs go astray as possible.”

From 3 February, prospective fundraisers can register online at www.greatmidlandsfunrun.com or in person from Saturday, 11 February at Our Place Community Hub [rear of Barclays Bank, Farthing Lane, Sutton Coldfield 10am-4pm Monday-Friday.

For more information about Postcode Anywhere’s range of business efficiency software and services, please visit the website at www.postcodeanywhere.com.

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International Postcode Anywhere Address Look-Up Now Available on Magento Connect

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 17 January 2011 – Address validation specialists at Postcode Anywhere have released a contact data auto-completion app for the Magento Connect marketplace.

Free to download for any user, the address look-up plugin provides UK and international address auto-fill for all the standard entry screens within Magento Community Edition.

Postcode Anywhere’s IT director Jamie Turner said: “This Magento app is great news for ecommerce website owners and developers for several reasons.

“It’s not only the first Postcode Anywhere service we’ve released on Magento Connect, it’s also the first app we’ve built around our new integration toolkit.

“This toolkit boasts a much greater range of countries than previously available - we’re launching with address data for across the globe, and will continue to add more. The extension also has an improved interface which fully supports mobile devices.

“As well as the new international datasets, the core service for the UK remains what we believe to be the most powerful address validation service on the market, with every new Royal Mail PAF® record added and updated daily.”

Postcode Anywhere’s managing director Guy Mucklow said: “Postcode Anywhere’s extension combines the popular address look-up service with Magento’s market-leading open-source ecommerce platform.

“Address validation might not be the first thing you think of when establishing an ecommerce website, but time and time again it has proven to be invaluable.

“Consider that overlong forms without rapid address look-up are frequently cited as one of the main causes of cart abandonment. Our recent study of internet shoppers revealed overlong forms only trail behind worries about online security as a main cause of aborting a purchase.

“Then calculate the costs of the missed deliveries, refunds and returns which result from mistakes in address data submitted by your customers. It all adds up to an obvious decision to integrate address validation technology with your website.

“Now ecommerce businesses can access a comprehensive UK and international address auto-fill service directly through Magento connect, and get it up and running in just a few clicks.”

Postcode Anywhere’s address validation extension for Magento is simple to install and fully customisable through the Magento admin panel, with the Postcode Anywhere integrations team on hand if users need assistance installing or customising the extension.

For more information about the service, visit the Magento Connect marketplace.

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Online Accountants Choose Postcode Anywhere for Salesforce

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 10 January 2012 – Online accountancy company Boox has named address look-up software “an integral part of customer service” after integrating Postcode Anywhere technology into its Salesforce CRM system.

Postcode Anywhere’s app for Salesforce CRM allows users to automatically complete validated address details inside Salesforce, “saving users valuable time while ensuring address data accuracy”.

Richard Pomeroy, Project Manager for Boox, said: “Traditionally there has been little choice for contractors and small business owners but to engage the services of expensive high street accountants. Boox recognised the need for a unique and different approach to support smaller businesses and freelancers.

“We needed a postcode-look-up integration that would be compatible with our Salesforce.com CRM and our accounting web portal for customers. We looked around to see what was on the market, and Postcode Anywhere represented good value for money. Apart from the highly competitive pricing structure, the company offered the best compatibility with Salesforce.com CRM. It is also very user-friendly.

“Postcode Anywhere’s postcode validation service lends itself brilliantly to the Salesforce.com application. The integration process is streamlined and seamless and as it’s web-based, captured data is completely accurate.

“It has made things a lot more efficient. It is difficult to give an actual metric, but it certainly gives our customers a good user experience - which is great for us. We pride ourselves on delivering excellent levels of customer service and postcode validation effortlessly contributes to this. Customers seem very impressed with it as they are with the overall service we provide to them and postcode look-up is an integral part of this.

“Our customers seem very impressed with it. I think Postcode Anywhere is an excellent organisation to work with. Our partner manager is very helpful and responsive to our needs. We have also received an excellent service from the development team who helped us with the Salesforce.com integration.”

Postcode Anywhere’s managing director Guy Mucklow said: “Boox has an unremitting focus on the quality of their customer experience, which we are pleased to help them with in any way we can. Never underestimate the difference faster, more accurate service can make to business. It can be the difference between a loyal customer and brand advocate, and someone who never returns or recommends your services.

“Entering contact addresses into your customer database is an essential yet sometimes onerous task. Postcode Anywhere for Salesforce CRM aims to save users valuable time while ensuring address data accuracy.”

For more information about implementing Postcode Anywhere’s address validation and auto-fill services in Salesforce CRM, visit the website at www.postcodeanywhere.com/salesforce.

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Missionaries to Deliver 10,000 Christmas Gifts with Smart Route Planning Technology

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 20 December 2011 – Birmingham City Mission are on track to deliver over 10,000 Christmas presents to deserving families this year, with a little help from smart route-planning technology which automatically plots “impossible-seeming” routes in minutes.

The Christian group relies on charitable donations and a network of volunteers to distribute around ten thousand gifts every Christmas. The presents make their way to over a thousand deserving families and 2,500 children.

With such a high volume of deliveries to make, complex route-planning has historically taken up a considerable portion of the group’s resources. However, thanks to the donation of smart logistics software from Postcode Anywhere, a faster route can be plotted in a fraction of the time.

Volunteer Frank Williamson said: “BCM has been involved in the annual toy programme since 1970. The work is funded by general income from Christian churches and individual Christians both inside and outside of the Birmingham Christmas Appeal that is sent every year. We also receive gifts in kind such as toys (and batteries), often donated in considerable quantities. Making the deliveries is important too: a Land Rover is kindly made available for three weeks in December to help.

“Last year, 296 people were involved altogether. This number was made up of volunteer present wrappers, drivers and deliverers, students, software support, a personnel manager and office staff. Together, over 3,200 volunteer hours went into wrapping and delivering the presents. This doesn’t include the work done by those who collect toys from churches and school children, or the referring agencies who collate the names and visit the families who will be receiving parcels.

“We start to deliver the presents at the beginning of the second week in December and finish on Christmas Eve. We’ve gratefully received software help from Postcode Anywhere, and the time saved would amount to several days of work for the database administrator. His job would normally be to map out the points from the database and manually put them in order. This is very laborious, time-consuming and prone to error!

“We trialled the service last year, and Route Optimiser from Postcode Anywhere significantly helped the delivery - saving at least 50 hours’ work. Driver comments certainly indicated the routing was well ordered.

“For many of the children it is a complete surprise. We deliver presents to families from all over the world, like Lithuania, Uganda, Nigeria, Russia, Iran, Czech Republic and Iraq. Personal circumstances can vary hugely, and the people we visit are deeply grateful for the toys. We’ve seen men crying when we deliver something for their kids.”

Postcode Anywhere’s managing director Guy Mucklow said: “The work that Birmingham City Mission undertakes, including what they manage to achieve at Christmas, is of remarkable value to the local community.

“We’re enormously pleased to be able to offer them the use of our Route Optimiser service at no cost. It’s fantastic to see one of our oldest institutions, the Church, making use of the very latest technology so they can make Christmas that much more special for children across the Midlands.

“Imagine trying to plot an acceptable route which connects thousands of destinations. Route Optimiser calculates these impossible-seeming routes in minutes, dramatically reducing the time spent planning and making journeys. For commercial use, being able to provide estimated arrival or delivery times makes a huge difference to the level of customer service you can offer.”

For more information about the work of Birmingham City Mission, visit the website at www.birminghamcitymission.co.uk. To find out about Postcode Anywhere’s range of services for businesses and not-for-profit organisations, see www.postcodeanywhere.co.uk.

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Auto Windscreens Cuts Address Validation Costs in Half with Postcode Anywhere

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 14 December 2011 – Automotive glass repair and replacement company Auto Windscreens has cut its address validation costs by more than half since switching its address look-up software to Postcode Anywhere.

In total, the company has reduced this cost by 55% in two years, against a backdrop of “excellent results,” having recently ranked second in the UK at the Top 50 Call Centres for Customer Service awards.

Auto Windscreens’ IT Director, Bobby Chopra, said: “We found the platform for address validation from our previous vendor extremely limited. We were sent disks and had to manually update the data ourselves. Obviously this was highly inconvenient, let alone antiquated. With Postcode Anywhere this is all managed for us and we can ensure our information is always up-to-date.

“What we wanted was a standalone platform that would quietly run in the background. And that’s exactly what we got with Postcode Anywhere. Address validation technology should deliver accurate and reliable data, without needing intervention, and this is the main reason we chose Postcode Anywhere.

“Another motivation for leaving our previous vendors was cost. Postcode Anywhere offered us the most competitive price on the market and we’ve been able to reduce the cost by more than half.

“Before, we were often forced into upgrading our software, at yet more expense to us. We don’t have this with Postcode Anywhere - it does exactly what we want it to, with no hidden surprises.

“We’re feeling very positive about the business for 2012. Our call centre was ranked second in the UK at the Top 50 Call Centres for Customer Service awards and we were also named ‘Best Newcomer’ and ‘Best Service Provider’. It was an excellent result for us and a testament to how we go the extra mile for our customers.

“At Auto Windscreens our focus is on service and our recent accolades reflect what we set out to achieve, total customer satisfaction.”

Postcode Anywhere’s Managing Director, Guy Mucklow, said: “In today’s economy it should go without saying that companies need to take a long look at how they can streamline operations, cut costs and work smarter.

“A few years ago there may have been less immediate incentives to audit suppliers: it’s feels like just one more job to do. It can be perceived as a hassle. But now it can make the difference between success and failure.

“It’s the businesses that challenge the way they operate which will continue to grow. Often, there is no better way to do this than by looking at new technology, and Auto Windscreens’ latest achievements are fantastic news from our position as their current software supplier.”

To find out more about Postcode Anywhere’s range of software and services for making businesses more efficient, see www.postcodeanywhere.com.

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What Do Online Shoppers Want?

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 29 November 2011 – Worcester-based address auto-fill software company Postcode Anywhere releases the final results of its 2011 ecommerce study today.

The survey, which polled 1,000 UK consumers on their experiences with online shopping, investigates opinions on issues ranging from website usability to postal delivery. An infographic of the key findings is now available to download on the company website at www.postcodeanywhere.co.uk/online-shopping-2011.aspx.

Postcode Anywhere has also released the raw data in full, which includes results cross-referenced with age, gender, location, earnings and education level.

Key findings:

• Speedy checkout
The majority of consumers (76%) rate a speedy checkout as important or very important to their overall shopping experience.
• Cart abandonment
As the top reasons given for abandoning an online purchase, overlong website forms and security concerns were the two most common gripes for consumers.
• Men and women
Female shoppers rely more on online product reviews than men when making decisions. 36% more women than men rated customer reviews as “very important” when shopping online.
• Timed deliveries
Almost two thirds of consumers (64.3%) want timed delivery slots when ordering online.
• Click-and-collect
Over half of consumers (51.9%) value mixed-mode buying, saying an option to collect goods in-store is important.
• Christmas delivery
Almost one in ten people (9.3%) said they had been put off shopping online this Christmas because of previous problems with delivery.

Postcode Anywhere’s managing director Guy Mucklow said: “Ecommerce revenues increase year-on-year. In late 2011, one pound in every ten is now spent online, and over 90% of retail sales growth comes from ecommerce. But the industry mustn’t be complacent. As this report shows, continuous improvements must still be made along the whole buying process – from product research, through payment processes, down to the actual delivery of goods.

“We would urge online businesses to take the time to make sure that small things aren’t damaging their performance. The importance of a clean, quick and professional-looking website cannot be underestimated.

“The survey also highlighted just how important the delivery process is. An overwhelming two-thirds of consumers rate timed deliveries as important to their overall shopping experience, which shows the buying process doesn’t finish when the customer leaves your site: fulfilment needs to be scrutinised too.

“For an online business to succeed there needs to be a clear focus on the whole customer journey.

“However you want to interpret the results, we feel that while shoppers are generally more confident than ever buying online, the ecommerce industry mustn’t take this for granted.”

The survey results in full are available at the Postcode Anywhere website: www.postcodeanywhere.co.uk/online-shopping-2011.aspx.

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Reliance Global Call Integrates Postcode Anywhere for Mapping 2.5 Million Customers

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 23 November 2011 – One of the world’s largest international long-distance calling providers, Reliance Global Call, now uses Postcode Anywhere’s address verification service in its website.

Reliance Global Call, a subsidiary of Reliance Communications, spearheads the Global Telecom operations of India’s largest integrated telecom service provider. A leading international calling service provider with over 2.5 million customers worldwide, the company offers calls across 230 countries.

The company recently integrated Postcode Anywhere’s address validation service with its customer-facing website https://www.relianceglobalcall.com in order to gain “an edge” over competitors.

Mr. Michael Sauer, President, Global Voice and Reliance Globalcom said: “By mapping customers with such accuracy, Postcode Anywhere’s service will help Reliance Global Call to register and map users’ locations and provide more geography-specific offers, giving an edge over other service providers in the calling-card business.

“Address auto-fill has halved the time it takes for customers to input their data and now even the most obscure addresses are returned accurately, first time. In our line of business it really is imperative that the data we collect from our customers is accurate at the point of entry”.

“Good customer service is incredibly important and we want to ensure that all of our customers gain a positive experience of our company from the outset, starting with our website. Our aim was to make the procedure for paying easy to use and intuitive for all of our international customers, and we feel the software from Postcode Anywhere has been paramount to this success.”

Guy Mucklow, managing director of Postcode Anywhere, said: “Customer service should be among every business’s top priorities. Customer-facing websites are no exception. Your online presence allows customers to explore your products and services as well as your company’s brand. Your company’s website will often provide your customers with their first impressions of your company – so it’s crucial you provide them with a positive first experience.

“It’s using tools such as address auto-fill that can make a real difference to a company’s standing in the market, as Reliance Global Call has demonstrated. They are making intelligent use of Postcode Anywhere’s web-based technologies, and as a result can continue to offer world-class customer service while cutting down on administration costs.

“Furthermore, when it comes to posting out goods or marketing communications, capturing address details which are accurate at the source dramatically reduces the risk of missed postal deliveries and disgruntled customers.”

For more information on Reliance Global call, please visit: https://www.relianceglobalcall.com
More information on Postcode Anywhere’s address validation services can be found at: http://www.postcodeanywhere.com/products.

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Fire Safety Firm Puts Customer Service First with Route Optimiser

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 15 November 2011 – A Yorkshire-based fire safety company has noted an immediate increase in productivity, along with improved customer service levels, after introducing the smart route planning service Route Optimiser.

SF Fire Protection Services Limited provides fire prevention equipment, services and advice to businesses across the UK. With a fleet of service engineers making site visits, arranging calls in the most time-and-fuel-efficient way is an important consideration for the company.

The company adopted Route Optimiser, a smart journey-planning tool from Worcester-based software and services company Postcode Anywhere, earlier in the year.

Debbie Quinlan, Office Manager for SF Fire Protection Services, is responsible for organising the company’s daily call out and service calls. She said: “Route Optimiser has made my job so much easier. I simply download the relevant postcodes for the sites requiring a service call on that particular day into our back-end system.

“Route Optimiser then does all the hard work for you, supplying the optimised routes for our fleet of service engineers. The system is extremely easy to use, and no training was required.

“Our customers, which include some of the most well-known and distinguished brands in the UK, benefit as Route Optimiser enables our service engineers to be more productive and fuel-efficient. It allows us to maintain our competitive pricing structure. It also means we can give customers more accurate information on when they can expect our engineers on-site, which is important when people are so busy.

“It certainly saves us a lot of time and has helped us improve the service to our customers - which is always our main priority.”

Postcode Anywhere’s managing director Guy Mucklow said: “There are countless reasons for businesses, organisations and individuals to use Route Optimiser. It takes the laborious, imprecise and time-consuming task of planning routes and turns it into a painless five-minute exercise. And because the routes it generates are more efficient, you can make more journeys in the day and still save money on labour and fuel.

“But the critical factor here is one that can’t be measured so easily: the customer experience. Customer satisfaction is incredibly important in any industry, but when you’re making deliveries or making site visits, it becomes critical to get it right not most of the time - but all of the time. SF Fire Protection Services clearly see the importance of this factor, which is why they have proven to be successful in their market.”

SF Fire Protection Services Limited caters to all aspects of fire safety, such as extinguishers, fire alarm installation and maintenance, safety signage, emergency lighting plus the entire range of fire awareness and fire safety training.

For more information about SF Fire Protection Services Limited, visit the website at www.sffireprotection.co.uk. To find out more about Route Optimiser, and to optimise your first route for free, see www.routeoptimiser.com.

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One in Ten Christmas Shoppers Deterred by Online Delivery

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 15 November 2011 – Almost one in ten people have been put off online shopping this year because of previous problems with delivery, according to research from online address validation specialist Postcode Anywhere.

The survey, which polled 1,000 UK consumers, found that 9% had been put off any festive purchases this year because of past difficulties. At 27%, more than a quarter of all those polled had encountered a problem with online Christmas deliveries in the past.

Conversely, over half of respondents had never experienced a problem, which 30% of respondents attributed to placing orders early.

“Too many orders putting strain on the network”

When asked to identify their two top reasons for delivery problems, 54% of consumers named “too many orders putting a strain on the network”. This was closely followed by adverse weather (52%), not allowing enough time for delivery (36%), low stock levels (26%) and typing in incorrect address details (8%).

Postcode Anywhere’s sales and marketing director Phil Rothwell said: “The Christmas rush is a double-edge sword for any online business. For many it’s the most important time of the year - get it right and you can significantly improve sales. Get it wrong, and your reputation can end up going down the toilet. It’s easy to focus on driving website traffic and forget that it’s still paramount to deliver the products quickly, economically and accurately.

“People may be more comfortable now than they have ever been with the idea of ordering online. But what this study shows is that retailers can’t take anything for granted - bad experiences can cause opinions and behaviours to change.

“Unfortunately, many online businesses still have relatively poor website technology and inadequate delivery capabilities. This doesn’t just hold back potential profit margins for individual businesses - it damages the ecommerce industry as a whole.

“Make sure you’re capturing address details correctly in the first place”

“It’s important for ecommerce owners this year to promise only what they can realistically deliver. That means keeping right on top of stock levels, and ensuring the customer-facing website reflects what’s happening in the warehouse or stock room. It also demands some knowledge of what’s going on at the end of the fulfilment chain. If you know you’re not going to be able to make 100 deliveries in a day then don’t advertise that you can.

“As well as limiting expectations, online businesses need to work harder. Providing consumers with timed delivery slots, for instance, is just one of many ways retailers can help avoid these hassles. We released news earlier this year that showed that nearly two-thirds of consumers see delivery windows as important, so it’s clearly going to be a concern at Christmas.

“What this survey reflects is that while the logistical damage of last December’s weather may have been repaired, the emotional wounds it caused to those affected are yet to fully heal. This year, the industry needs to come good, whatever the circumstances.”

Further information

For further information about Postcode Anywhere’s UK, European and US address validation and auto-fill tools, visit the website at www.postcodeanywhere.com.

For more information about Postcode Anywhere’s smart online delivery planning software, Route Optimiser, or to take a free trial, visit the website at www.routeoptimiser.com.

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The Giving Card launches today with the help of Postcode Anywhere

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 8 November 2011 – The Giving Card is a point of sale discount card that aims to provide charities with additional donations, members with discounts from a wide range of suppliers throughout the UK and to provide those suppliers with more business.

Founded by young entrepreneur Dan Taylor, The Giving Card hopes to raise millions of pounds for charities all over the UK by giving away 50% of all profits as donations. As Dan says, though, the goal is to help both charities and businesses in these troubled times.

“I started the company after I finished university, over a year ago. With businesses and charities both struggling to stay afloat in the poor economic climate, I really wanted to find a way to help bring them together.”

According to Dan, turning the vision into reality has meant paying attention to detail. As in any charitable venture - making it easy for people give has to be matched by precision execution to keep the operation running smoothly and efficiently.

“Our website directs members to businesses and restaurants across the whole of the UK, therefore it’s imperative for us that the address we give our members is 100% accurate. To achieve this, we used an address validation service provided by Postcode Anywhere which meant that any addresses entered are captured and validated at the point of entry.

“We also use bank validation software so that our members can sign-up to our membership using direct-debit, allowing users to renew their card before it expires. Bank validation from Postcode Anywhere validates all the account information to ensure that Direct Debit mandates are set up correctly. Without this facility we could endure payment errors and would have to re-contact our customers to check the information making it a rather drawn out process.

“And, the requirement of validating bank details at point of entry is not just mandatory from a Direct Debit perspective, but also from a customer service one, speeding up the process for them. The more professional our website looks the more confidence customers will have in us as a company.

“Leaving information as important as address and bank details to be manually inputted is simply not acceptable. It would mean sending card to the wrong address and failing to process payments. For the sake of the people we are trying to help, this is something we can’t afford to get wrong. Also, given the fact we are a brand new company, it would undermine our credibility.

Phil Rothwell, Postcode Anywhere’s sales and marketing director, commented: “It’s always refreshing to see young, vibrant, businesses that support the local economy and give something back to charity.

“As a new company, your reputation is everything. Your website is usually the first instance your customers will hear or see your company. It is fundamental tool to attracting and retaining new customers, which is why Postcode Anywhere’s address look-up and bank validation should be in every start-ups technological arsenal. These are effective tools that are proven to improve customer service, increase conversion rates, and minimise administration costs.

“In my view, it is the application of business processes and the use of technology that will mark the difference between a run-of-the-mill company and a thriving one.”

The Giving Card offers discounts throughout the UK while allowing charities to generate much needed extra revenue for great causes. The card was launched on 8th November. A full list of discounts and offers are available at www.thegivingcard.co.uk.

To find out more about Postcode Anywhere’s range of software and services for ecommerce, see www.postcodeanywhere.com.

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Consumers Want to “Click and Collect” this Christmas, Postcode Anywhere Research Reveals

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 8 November 2011 – More than half of online shoppers want to see options to collect in-store, according to the latest report from business-to-business software and services company Postcode Anywhere.

The survey canvassed consumers on a range of questions relating to online shopping experiences. Of the 1,000 respondents, 52% rated the option to collect items directly from a shop as important.

One thousand UK consumers were polled in the survey. 29.5% saw options to collect goods in-store as “important,” while 22.5% saw it as “very important.”

Postcode Anywhere’s sales and marketing director Phil Rothwell said: “Mixed-mode buying represents a fundamental shift in the way consumers shop. There is growing evidence that the most successful retailers will be the ones who embrace this move and increase the strength of their multi-channel operations, enabling customers to shop at their convenience.

“There could be several reasons why customers prefer to visit your shop than buy online. Some might not be comfortable purchasing a product without seeing it first; others may feel they can get the item quicker if they collect it themselves; and then there was last Christmas, when bad weather resulted in large numbers of missed deliveries and embarrassed would-be Santa Clauses – they don’t want to run that risk again.

This is good news for traditional ‘bricks and mortar’ retailers, but many still need to develop stronger multichannel propositions if they want to keep up with the demands of both the modern consumer and their competitors. And with online sales set to increase this Christmas, it’s never been more important to ensure their ecommerce sites are well placed to serve these needs.

“It’s clear that the message is getting through as well. Geo-data services that support mixed-mode buying behaviours, such as our own store locator, remain one of Postcode Anywhere’s strongest-selling products. And we are seeing increasing levels of interest in our route optimisation services from retailers who have to deliver goods directly.

“These businesses realise that convenience is already one of the main factors to influence online shoppers and that innovatively delivering through multiple channels is the key to significant profit growth.”

Postcode Anywhere supplies software and services to over 8,000 businesses worldwide. For more information about Postcode Anywhere, visit www.postcodeanywhere.com.

ENDS

Online Shoppers Want Speedy Checkouts, According to Postcode Anywhere

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 2 November 2011 – A Postcode Anywhere poll has found that over a third of UK shoppers view a speedy checkout as critical to their overall shopping experience.

The survey of 1,000 consumers found that over three-quarters of online shoppers view a speedy checkout as important. Almost half of the respondents stated that they would abandon an online purchase before finishing if the form took too long to fill out.

Significantly for the address management industry, the survey found that 67% of online shoppers prefer forms with address auto-fill functionality, which fill out a complete address from a postal or ZIP code. 22% also reported that “it makes the online store look more professional,” with 35% stating “it’s a feature you expect to see in this day and age.”

Postcode Anywhere’s managing director Guy Mucklow said: “These figures highlight the importance of streamlining checkout functionality and minimising any potential frustrations which might cause a potential customer to shop elsewhere.

“Manually completing personal and separate delivery address details is an obvious example of such a frustration, as it can take up to 50% of the time in a typical checkout process.

“Of course, the principle of ‘fewer clicks and less typing’ applies to the whole procedure. E-tailers spend vast amounts of money every year generating website traffic, only to find a significant number abandon their carts before completion. For an online business to succeed there needs to be a clear focus on the whole customer experience.

“The payment process can be just as, if not more, important than the product itself. If the process is over-complicated or takes too long to complete, the customer will simply abandon their purchase - and you will lose out on at least one sale, and probably a lot more.”

Postcode Anywhere’s Sales and Marketing Director Phil Rothwell said: “A slow checkout process will almost definitely turn customers away – before you’ve even had the chance to talk to them. Anything that takes longer than a few seconds, and your visitors will click that back button, return to their search engine results, or type in a website they’re more familiar with – and you’ll have lost a customer.

“There are, however, many ways online stores can cultivate an effective, intuitive payment process. Our customers find postcode look-up software is one such service, which can dramatically improve site usability, customer retention, and the overall shopping experience.”

The survey polled 1,000 consumers. Of the respondents, 39% rated a speedy checkout process as “important” and 38% as “very important”. Further findings from the survey will be released in the run-up to Christmas.

The news follows evidence from Postcode Anywhere that overlong forms are the second-highest gripe among online consumers, with fears about online security being the largest concern.

To find out more about Postcode Anywhere’s range of software and services for ecommerce, see www.postcodeanywhere.com.

ENDS

25% of Online Shoppers to Spend More this Christmas

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 25/10/2011 – Online shopping levels look likely to increase this Christmas, research from ecommerce data quality experts at Postcode Anywhere shows.

The study, which polled a thousand UK consumers, showed that while 25% of consumers plan to buy more Christmas presents online this year than last, only 5% will reduce their online spend.

Of those polled, 6% have never previously done their Christmas shopping online and plan to start this festive season, while 15% said they had no plans to buy Christmas presents on the internet at all.

Postcode Anywhere’s sales and marketing director Phil Rothwell said: “With 5% set to reduce spend and 25% to spend more, all things being equal, retailers could well be looking at a rise of around 20% in online sales this Christmas, a similar increase to last year. This is a fairly significant finding, but possibly not a surprising one given the circumstances.

“With two months to go until Christmas day, now is the time for ecommerce companies to ensure they’ve taken all the steps they can before the inevitable rush. Facing the worst economy in recent memory, the ecommerce industry needs to capitalise on what promises to be the best Christmas ever for internet shopping. Consumers want bargains. They want to kick out and relax more than ever and they want to do it at the best price. The home of the best price is the internet, plain and simple.

“What can online retailers do? There are two sides to this particular Christmas story. Firstly, retailers will want to ensure they can meet demand over the Christmas period. So stock levels need to be high. The website needs to be eminently usable, because festive shoppers are fickle! Vendors also need to provide accurate delivery information to reassure buyers they’ll get their goods in time to wrap them and give them.

“The other side is repeat business. The seasonal splurge is a great chance to introduce your brand to consumers at a time when fantastic service has the potential to forge a lasting relationship. Get too bogged down by a rush of orders and sacrifice on service, and you might manage to get away with making a nice extra profit, but you won’t be managing any long-term relationships.”

Postcode Anywhere’s managing director Guy Mucklow said: “Since our primary area of expertise is in address data, we’d urge online businesses to ensure poor contact data quality does not impact on their performance this festive season. In our view the importance of accurate contact data in ecommerce cannot be understated.

“Higher order volumes put existing processes under strain. If your database is not clean, and if you’re not offering address auto-completion, or at least using some method of validating addresses, you’re on the back foot before you even begin.

“What’s the worst-case scenario? Get the address even slightly wrong and you’ll end up with a late or missed delivery, a spoilt Christmas and a customer that is not only never coming back, but will only have bad things to say about your brand.”

For more information about Postcode Anywhere’s range of services for ecommerce, visit the website at www.postcodeanywhere.com.

ENDS

Yorkshire Retailers Save £50k with Faster Routes

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 19 October 2011 – A nationwide white and brown goods retailer has cut its annual overheads by £50,000 after taking advantage of smart route-planning technology.

Bradford-based Sonic Direct, the UK’s largest independent electrical retail outlet, began using the online logistics scheduling software Route Optimiser after noticing inefficiencies in its delivery fleet’s manual route-planning process.

When the company saw positive results from a single-lorry trial, they made the switch across their entire fleet of 25 vehicles.

Sonic Direct’s general manager Ajay Jhala said: “As a company reliant on its fleet of delivery vehicles, we were staggered by the disparity we identified when comparing the delivery times of various drivers. Some would take twice as long to complete the same journey as another. The difference was perplexing.

“Sonic’s phenomenal success is all about offering the most competitive pricing without compromising customer service, so the thought of wasted fuel and labour cost was a real problem for us. Since January 2011 we deployed Route Optimiser throughout our entire fleet of distribution vehicles. When we first trialled Route Optimiser using one vehicle, we saved quite significant resources. Deploying it fleet-wide to 25 vehicles has delivered substantial savings and improved our operational efficiency and customer service.

“We would estimate the overhead manpower hours and fuel we’ve saved at a staggering £50,000 per year. But it’s not just the cost savings that benefits us. The service is very easy to use and the optimised routes are plotted automatically. A daily snapshot of our schedules means we know where our drivers are.

“People are so busy these days. Whether customers work full time, or are busy doing the school run, time is of a premium for everyone. Taking delivery of a new television or fridge-freezer should be an exciting experience, but often it can be marred by the frustration and anxiety of having to wait in all day until it appears.

“Having access to precise delivery intelligence is vital because it allows our customer service team to give customers two-hour delivery windows. They think it’s brilliant. Our drivers are delivering goods in the most fuel and time efficient way - which also helps to minimise their stress levels!

“So, we have happy drivers, satisfied customers and a senior management team saving loads of money which means we can maintain our competitive price promise. I think the fact we’ve rolled out Route Optimiser to our entire fleet is a telling endorsement of how much we value the service.”

Postcode Anywhere is the Worcester-based IT company behind Route Optimiser. Managing director Guy Mucklow said: “Efficiency is critical at every stage of the supply chain. Often, online retailers will spend a considerable amount of time tweaking their website to increase conversion rates, while simply trusting to luck with the physical delivery processes that are already in place at the other end.

“Route Optimiser gives better routes in a fraction of the time it takes to plot them manually. But perhaps even more importantly than the immediate cost savings, offering delivery windows dramatically improves the level of customer service you can offer as a business. It’s not only a competitive advantage: it’s the kind of service consumers are coming to expect when they order goods online.”

The news follows last month’s Postcode Anywhere study of 1,000 UK consumers, which found that nearly two-thirds of people rate timed deliveries as important to their online shopping experience.

Sonic Direct is prides itself on supplying the very best in consumer technology and providing outstanding customer service, while offering savings of up to 40% of typical high street prices. For more information on Sonic Direct, please visit the website at www.sonicdirect.co.uk.

For further information about Route Optimiser, or to take a free trial, visit the website at www.routeoptimiser.com. No downloads are required and the service works on a pay-as-you-go basis, with no contracts or hidden fees.

ENDS

Postcode Anywhere Launches International Address Validation Plugin for Magento

Tue, 18 Oct 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 18 October 2011 – Address data experts at Postcode Anywhere will unveil a new integration today for the popular open-source ecommerce platform Magento. The app will enable Magento-powered websites to add UK, US and international address verification and auto-fill to their checkout forms.

By allowing website owners to capture customer contact information accurately and efficiently at the point of sale, Postcode Anywhere’s app aims to increase contact data quality and reduce cart abandonment. The new plug-in can capture addresses from across the globe, including Africa and South America, in addition to the UK, United States and Europe.

Postcode Anywhere’s IT director Jamie Turner said: “The app simplifies the checkout process for your customers, enabling auto-completion of addresses from just one postal or ZIP code. Capturing accurate data is difficult enough. When teamed with so many international address formats and foreign characters it becomes a serious obstacle for any international customers who visit your site.

“The tool can integrate into a company’s own system, and is completely adaptable with the use of custom templates. Simply configure within the Magento admin dashboard and you can be up and running in minutes.

“The Postcode Anywhere integration for Magento is the first of its kind to use the new international addressing toolkit. The toolkit uses modern web technologies, meaning that there is no pop-up window, which would usually get blocked.

“We have also set out to improve on other offerings in areas such as speed and reliability. The new integration now boasts a typical response of less than 16 milliseconds.”

Postcode Anywhere’s managing director Guy Mucklow said: “Recording customer details is a laborious task that is open to mistakes. Every incorrect address entered amounts to more than an administrative frustration: it’s probably also a failed delivery. In these challenging times, businesses simply cannot afford to lose those unhappy customers who don’t receive their orders in good time – or at all.

“Addressing services help you avoid the pitfalls of international address data, giving you clean and accurate contact information at the point of entry, and ensuring packages get delivered properly. For any business with an international presence, or for those looking to branch out into global markets, accurate global addresses are critical.

“This new integration takes all the legwork out of the many international address formats, peculiar accents and languages, giving fast and accurate address look-up and validation in one easy-to-install app and one simple licence.”

The beta release follows news that overlong forms which take too long to fill out are a top reason for ecommerce cart abandonment. Forty-four per cent of the 1,000 consumers polled by Postcode Anywhere named the problem as a top reason for leaving the buying process prematurely, with the gripe second only to security concerns.

Donald Edwards is a CRM Coordinator for Honeywell, which uses the service in some of their internal systems. He added: “Postcode Anywhere’s international addressing product is unbelievable. I rave about it all the time. And I’m not joking, it’s perfectly true!"

With more than 100,000 active merchants, Magento is one of the most popular open-source ecommerce services in the world. The Postcode Anywhere integration is compatible with the latest Magento Community edition 1.6 and is currently in beta testing. If you would like to be involved with testing this product, please get in touch.

Postcode Anywhere supplies a range of software and services to make ecommerce more efficient and profitable, and reduce cart abandonment. For more information about Postcode Anywhere, visit the website at www.postcodeanywhere.co.uk.

ENDS

Women Read Online Reviews – Men Don’t, Postcode Anywhere Research Shows

Wed, 05 Oct 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 05 October 2011 – Women value other people’s opinions more highly than men and are “significantly more likely” to respond to customer reviews when shopping online, according to new research by ecommerce optimisation specialist Postcode Anywhere.

The survey of 1,000 UK consumers found 36% more women than men rated customer reviews as “very important” in their online shopping process. Equally, 22% more men than women classified customer reviews as “not important at all,” or “more unimportant than important.”

Postcode Anywhere’s sales and marketing director Phil Rothwell said: “The poll agrees with a number of recent studies implying men prefer to read product descriptions and specifications than pore over online reviews. It has also been suggested that men respond less well to interaction in the buying process and are less concerned about the overall experience than women.

“Any man who’s got hopelessly lost and still refused to ask for directions will suspect women are happier to seek the advice and help of others. It would appear the same behaviour applies online, where women are significantly more likely to see the importance of customer reviews.

“But why are men less keen on them? Ultimately, it would seem men are less social when it comes to shopping. The survey suggests they’re less concerned with the overall experience, less likely to want interaction when buying goods, and more likely to want to buy the products straight away.

“The buying process is still incredibly important across the board, but typically men are more likely to want to get in there, buy the product, and get out again – as quickly as they can.”

The news follows last week’s report from Postcode Anywhere that concerns about security and frustration with time-consuming forms are the top two reasons for online shopping cart abandonment.

Postcode Anywhere’s managing director Guy Mucklow said: “As a supplier of rapid address auto-fill, we are a long-time advocate of making things simpler online. Whatever demographics you use to classify your customer base – and even using the broadest of brushstrokes by segmenting men and women – people will always want the easiest and least painful internet shopping experience possible.

“It’s the responsibility of the online retailers to make sure that for those who’ve made up their minds, they can log on and check out as quickly and efficiently as they can.”

When asked how they perceived online reviews, 106 men and 145 women out of the 1,000 polled said they were “very important.”

Postcode Anywhere provides a range of services to make ecommerce easier and more profitable, including rapid address auto-fill, payment validation, “where’s my nearest?” store finder services and demographic profiling.

For more information about Postcode Anywhere, please visit www.postcodeanywhere.com.

ENDS

Notes to Editors:

Slow Forms and Security Top Poll of Ecommerce Gripes

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 29 September 2011 – Concerns about online security, overlong forms and enforced sign-up are the three things most likely to make consumers abandon online purchases, according to a new study by ecommerce software and services specialist Postcode Anywhere.

One thousand UK consumers were asked to name the top three reasons they might abandon their shopping online. Security concerns topped the poll, with 50% of consumers rating the factor among their top turn-offs.

Running a close second with 44% of votes was the problem of website forms taking “too long to fill out.” Enforced sign-up before checkout was the third highest consumer gripe, with 38% of consumers placing it in their top three reasons for cart abandonment.

In joint fourth place, with 31%, was having to leave the payment process to work out the final price, along with customers simply deciding they don’t like the product after all. Poor design in general got a vote for 23% of those polled.

Postcode Anywhere’s sales and marketing director Phil Rothwell said: “While a lot of emphasis is rightly placed on the design of ecommerce sites (and design touches almost all customers’ gripes in some way), it’s interesting that getting “the basics” right is essential - online buyers are more concerned about security and completing their transaction with a minimum amount of fuss.

“Based on feedback from our own customers, we’ve felt for some time that the second-highest sticking point – overly long forms – is a huge irritant to consumers. Named by 44% of consumers as a major reason to prematurely cut out of checkout, it’s actually easy to fix. Only ask for essential information. Break longer forms down into several more manageable steps. And of course, I would recommend using an address auto-fill technology such as Postcode Anywhere.

“That anyone these days should be forced to ‘register for an account’ before placing an order simply beggars belief. Why not give them the option, after the order has been placed? At least then you might a second and third chance.

“Making life that much easier for your customers can result in significant rewards for your business. The same principle applies to offering guest checkout, without a lengthy sign-up process. Every customer is only one click away from your website and the buying process has to be fast and smooth.”

ENDS

Notes to Editors:

PPI Claim Specialists Switch Call Centre Software to Postcode Anywhere

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 14 September 2011 – A Kent-based financial claims specialist has avoided substantial costs within its own business by switching its call centre address look-up software to Postcode Anywhere.

After testing the service extensively, it reports this week that Postcode Anywhere is “quicker and easier,” and that making the switch was “a no-brainer.”

Portal Claims, part of the Portal Group of specialist financial services companies, was established in 2004, initially focussing on helping people who had been mis-sold endowment mortgage policies. However, the company recently had to make a difficult financial decision of its own after deciding to increase usage of a call centre technology that auto-completes addresses. When their existing software supplier presented them with an “enormous price hike,” Portal Claims began to look for alternatives.

Robert Allen, Group Operations Manager of The Portal Group, said: “On the claims side, we help people recover their money when they have been mis-sold a financial product. The company offers a friendly and efficient ‘no-win-no-fee’ service and since its inception in 2004 has secured millions of pounds of compensation for its clients. We have several FSA-authorised businesses within the Portal Group and absolutely believe in treating customers fairly at all times – and can quickly spot when others do not have their customers’ best interests at heart.

“With a telesales team of 40, we needed an address finder and validation service which we could deploy group-wide to improve the accuracy of our data, while reducing keystrokes and costs. We deal with very sensitive personal financial information and it’s critical that any written communications get to the right recipient. Address validation alleviates the risk of errors and helps fulfil data protection obligations, which we take very seriously.

“Initially we used a competitor product which we had integrated into one of our applications. When we decided to increase usage, we were presented with an enormous price-hike making the service twice as expensive as Postcode Anywhere. The vendor eventually reduced its costs, but for us, the business relationship had already been damaged.

“I have developed a number of Access databases across the group and find Postcode Anywhere quicker and easier to integrate, without the need for any additional programming. The ‘cloud’-based set-up also means we have access to the very latest PAF® customer address details each day. Our telesales teams work to set targets, and by using Postcode Anywhere we can cut a ten minute call to eight minutes. Reducing call time by 20% enables our staff to be more productive. If you multiply this by 40 the time saved per call over a seven-hour day is significant.

“I personally like the fact that I can log in and track our usage to make sure we’re using the service fully. This enables me to calculate overheads for forecasts and other budgetary information. Postcode Anywhere’s technical support team have always been really helpful. Customers benefit from reduced call times, and any written communications land on the right doorstep. We are ruled by a strict data protection code of conduct and it’s critical that up-to-date information doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.

“As an Access visual basic developer, Postcode Anywhere provides me with a quick and easy way of integrating what is, after all, an excellent address finder into my applications. The application is easy enough to configure, looks professional, and enhances the user experience while delivering some quantifiable savings in time and costs: something that obviously sits well with the business partners. It’s a ‘no-brainer’ really.”

Postcode Anywhere’s managing director Guy Mucklow said: “In any market it’s imperative to ensure the tools your business has brought on board to make things faster and improve efficiency don’t end up costing you too much money. At Postcode Anywhere we simply don’t feel there should be any compromise on price, ease of integration or the customer service you receive when it comes to procuring enterprise-level address look-up software. We believe the success of this approach is reflected in Postcode Anywhere’s majority market share in address look-up for websites, and in the fact we continue to make inroads into the market for desktop, call centre and other office-based address capture.

“We’re thrilled Portal Claims has made the switch to Postcode Anywhere. It’s another testament to the fact that enterprise-level businesses are responding to what we’re trying to achieve, and can only improve the industry as a whole.”

For more information about Portal Claims, please visit www.portalclaims.co.uk. To find out more about Postcode Anywhere’s address management and business efficiency software and services, please visit www.postcodeanywhere.com.

ENDS

Notes to Editors:

Media contact for Postcode Anywhere / Route Optimiser
Jim Williams – PR Manager, Postcode Anywhere
Email Jim
+44 (0) 1905 888 562
Press Centre
Press Pack download
More information about Postcode Anywhere
Recent awards and recognition for Postcode Anywhere

Ecommerce Delivery Timeslots “Critical” According to New Postcode Anywhere Survey

Wed, 31 Aug 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 31 August 2011 – Nearly two-thirds of consumers rate timed deliveries as important to their online shopping experience, according to a new study by Worcester-based software and services company Postcode Anywhere.

The survey of 1,000 UK consumers found that 64% rate delivery slots as “important” or “very important” when shopping for goods online.

It also revealed a slight disparity in the online buying process between the sexes: of the 35% of respondents who gave timeslots the highest score of “very important,” a slim majority were women (54%). Conversely, of those polled who said timeslots were “not important,” the majority were men (58%).

Postcode Anywhere’s managing director Guy Mucklow said: “The one thing we can clearly take away from this study is how critical it is to get deliveries right. In ecommerce, it can be all-too easy to focus only on making your website more efficient, while leaving the actual delivery of your goods in the hands of the Gods.

“But the buying process doesn’t finish when the customer leaves your website. It ends when the customer has received their product, and more importantly, is happy with what they’ve ordered and the service they’ve received.

“Even if your delivery processes are fast, it may not be enough. Receiving a missed delivery slip instead of the goods you ordered can seem more of a taunt than an assurance that the driver got there while you were out. Of course, these issues become even more important now the industry is gearing up for the Christmas rush.

“So what can e-tailers do? I’d advise them to take a good look at the market and see where they can adopt practices that improve their operations. For our part, we do have a possible solution.

“At Postcode Anywhere we’re committed to making ecommerce easier and more profitable - we quite literally made our name offering the automatic address look-up you’ll find in website forms across the globe. Now we’re using postcodes to take a closer look at the other end of the process, which is where our delivery scheduling software Route Optimiser comes in.

“As with all our services, the software operates via the internet to eliminate the need for updates and drastically reduce the cost of operation – finally making delivery optimisation and scheduling viable and more reliable for any company which makes its own deliveries.

“By automatically re-ordering delivery points into a faster, more efficient route, it cuts down on the time it takes to plan deliveries and the fuel cost of making them. But perhaps more crucially in light of the survey, it schedules delivery windows so your customers know when to expect you.”

Parshotam Showan, managing director of electrical store SonicDirect.co.uk, has been using Route Optimiser for over a year. He said: “Our level of service improved greatly after just one day using Route Optimiser. Suddenly we could give our customers two-hour delivery windows. Now they have to spend less time waiting for their deliveries. Our customers love it.”

The survey polled 1,000 UK consumers across England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. Of the 1,000 respondents, 35% rated timed deliveries as “very important” and 29% as “important,” with 14% rating them “not important.” 22% of respondents rated timed deliveries as “neither important nor unimportant.” The full results of the rest of the survey will be released in the run-up to Christmas.

To find out more about Postcode Anywhere’s range of software and services for ecommerce, see www.postcodeanywhere.com. For more details about the browser-based delivery scheduling and optimisation service Route Optimiser, and to get your first route optimised for free, visit www.routeoptimiser.com. The service is suitable for the UK, Europe and the US.

ENDS

Notes to Editors:

Online Vinyl Firm Refuses to be Floored by Dirty Data

Tue, 16 Aug 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 16 August 2011 – An online flooring company specialising in vibrant designs is praising ‘the power of the postcode’ for its sustained 30% growth.

Established in 1994 in a small office in Battersea, harveymaria® designs and sells lively vinyl flooring to businesses and consumers. The company’s website uses NetSuite ecommerce software, with rapid address look-up from Postcode Anywhere, to keep track of customers and guarantee contact data accuracy.

Mark Findlay, founder and co-managing director of harveymaria®, said: “Back in 1994 floors were neglected spaces - the poor relations of the interiors world. But we saw them as a great design opportunity. We wanted to wave goodbye to dull, boring and mundane flooring and replace it with something funky, fun and fresh.

“We’ve seen the demise of traditional flooring shops battling against increasing overheads and the downturn in consumer spending. In this context, how we respond to website leads isn’t simply a case of tweaking sales conversions, it’s the difference between business success and failure. This is where postcode look-up comes in. It’s not a new concept, but we consider it as key to our success and 30% growth.

“It’s vital to get our free samples to people - if we can’t get a sample to them, I don’t think they’d to trust us to lay their floor! We send out 200 items per week - over 10,000 every year. It seems hard to go back to the time before we used it: now, we have only two failed deliveries per annum, negligible to figures before using postcode look-up.

“We’ve moved on a bit since the early days. We began in the back bedroom of a house in Battersea. Our first attempts were simply colour photocopies of designs stuck to the floor and lacquered to make them hardwearing. However, friends and family loved them and requests came flooding in.”

Now, the business boasts a Cath Kidston range and has made bespoke commissions for Hamleys Toy Store, The Royal Geographical Society, and the Millennium Bridge. The bridge’s money-themed floor, commissioned by MasterCard, was “widely recognised as a sterling achievement,” according to the company.

Mark added: “It’s amazing how much you can tell about your marketing activity by analysing postcodes – we built up our own customer profiles. We are still only scratching the surface of what we could do with our captured data. We could easily use it for proactive marketing activities like direct mailing. It’s really helped tailor our customer relationship management (CRM) software with up-to-date, accurate data.”

Postcode Anywhere’s sales and marketing director Phil Rothwell said: “It’s critical to make every customer’s experience easy and hassle-free across your website - from sign-up, through purchase, right through to delivery. Postcode look-up is a simple but powerful tool to make your business more effective. It makes the essential job of collecting an address 80% faster, but perhaps more importantly, guides customers into giving you perfect address details every time. Postal workers have no problem delivering your products and mailings, and you don’t let the simple address-box typo drive any customers away.”

For more information about harveymaria®, please visit the website at www.harveymaria.co.uk. All harveymaria® floors are manufactured to ISO: 9001 quality standards and guaranteed for domestic and commercial usage for up to 15 years.

To find out more about Postcode Anywhere’s range of services for keeping contact data clean and improving the customer journey, visit www.postcodeanywhere.com.

ENDS

Notes to Editors:

Postcode Anywhere Reaches National Business Awards 2011 Finals

Wed, 03 Aug 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 3 August 2011 – Postcode Anywhere, the Worcester-based software company best-known for the “what’s your postcode?” technology found in ecommerce websites, announces today it has reached the finals of the National Business Awards. It joins over 150 of “Britain’s most innovative and sustainable public and private sector businesses,” according to the Awards judges.

As one of only 10 businesses which have been shortlisted in the Transformational Change of the Year category to identify companies which have improved their operational efficiency through strategic re-alignment, Postcode Anywhere finds itself alongside finalists such as Business Stream, Delmergate Ltd, London Early Years Foundation, RCUK Shared Services Centre, RESPONSE, ServicePower Technologies Plc., Ten Group, Trustmarque Solutions, and Warwickshire & Northamptonshire Air Ambulance.

The combined turnover of all finalists this year is £96bn. If the National Business Awards finalist organisations were a country, its combined GDP would place it among the top 50 worldwide - just behind Romania, ahead of New Zealand, and almost three times that of Luxembourg.

Postcode Anywhere’s managing director Guy Mucklow said: “One of the key challenges for many SMEs, particularly those that go through rapid growth, is to maintain focus on their core competencies and values. It’s easy to get distracted by the multitude of opportunities out there, and end up doing lots of things reasonably well, rather than a few things exceptionally well.

“Over the last 12 months we have refocused our business and changed our internal organisation, creating smaller, more product-centric teams, with a broader set of skills and a much better understanding of customer needs. This has in turn helped to strengthen the business and, I believe, to create a far more motivated workforce. Being shortlisted as a finalist for the National Business Awards Transformational Change category is an achievement that all of our employees can feel proud of.”

Martin Stiven, Vice President of Business at National Business Awards partner Orange, part of Everything Everywhere, said: “The National Business Awards, now in their tenth year, embody the core principles of business excellence, innovation and ethics, all of which are central to Orange’s company values.

“Reaching the finals of the National Business Awards is no mean feat and I am delighted that the calibre of entrants keeps on improving. All finalists have demonstrated exceptional drive, resilience and innovation during challenging economic conditions. Many congratulations to all finalists and best of luck with the next stage of the competition. I very much look forward to the live judging in September and October.”

Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone, Chair of Judges, the National Business Awards, said: “The economic climate continues to present UK businesses with an unprecedented challenge: it is therefore particularly encouraging that the entries in this year’s National Business Awards have shown no drop in quality or performance.

“Congratulations to all finalists for demonstrating tremendous strength in their ability to adapt and innovate, which no doubt reflects the resilience and optimism that are the hallmarks of UK enterprise.”

Finalists will now prepare to make their presentations in person before an independent, expert judging panel in September and October at the offices of Coutts & Co at 30 St Mary Axe.

The judges are:

• Mr Colin Cram, Director, Marc1 Ltd
• Ms Jackie Keeley Director, Harthill
• Mr Phil Smith, CEO, Cisco Systems Limited
• Mr Charles Ward, Chief Operating Officer, Intellect

Organised by UBM Plc., winners will be honoured at the National Business Awards gala dinner at the Grosvenor House Hotel, London, on Tuesday 8 November. Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne will deliver this year’s welcome address. Visit www.nationalbusinessawards.co.uk for a full list of all 2011 finalists.

For more information about Postcode Anywhere, please visit www.postcodeanywhere.com.

ENDS

Notes to Editors:

Software Europe Takes Expenses Claims to Downing Street

Thu, 21 Jul 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 21 July 2011 – Web-based application supplier Software Europe is confident it can ease the Government’s expenses woes this week, after visiting Downing Street to pitch its expenses claims software.

The online tool, which includes features from Postcode Anywhere’s web-based Distances and Directions service, was shortlisted from over 350 proposals in the Cabinet Office’s Innovation Launch Pad initiative earlier this month.

The aim of Innovation Launch Pad is to help small-medium businesses promote their specialist services to the public sector - with a view to saving Government money. Software Europe’s service is already helping NHS Trusts manage their expenses claims online.

James Thompson, Business Development Manager for Software Europe, said: “Travel and expenses are one of the highest costs to NHS organisations. Our answer to that is an automated claims system which is straightforward for Trusts to implement. We know we’ve achieved this from experience - forty NHS Trusts and over 80,000 NHS professionals are already using Expenses Health. Moreover, the initial costs are recouped in just eight weeks, with the Royal Berkshire Hospital saving £98,000 in the first ten months alone since implementing our computer-based system.

“Government has a clear target of procuring 25% of its services from SMEs, and the Innovation Launch Pad has given us the opportunity to go straight to the top. We feel our services were exceptionally well-received, and this is in no small part thanks to Postcode Anywhere’s distance validation service, which has made a big difference to the fuel claim process in our expense management software.

“Because of scalability, dependability and ease of implementation, Postcode Anywhere’s range of services makes online application development faster and more reliable.”

Postcode Anywhere’s sales and marketing director Phil Rothwell said: “Software Europe’s expenses claim management system demonstrates how web-based services can bring considerable cost savings and efficiencies to the public sector. It also shows how useful Postcode Anywhere’s suite of online services can be for software application developers.

“The internet, relatively mature now, is a reliable utility like gas or water. What it brings is scope for rapidly rolling out flexible services across an entire organisation – even if that organisation is as large and complex as the NHS. It’s past the time for dipping toes in the water. This kind of proven technology needs to be embraced if this country is going to make a sustainable economic recovery and claw back the deficit.”

Minister for the Cabinet Office Francis Maude said: “This Government does not believe there is a one-size-fits-all approach to delivering services. That is why we want to make it easy for small businesses to tell us their ideas, as they will have a vital role to play in helping us to find new, innovative and more cost effective ways to improve services to the public.”

For more information about Software Europe, please visit www.software-europe.co.uk.

To find out about Postcode Anywhere’s range of web-based services, see www.postcodeanywhere.com.

ENDS

Notes to Editors:

Media contact for Postcode Anywhere
Jim Williams – PR Manager, Postcode Anywhere
Email Jim
+44 (0) 1905 888 562
Press Centre
Press Pack download
Image of Software Europe's James Thompson at No. 10

More information about Postcode Anywhere
Recent awards and recognition for Postcode Anywhere

Postcode Anywhere Joins Capgemini’s Immediate Platform

Wed, 13 Jul 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 13 July 2011 – Software and services specialist Postcode Anywhere joins the Capgemini Immediate platform this month, delivering its address auto-fill services to Immediate’s first client.

Postcode Anywhere specialises in geographic and address data services. Established in 2001, the company now serves over half of the addresses that are looked up and auto-completed online.

The Immediate platform, a “best of breed cloud computing solution,” enables organisations to select and manage outsourced IT services from several suppliers, under a single contract with Capgemini.

Simon Macwhirter, Vice President, Capgemini said: “Immediate helps customers combine the benefits of web-based, or ‘cloud’ computing with the expertise of leading suppliers in the digital marketplace. The platform helps businesses avoid the commercial and logistical headache of contracting and managing multiple providers, the worry of delivery risk, and in particular, the complex issues arising from integrating web-based and legacy systems.

“By providing customers with rapid access to leading specialists who deliver solutions to unique customer challenges, Immediate is an ecosystem of the most up-to-date, market-leading digital services available. It’s a best of breed cloud computing solution.

“Cloud computing technologies are increasingly used for managing information which is non-sensitive and changes rapidly, such as address and geographic data. Postcode Anywhere is a specialist with very technical expertise covering not only the PAF® address dataset in particular, but the provision of rapid and reliable data services online. The business has proven itself to be exceptionally dependable, something which is reflected in its rapid growth and majority market share for online address auto-fill.”

Postcode Anywhere’s managing director Guy Mucklow said: “For us, powering the address look-up service for clients on the Immediate platform is the icing on the cake, after ten years of rapid growth in the address verification and geographic data sectors. We continue striving to use the latest proven technology to make life easier and more cost-effective for our customers.”

Postcode Anywhere’s co-founder and IT Director Jamie Turner oversees the team of developers responsible for maintaining the service. He added: “For the load testing of the service, we assumed a need for data speeds of up to 70 megabits per second, with potential traffic level peaks of up to 50 transactions per second.

“Although this is a lot of usage from one single source, traffic across our platform already routinely exceeds 100 transactions per second and can currently manage up to 500. This may sound like a lot, but it’s all made possible by globally loaded-balanced servers, internal load balancing, and high-performance database servers with over a terabyte of RAM available. All storage is on solid-state drives. In fact, due to solid-state drives’ lower access times and latency, there are no traditional hard disk drives in sight.

“For the last five years, the Postcode Anywhere service has provided 100% availability across its distributed web services-based platform, including planned maintenance. Vital issues such as reliability, scalability and security have been addressed to ensure our customers obtain the fastest response times of less than 20 milliseconds – less time than it takes to blink.”

Capgemini Immediate is made up of three main elements:

• An operating model which helps organisations vet and select suppliers, and then manage and monitor their performance.
• A Federated Business Platform that securely and seamlessly integrates these chosen suppliers with existing systems. The platform is fully flexible, so suppliers can be plugged in and out at will.
• A commercial management model - Capgemini Immediate clients have only one contract, aligned to business outcomes or service delivery. Capgemini takes the commercial and delivery risk, and in turn contracts with several baseline suppliers.

For more details on the Immediate platform, please visit the website at http://immediate.capgemini.com/. You can find information about Postcode Anywhere through www.postcodeanywhere.com.

ENDS

Notes to Editors:

Media contact for Postcode Anywhere
Jim Williams – PR Manager, Postcode Anywhere
Email Jim
+44 (0) 1905 888 562
Press Centre
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About Capgemini
Capgemini is one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services.

More information about Postcode Anywhere
Recent awards and recognition for Postcode Anywhere

Young Entrepreneur Grows IT Business with Postcode Look-Up

Tue, 05 Jul 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 5 July 2011 – A young Scottish IT entrepreneur has highlighted the importance of address auto-fill for a “highly professional approach to customer service.”

Nick Cohen established PCR Computer Services, a Glasgow-based IT services organisation, in 2004, when he was just 13 years old. The computer expert uses an address look-up service supplied by Worcester-based software company Postcode Anywhere to fill out complete and accurate addresses from UK postcodes.

Mr Cohen, now 20, says the product helps PCR Computer Services to improve customer service levels and avoid wasting time trying to find erroneous addresses.

He added: “I started the business when I was a teenager, fixing computers from my bedroom at evenings and weekends, and was nominated for a Sunday Mail Young Scot Award. It was very difficult juggling my studies with running a business!

“The company provides a valuable and unique service for a wide range of computer users without access to in-house IT support desks. Our whole ethos is based on building up relationships with customers so we can enjoy a positive and successful rapport for years to come.

Highly professional approach

“As we are committed a critical response time of four hours, it’s essential we capture accurate data to make sure we get to the right address without delay. It also means that we are able to populate our CRM with up-to-date data, which is important for us as an IT company. We’ve been using Postcode Anywhere’s UK addressing for just over a year. Address validation helps us ensure we capture accurate data, in order to respond to the high volume of service calls we receive every day.

“Our number one priority is to ensure all our clients’ IT needs are met in the most professional and cost-effective way possible. Wasting time trying to find addresses that may be erroneous is not a good use of technician time or fuel. Keeping running costs to a minimum and being as resource-efficient as possible allows us to offer competitive pricing.

“We pride ourselves on a highly professional approach to customer service and postcode look-up enhances and underpins this. The pay-as-you-go model means it is both scalable and cost-effective.

A timely reminder

“Accurate address data makes finding houses and offices in a very busy city centre very easy. Arriving at customers’ premises on time creates a really good impression. And since many of our customers come by recommendation, conveying a good first impression is vital. Postcode Anywhere has dramatically reduced the time taken to gather accurate customer information.”

Postcode Anywhere’s managing director Guy Mucklow said: “This is a timely reminder that the spirit of young entrepreneurialism in IT is thriving. In my opinion, vibrant businesses such as PCR, which support the local economy and make use of technology to sustain their growth, are vital to the future of the UK, a fact which been underlined in the Government’s recent Growth for Britain report.”

PCR Computer Services provides server maintenance, disaster recovery, infrastructure management and IT support. Based on a pay-as-you-go pricing model, the company’s services are ideal for users with an immediate computer emergency or a simple IT problem. Find out more at www.pcrcomputerservices.com.

For more information about Postcode Anywhere, visit the website at www.postcodeanywhere.com.

ENDS

Notes to Editors:

Photo of Nick Cohen: http://www.postcodeanywhere.co.uk/assets/Stock/nick-pcr.jpg

Media contact for Postcode Anywhere
Jim Williams – PR Manager, Postcode Anywhere
Email Jim
+44 (0) 1905 888 562
Press Centre
Press Pack download

More information about Postcode Anywhere
Recent awards and recognition for Postcode Anywhere

RouteOptimiser.com Announces Even Faster Route-Planning

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 21 June 2011 – Smart route-planning service Route Optimiser announces an improvement to its underlying route optimisation algorithm this week.

The changes mean that hauliers, couriers and travelling field sales engineers can now plot more complex routes, faster. The waypoint limit has been raised by a factor of 50, from 200 to 10,000. The calculation speed has also increased, with the browser-based software now capable of calculating an optimal journey across 1,000 waypoints in approximately one minute.

Route Optimiser’s lead developer Richard Geary said: “This exciting announcement significantly enhances what Route Optimiser has to offer. As routes get increasingly complicated, they get exponentially more difficult to calculate. Think of a journey where you have to visit five places: there are actually 120 possible ways to travel this route. It’s more difficult than you might think to find the shortest or fastest one, even though we could have a fair shot at it. But if we double the number of places we have to visit to ten, the number of possible routes rises to 3.6 million! For fifteen waypoints – still a small number – it reaches an impossible 1.3 billion route options.

“With so many possibilities, it’s clear that finding a good route cannot be done accurately with pins and a map, and even using a computer, it takes up vast amounts of processing power. Previously, Route Optimiser could comfortably give you a nice short route across around 200 waypoints, which is an impressive achievement. But we knew we could do better… and thanks to our algorithm improvements, it can now manage 10,000!

“Calculation speeds have also improved. The new algorithm now takes approximately a minute to calculate an average optimal route with 1,000 waypoints. But even more significantly, although the problem gets exponentially more complex with every waypoint you add, it doesn’t take exponentially longer to calculate. So it would take only two minutes to plan a route with 2,000 waypoints, and only three minutes to plan a route with 3,000.

“We think these improvements should help anyone who has to manage very large fleets, or multiple field sales engineers. Now they can get the same time-and-money-saving advantages from Route Optimiser as everyone else.”

Route Optimiser is a product from software and services company Postcode Anywhere. The company’s managing director Guy Mucklow said: “The value of being able to rapidly and automatically plan better routes cannot be underestimated. With route optimisation technology, anyone who has the tedious job of managing complex delivery or appointment schedules can now plan better routes in a fraction of the time.

“But this is about more than reduced vehicle wear-and-tear, faster routes and lower fuel consumption. What’s invaluable is how significantly you can increase business efficiency, free up yours and your drivers’ time, and with features such as ETA timeslots, improve customer satisfaction. This algorithm modification is a definite complement to our last improvement, a new capability allowing users to download routes to their TomToms and other supported satnav devices.”

Across a large number of waypoints, Route Optimiser is designed to provide routes for multiple vehicles, with a maximum limit of 500 waypoints per vehicle. Route planning time is variable and dependent on a number of factors. For more information on Route Optimiser, please visit the website at www.routeoptimiser.com. The company currently offers a free 30-day trial of its smart route-planning service.

ENDS

Media contact for Postcode Anywhere
Jim Williams – PR Manager, Postcode Anywhere
Email Jim
+44 (0) 1905 888 562
Press Centre
Press Pack download

Notes to Editors:

More information about Postcode Anywhere
Recent awards and recognition for Postcode Anywhere

“Accurate International Address Data Crucial for Business” Says Honeywell

Tue, 07 Jun 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 07 June 2011 – Gas detection equipment firm BW Technologies, by Honeywell, says maintaining accurate address data from across the globe is “crucial” for international business.

The company uses international address auto-fill and validation from Postcode Anywhere, installed within Salesforce CRM, to maintain contact data accuracy from across the globe.

CRM Coordinator Donald Edwards said: “BW Technologies has a diverse customer reach, with over 80 field sales managers in a wide range of geographical territories. We needed data that would be consistently effective across a range of international territories with differing address formats.

“As users of Salesforce CRM, we initially chose Postcode Anywhere to meet these needs because it was listed on Salesforce.com’s AppExchange. We also required a sophisticated customisation to assign our field sales representatives to a specific enquiry. By using geographic coordinates, Postcode Anywhere’s developers built and integrated an intuitive solution directly into our CRM application, which sends the correct sales enquiry to the relevant operative. Now, prospects are handled quickly and efficiently and are tracked throughout the entire enquiry to conversion process.

“We have confidence in the integrity of the data we receive, which is really important to us. There are 240 countries in the world and we have a market presence in nearly all of them. With over 120 different address formats and 6,000 languages, not having to manage and update our data amounts to huge savings in resources.

“Our sales personnel can respond immediately to new leads, with the potential to increase enquiry-to-conversion ratios. It also means that our CRM is populated with completely accurate data which is an extremely valuable asset.

“Postcode Anywhere has always offered free support. But the great thing about it is we never need it. The job they do in the beginning is just so good. Our sales managers save a lot of time at the front and back end of our CRM system. Postcode Anywhere’s international addressing product is unbelievable. I rave about it all the time. And I’m not joking, it’s perfectly true!”

Postcode Anywhere’s managing director Guy Mucklow said: “Capturing and maintaining accurate address details is a lot more difficult for companies operating internationally than for those operating solely in one country. All of the problems and inconsistencies inherent to one address dataset, one language, and one culture, become multiplied to an unworkable degree with several address formats and many countries.

“Postcode Anywhere’s international offering solves all of these problems in one piece of software, under one simple licence, to enable international businesses to cut costs, improve efficiency, and take advantage of all of the benefits of clean address data, worldwide.”

BW Technologies has sales offices around the world, including the United States, Europe, the Middle East and Australia. British Petroleum, Shell, Paris Fire Brigade and the US Coastguard are just a few of the emergency service providers that save hundreds of lives by using BW’s technically advanced equipment.

For more information about Postcode Anywhere’s range of contact data software, including international address management for ecommerce and on the Salesforce AppExchange, please visit www.postcodeanywhere.com.

ENDS

Media contact for Postcode Anywhere
Jim Williams – PR Manager, Postcode Anywhere
Email Jim
+44 (0) 1905 888 562
Press Centre
Press Pack download

Notes to Editors:

More information about Postcode Anywhere
Recent awards and recognition for Postcode Anywhere

Postcode Anywhere Simplifies International Address Look-Up Licence

Thu, 26 May 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 26 May 2011 – Postcode Anywhere is simplifying its licensing for international address look-up today, in a move which halves the cost of looking up and auto-completing international addresses. The company aims to “bring truly international trade one step closer.”

The changes, in place from this week, will affect address validation from territories across Europe, Australasia and the Far East, bringing all costs in line with Postcode Anywhere’s services for the UK, United States and Canada. Previously, address auto-completion from more far-flung destinations, such as Andorra and Mexico, used up two credits per validation. Now, look-ups from any supported country will consume only one.

Postcode Anywhere’s sales and marketing director Phil Rothwell said: “As the leading provider of this service, we’re seeing increasing interest for international addressing. Bearing in mind the value of the pound, this may have something to do with greater focus from international buyers on UK ecommerce sites, or by more UK ecommerce businesses looking to expand outside of the domestic market.

“With this in mind, all Postcode Anywhere customers will now be able to look up addresses from across the globe at the same rate as US, Canadian and UK address look-ups, significantly cutting the cost of international address management. We’re hoping this move will not only make our worldwide service simpler to use, but will bring truly international trade one step closer. We believe in making things simple, which is why the service is now available at one fixed rate, with one catch-all licence covering data from territories across the world.

Wall Street success story

Dow Jones, publishers of the Wall Street Journal, has been using Postcode Anywhere’s international address validation software in their subscriptions ordering system for the last two years. Bill Doane, Advertising Projects Manager, said: “We needed to capture accurate address data for the effective deployment of our customer hub (Salesforce CRM) for print-based and online subscription billing information.

“With offices in Asia, Europe, North and South America, our requirement was for an address validation solution with the ability to populate addresses over a wide range of international territories and therefore a variety of formats. The time wasted before Postcode Anywhere’s solution was fairly significant.”

Rothwell concluded: “For the back-office, address validation is a vital tool that saves time and ensures data accuracy. Any company with an international presence stands to benefit hugely from this kind of service.”

For more information about Postcode Anywhere International, and to see the full list of supported territories, visit the website at www.postcodeanywhere.co.uk/international-address-validation.

For more details about Postcode Anywhere’s worldwide address look-up apps for customer relationship management (CRM) software including Salesforce CRM and NetSuite, please see www.postcodeanywhere.co.uk/support/integrations.

ENDS

Media contact for Postcode Anywhere
Jim Williams – PR Manager, Postcode Anywhere
Email Jim
+44 (0) 1905 888 562
Press Centre
Press Pack download

Notes to Editors:

More information about Postcode Anywhere
Recent awards and recognition for Postcode Anywhere

Fast-Growth Craft Firm Celebrates 20th Anniversary, Says Address Validation “Critical”

Tue, 17 May 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 17 May 2011 – London-based arts and crafts business Crafty Arts celebrates 20 years in business this week. The company credits its adoption of a multi-channel model for its significant expansion, and says address look-up services, supplied by Postcode Anywhere, were “critical to online growth.”

Crafty Arts was established in 1991 to supply the art, crafts and hobbies market. After establishing extensive retail premises and an order-and-pay-by-phone service, Crafty Arts made a concerted drive to develop a multi-channel model by establishing an ecommerce arm of the business.

The company validates address details from both telephone orders and online purchases using Postcode Anywhere’s desktop application and its Actinic ecommerce plug-in.

Jay Necati, ecommerce manager for Crafty Arts, said: “Crafty Arts was established in Essex in 1991, by my parents. For the first ten years, they really did struggle. However, we now pride ourselves on our success story. Since having an online presence, the volume of business we now generate is fantastic. I think it’s helped us accelerate our market share and ultimately our phenomenal organic growth.

“We ship high volumes of parcels all over the UK and to Europe - around 40,000 a year, which is increasing annually. As you can imagine, validating our customers’ addresses to alleviate inaccuracies is crucial for us to operate our ‘order and payment by phone’ service.

“We have been using Postcode Anywhere’s UK address service for the last four years, since the ongoing development of our website. It makes the order process far quicker and more efficient, mitigating addressing errors which take time and money to rectify.

“Addressing errors take up valuable admin time. This includes rescheduling the delivery, pacifying the customer and the actual cost of either getting our couriers or the Royal Mail to redeliver the relevant parcel or package. We pride ourselves in providing the best possible discounts to our customers, and keeping our overheads down to a minimum allows us to do this. Invalid addresses that ultimately lead to failed deliveries were costing us around two hundred pounds a month, or £2,400 per year - which is a lot of money.

“I think for today’s consumers, address auto-fill is an expectation. It reduces keystrokes, makes their online visit much quicker, and guarantees their order will get to them on time, every time. However, for us it also means that those customers are more likely to return to our website because they have had a good visitor experience. They are also then happy to recommend us to their friends and families.

“Postcode Anywhere’s automated top-ups mean that we never have to worry about fluctuations in usage. Businesses like ours are naturally prone to ‘peaks and troughs’ due to seasonality such as Christmas, Mother’s Day, Easter and the school holiday period.

“Postcode Anywhere really is one of the critical components that have helped us accelerate our online growth. I am very pleased with Postcode Anywhere. Increasing our online presence has enabled us to pass on highly competitive pricing to our customers - so everyone benefits.”

Postcode Anywhere’s managing director Guy Mucklow said: “Cutting overheads and offering the best possible value is central to Crafty Arts’ business model. Postcode Anywhere’s address look-up is an effective and proven way to improve customer service, increase conversion rates, and curb the cost of missed deliveries.”

For more information about Postcode Anywhere’s range of business efficiency services, visit www.postcodeanywhere.co.uk. You can visit the Crafty Arts website at www.craftyarts.co.uk.

ENDS

Media contact for Postcode Anywhere
Jim Williams – PR Manager, Postcode Anywhere
Email Jim
+44 (0) 1905 888 562
Press Centre
Press Pack download

Notes to Editors:

More information about Postcode Anywhere
Recent awards and recognition for Postcode Anywhere

Used Car Start-Up Costs Take a Backseat with Postcode Anywhere

Wed, 20 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 20 April 2011 – A London entrepreneur who gave up a lucrative career in the city to establish an online used car company cites advanced and affordable web development services as “essential” for internet start-ups this week.

Ex-city worker Ian Griffiths co-founded the car trading business Make and Model with Alistair Preston in 2009 in Docklands, London. The entrepreneur, who was unhappy with the usability of existing used car websites, used rapid web development tools to establish his own - which now boasts some of the largest car dealers in the country as customers.

Make and Model uses a geocoding service from Worcester-based software and services company Postcode Anywhere to convert postcodes into geographic coordinates, so users can find the nearest used car that meets their specifications.

Griffiths said: “When looking at some of the well-known used car trading websites, it occurred to me and my business partner how much better they could be done. Although we didn’t have any background in the motor trade industry, we knew it must be possible to create something that could really challenge the big guys in the market. So from having a career in the city, I put all my efforts into this.

“It was quite difficult putting the idea into practice, having never created something like this before. It was a steep learning curve at every step, and a challenge putting a brief together for the developers. We knew we needed to let customers search by make, model and region, and that the on-site search facility had to be seamless to aid user experience. If you were looking at building this kind of service from scratch, it would be difficult to build and even more of a hassle to license.

“But our developers had used Postcode Anywhere before for this kind of functionality, and we went with their recommendation. The geocoding service we use turns postcodes into coordinate data, and then returns details of the nearest cars that fit the user’s request, so they can see how far away that car is.

“Postcode Anywhere was extremely competitive. Certainly not the most expensive, possibly not the cheapest either, but the clear choice for us. The brand is well-known for being sturdy, effective and reliable. It may have been recommended to us by our development team, but our own experience has also been exemplary. The service just works, and the team have been helpful and flexible every step of the way. Customer service has been great.

“All this is incredibly important for us, being in the start-up phase. Due to the nature of trading cars, everything about the website has to be smooth, easy to use and reliable. Cars are extremely valuable items and as a customer, you need to feel safe. A lot of the well-known websites we looked at in our research simply failed to make the grade in that respect – and I’m sure it’s a feeling shared by many.

“We needed a service our customers could trust, so we needed suppliers we could trust to help us build the site. When we saw the website for the first time, and to actually see it working, it was incredible. It’s your brainchild. Postcode Anywhere’s services make this kind of entrepreneurialism possible. In this economy, having a vision and being equipped with the tools to see it through is essential for UK growth.”

Postcode Anywhere’s managing director Guy Mucklow said: “The Postcode Anywhere brand was founded off the back of entrepreneurial frustration. Co-founder Jamie Turner and I first established the business back in 2001 to offer the kind of reliable business efficiency services that back then simply weren’t viable for start-ups, at least without substantial funding.

“By taking advantage of the internet as a means to share data, we can now offer a range of sophisticated web development services, such as address validation, geocoding, and route planning, at eminently scalable price points. The UK needs entrepreneurs. So it’s incredibly rewarding for us now to be able to facilitate fellow businesspeople in making projects such as Make and Model see the light of day. ”

For more information about Make and Model, please visit www.makeandmodel.co.uk. To find out more about Postcode Anywhere’s range of services for ecommerce and web-based start-ups, visit www.postcodeanywhere.co.uk.

ENDS

Media contact for Postcode Anywhere
Jim Williams – PR Manager, Postcode Anywhere
Email Jim
+44 (0) 1905 888 562
Press Centre
Press Pack download

Notes to Editors:

More information about Postcode Anywhere
Recent awards and recognition for Postcode Anywhere

Postcode Anywhere Joins Wiggly Wigglers to Deliver Internet World Seminar

Wed, 13 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 13 April 2011 – Cost-saving business software specialists Postcode Anywhere will join forces with one of their customers, online gardening business Wiggly Wigglers, to deliver a seminar at this year’s Internet World show next month.

Internet World, now in its 19th year, is Europe's largest and longest-running annual event for digital marketing and online business. Wiggly Wigglers’ managing director Heather Gorringe will appear with Phil Rothwell, Postcode Anywhere’s sales and marketing director, for the seminar “Marketing in everything: why modern marketers need to be obsessed with the entire customer journey.”

Rothwell said: “Today’s customer journey has more touch points than ever before. The unique capabilities of Twitter, Facebook, webcasts and blogs are starting to be stretched. But it can be easy to see these opportunities as a threat, especially now we’ve seen the huge impact shifting consumer behaviour has had on the high street.

“The dominance of early movers into the online space, such as eBay and Amazon, are testament to the far reach of the web. But as secure as they are, these digital natives also need to constantly evolve with the medium. Social media’s incredible visibility and lack of friction in communication has empowered the consumer to such an extent that just one tweet can break a brand.

“The good news is that all of these new forms of media break down the barriers between business and consumer. It’s a two-way process: while the consumer is empowered, companies have the opportunity to communicate with them in a range of new ways. Smaller businesses in particular have a chance to grow at unprecedented rates and emulate the successes of the giants. One such company is Wiggly Wigglers, which has used a range of strategies to make their vision of a successful small business into reality.

“The point Wiggly Wigglers makes is clear: now isn’t the time to batten down the hatches. Nor is it the time to stick to dated standards of independent bricks-and-mortar shop fronts, clunky websites and token email newsletters. The key to future success is to realise that the customers’ experiences and journeys are now core to the marketing process. In my view, that’s a significant part of what Internet World is about in the first place, which is why it’s such an honour to be presenting there this year. Retailers are living in interesting times. Businesses old and new need to take heed of where consumer behaviour is heading.”

Wiggly Wigglers’ managing director Heather Gorringe said: “Without technology we wouldn’t be here. We live in a village with 63 people, and three times more cows than villagers. Internet-based services let us connect with our customers - most of which aren’t in Herefordshire. It’s the only way we could operate.”

The seminar will take place in the eCommerce, mCommerce & Fulfilment Theatre at Earls Court 2, Warwick Rd London from 15.45-16.15 on Tuesday 10th May.

For more information about Postcode Anywhere and its range of services for small businesses, visit the website at www.postcodeanywhere.co.uk. For more information about Wiggly Wigglers, please see www.wigglywigglers.co.uk.

ENDS

Media contact for Postcode Anywhere
Jim Williams – PR Manager, Postcode Anywhere
Email Jim
+44 (0) 1905 888 562
Press Centre
Press Pack download

Notes to Editors:

More information about Postcode Anywhere
Recent awards and recognition for Postcode Anywhere

Who’s the Nanny? Childcare Website Membership Hits 80k

Tue, 05 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 5 April 2011 – Childcare website Findababysitter.com hit 80,000 members this week. The company, which uses postcode and geographic data to return ‘where’s my nearest nanny’ results to parents, credits easy access geographic and addressing data as “essential” for their business model.

The company uses data from Postcode Anywhere to power its search engine, which enables families to find their own childcare without the involvement of an agency. Contacts in the database include babysitters, nannies, au pairs, child-minders and housekeepers.

The improved service, which re-launched in July 2009, has also grown its initial base of 25,000 local childcare and housekeeping candidates to a list numbering over 40,000.

Tom Harrow, CEO of Findababysitter.com, said: “Findababysitter.com is a one-stop resource for finding childcare and domestic help. The site was established to help people looking for a housekeeper, cleaner, or anything related to childcare – not just babysitters.

“I started the business with my wife Vanessa in 2006. She’d set up a nanny agency, now established with 15 staff. The website empowers people to do the search themselves. With a subscription fee of £30 per month, it can be a very cost-effective way to find childcare.

“We have 40,000 candidates and have just hit 80,000 members, with some more big milestones on the way. We already had a massive database of postcodes and it was just a case of fine-tuning it. Now people can search across London and the rest of the UK using full or part postcodes.

“We get more than 100 registrations a day. When someone registers with us, we validate their address using Postcode Anywhere. It’s very important to us to get the details right as they’re being entered. As with the geo-coding behind the “where’s my nearest?” tool powering the website, our whole business relies on the integrity of our data. Get it wrong, and this falls down.

“We did go through a process to see who would suit our needs best. We narrowed it down to three vendors, looking at price, track record, and by trying to get a feel for uptime levels. In the end, we chose Postcode Anywhere, because it ticked all the boxes.

“We’ve had zero downtime too, which is really very important to us – and to tell the truth, we’d happily pay a lot more for the quality of service we receive from Postcode Anywhere.

“If you want a full host of the postcode and geographic data it’s out of the question for a small business. But access to the data is essential for our business model. Why bother building the service yourself when it’s far more cost-effective and reliable to use an established supplier like Postcode Anywhere?”

The service enables childcare givers to actively search and find local childcare work by applying to jobs posted by families and inviting parents to view their profile page. Findababysitter.com is free for child carers to sign up and search for local nanny or babysitting jobs. For more information, please visit www.findababysitter.com.

To find out more about Postcode Anywhere’s range of services for small businesses, please visit www.postcodeanywhere.com.

ENDS

Media contact for Postcode Anywhere
Jim Williams – PR Manager, Postcode Anywhere
Email Jim
+44 (0) 1905 888 570
Press Centre
Press Pack download

Notes to Editors:

More information about Postcode Anywhere
Recent awards and recognition for Postcode Anywhere

Address Validation Helps Car Care Company Wax Profitable

Wed, 23 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 23 March 2011 – Aberdeenshire car care company Polished Bliss reaches a landmark half-million-pound turnover this month. The company credits an internet presence, backed up by customer service, as “essential” for growth.

Polished Bliss also cites address validation technology as one of the necessary tools for successful business development.

Founder and marketing director Richard Cooper said: “We needed an internet presence in order to grow the business. Potentially we had a huge market - anyone with a car and a passion for looking after it. Our ethos goes beyond merely selling car care products: it includes educating people to get the best results.

“We’ve reached the half a million pounds turnover milestone in just over five years of trading: quite an achievement for a small team of just six people. The ubiquity of today's online ‘social space’ can be a great referral tool, but conversely it can expose you to negative consumer generated content, so delivering the best levels of customer service is essential.

“Address accuracy was quite a challenge, particularly as we grew so quickly. There is always a danger of making mistakes when entering details onto the system and you have to trust the customer is giving you the right information. Basically we needed to mitigate any data transfer errors. It is also essential to provide our couriers with accurate address data.

“Postcode Anywhere was recommended to us by our web designers, Green Jersey, and also by Actinic, whose software we use to run our website. It ticked all the boxes and it was extremely easy to integrate, which helped us to streamline our processes.

“Before using UK address validation, we were experiencing five to ten addressing-related errors per month. It was costing between £5 and £6 to reschedule each item, on top of the admin time it took to rectify delivery errors. In addition to all of this, further time was being taken up apologising to unhappy customers. I would estimate this cost us at least £1,000 per year, not including secondary costs which can have quite an impact on profit margins.

“You have to take into account the reputation damage a failed delivery can cause. It’s unquantifiable, but equally important. You also risk alienating your customers so they do not return. I think address validation has become a given. Visitors benefit from reduced keystrokes, and it makes ordering products more convenient and minimises erroneous deliveries. We have never had occasion to use Postcode Anywhere’s technical support desk, which speaks volumes.

“We are really impressed with Postcode Anywhere’s address validation. It is quick, easy, efficient and cost-effective. It definitely adds kudos to our website and has helped us to save money and enhance our online presence.”

Postcode Anywhere’s managing director Guy Mucklow said: “Making things easier for your customers is only one half of the story. Just one missed letter in a postcode can spell the difference between Manchester and Milton Keynes. You might consider it the ‘fault’ of the customer for mistyping their details, but when they don’t have their order, or you find you can’t contact them, it’s no use pointing out this irony! Quite simply, they won’t be coming back.

“Accurate contact data is incredibly important for any business, and address validation ensures this data is 100% correct going in. Polished Bliss is a fantastic example of a company which has successfully married a bricks-and-mortar business with sophisticated online lead generation. Address look-up is a discreet but vital function for this, something their rapid growth is testament to.”

Polished Bliss has been using Postcode Anywhere to provide address auto-fill since February 2010. The business was set up in January 2005 in Kintore, Aberdeenshire by marketing director Richard Cooper and finance director Angela Cooper. To find out more about Polished Bliss, see the website at www.polishedbliss.co.uk. For more information about Postcode Anywhere’s range of cost-saving services for small business, please visit www.postcodeanywhere.com.

ENDS

Media contact for Postcode Anywhere
Jim Williams – PR Manager, Postcode Anywhere
Email Jim
+44 (0) 1905 888 570
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Notes to Editors:

More information about Postcode Anywhere
Recent awards and recognition for Postcode Anywhere

UK Catering Boss Retires, Says Attention to Detail “Vital” Online

Tue, 15 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 15 March 2011 – The founder of national catering supplies company Kingfisher Services is looking forward to his retirement, after decades in the trade and a successful push to move much of the business online.

Managing director Leslie Bowman attributes “attention to detail” to the firm’s web-based accomplishments, including services such as Postcode Anywhere’s address auto-fill, integrated with their Actinic-powered ecommerce website.

Kingfisher Services supplies catering products and equipment to hotels, restaurants and NHS hospitals. The company’s UK customers comprise some of the most prestigious hotel groups, restaurants and private clubs, including the iconic Jimmy Chung’s chain and Hendon Golf Club.

Mr Bowman said: “A diverse range of hotel and hospitality professionals use our services, from head chefs and restaurant managers to admin staff. They do not have access to a centralised procurement or purchasing department like many large companies have, so it’s really important to make the buying experience as convenient and efficient as possible.

“Attention to detail is vital online. Postcode validation really helps us provide an efficient service. Our customers can be segmented into small independent hotels, and larger ones such as the Dorchester. The housekeeper from the Dorchester will probably never need to provide a postcode, as it’s a London landmark. For a small seaside guest house called ‘Seaview,’ however, there are likely to be several establishments in the same town with similar or identical names.

“We had an example of this recently on our telephone order line, where a consignment of shampoos and shower gels was ordered by the housekeeper of a hotel in a popular tourist destination. Unfortunately it was delivered to a competing hotel opposite with a very similar name - causing a lot of inconvenience! This would simply not have happened if the housekeeper had placed the order online, using address validation - and we would have been spared the hassle, embarrassment and expense of rectifying the situation and pacifying our customer.

“Postcode Anywhere gives our customers a good user experience. The hotel and restaurant business is extremely pressurised and time is of a premium, so users benefit from being able to reduce their keystrokes. And after they’ve placed their order, it gets sent to the right delivery address on time, every time.

“The more professional your website looks, the more confidence your customers have in you as a company. We’ve been using Postcode Anywhere for almost two years. Postcode validation has definitely helped us to grow and develop the online side of the business. During my career I’ve had the great privilege to work with Rocco Forte, undisputedly the greatest hotelier entrepreneur in the world. He once told me that he felt that the key to his success in business was purely down to attention to detail. I think that postcode validation is a great example of how we demonstrate Kingfisher’s commitment to this legendary man’s business philosophy.”

While a high proportion of Kingfisher’s business is secured through its website, it continues to provide a telephone order line service for catering professionals without internet access. For more information about Kingfisher Services, please visit www.kfservices.com. To find out more about Postcode Anywhere’s range of products for making ecommerce more profitable, including address validation, store finders and postcode profiling services, visit www.postcodeanywhere.com. Learn about Postcode Anywhere’s address auto-fill for Actinic ecommerce and sign up at www.postcodeanywhere.com/actinic.

ENDS

Media contact for Postcode Anywhere
Jim Williams – PR Manager, Postcode Anywhere
Email Jim
+44 (0) 1905 888 570
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Notes to Editors:

More information about Postcode Anywhere
Recent awards and recognition for Postcode Anywhere

Postcode Anywhere Launches Cost-Cutting Public Sector Data Advisory Service

Tue, 08 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 8 March 2011 – Address and geographic data specialist Postcode Anywhere launches a new advisory service today at Birmingham’s public sector procurement exhibition, Procurex. The service aims to reduce the cost of data in light of recent changes to public sector addressing and geographic data licensing.

The announcement comes in response to the imminent impact of the proposed Public Sector Mapping Agreement (PSMA) and National Address Gazetteer database (NAG). Both initiatives respectively aim to give public sector organisations access to unified and consistent addressing and geographic data.

Postcode Anywhere’s sales and marketing director Phil Rothwell said: “The PSMA and NAG will offer a single, standardised view on data and present a huge opportunity for improved public services and reduced data procurement costs. But it’s unrealistic to expect public sector bodies to know their licensing requirements inside and out - which is where Postcode Anywhere Advisory Services come in.

“In order that public sector organisations benefit from all the potential cost savings, it's vital to carry out an assessment of internal data requirements and external suppliers. With impartial advice from our team of experts, public sector organisations can now determine the most cost-effective way to fulfil their data licensing needs before acquiring the data, smoothing the transition to working with the PSMA and NAG.

“For many users, we can confidently offer cost savings of over a third. The service operates on a strictly no-risk basis, with our independent consultants taking a percentage of first-year savings in commission, on a no-saving, no-fee model. The long-term benefits of the PSMA and NAG initiatives are extensive. In order to realise the possible benefits, the way the public sector procures and manages the data will have to change as well.”

Postcode Anywhere’s managing director Guy Mucklow added: “Current licence restrictions are fragmented. They inhibit data sharing and leave organisations with multiple licences and duplicated costs. This leads to geographic and address data not being used as widely as it should be, and citizen services suffer as a result.

“Within the public sector itself, no two databases are alike – carrying significant consequences for pan-government service delivery. The process of maintaining multiple records is itself costly and counterintuitive, with the average citizen having to prove their identity to Government at least 11 times every year. Shared services have the potential to be enormously cost-effective, but the consistency of Local Authority databases needs to be improved before we’re likely to see any real progress.

“When Local Authorities work with the private sector, which again has its own way of managing data, we see more problems. Take a typical example of a private organisation contracted to assist with an emergency such as burst pipes. The task is made considerably more difficult than it needs to be because both parties use different addressing databases - injuring public sector engagement with external organisations, driving up costs and damaging relationships.

“The proposed changes to public sector data licensing are aimed squarely at rectifying these inconsistencies, but they alone won’t translate to a direct cost saving. Postcode Anywhere has the expertise to help Government bodies achieve these aims.”

The public sector launch follows the introduction of the company’s service for the private sector earlier this year, aimed specifically at reducing the cost of licensing Royal Mail’s address database, the Postcode Address File (PAF®), for businesses.

Postcode Anywhere will be promoting their advisory services today and tomorrow at Birmingham’s Procurex exhibition at the NEC in Hall 11, stand 24. For more information about Postcode Anywhere Advisory Services, visit the Postcode Anywhere website at www.postcodeanywhere.co.uk/advisory.

ENDS

Media contact for Postcode Anywhere
Jim Williams – PR Manager, Postcode Anywhere
Email Jim
+44 (0) 1905 888 570
Press Centre
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Notes to Editors:

More information about Postcode Anywhere
Recent awards and recognition for Postcode Anywhere

Developer Interface Unveiled for Postcode Anywhere Address Cleanser

Wed, 02 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester and London, UK – 2 March 2011 – High-growth software and services specialist Postcode Anywhere will include a programming interface with its new address cleansing software, Cleanse+. A demonstration of the software is available this week at London's Technology for Marketing and Advertising show (TFM&A), which enters its final day today.

The interface will allow developers to use Cleanse+ technology in their own projects. For most, this will involve customising the cleanser’s look and feel, or combining it with other services to create hybrid products.

Postcode Anywhere’s IT Director Jamie Turner said: “The application programming interface, or web service API, will give developers the power to customise the front-end of the data cleansing software, as well as use it in mash-ups and other web projects.

“Besides working incredibly hard to ensure the user interface for Cleanse+ is as intuitive, clean and simple as it can possibly be, we understand how important it is for developers to have some level of control over any product. This is why adaptable web service technologies are a core part of any Postcode Anywhere offering.

“For Cleanse+, the inclusion of a web service API is joined by myriad other features which we believe make the data cleansing service one of the most advanced in the industry. These features include self-learning technology which gives better results over time, and now, direct database connectivity, so users don’t even need to go to the hassle of saving and uploading files to the cleanser.

“Cleanse+ is a product we believe the address management industry has been crying out for since we first entered the market a decade ago. We hope we’ve largely met the demands of the market in its first iteration, launching at TFM&A this week, but will be constantly adding new features on a rolling schedule.”

For more information about Postcode Anywhere’s new data cleansing software, Cleanse+, visit the Postcode Anywhere website at www.postcodeanywhere.com. If you plan to attend TFM&A in London’s Earls Court, you can see Postcode Anywhere exhibiting their new address cleansing software at stand G48.

ENDS

Media contact for Postcode Anywhere
Jim Williams – PR Manager, Postcode Anywhere
Email Jim
+44 (0) 1905 888 570
Press Centre
Press Pack download

Notes to Editors:

More information about Postcode Anywhere
Recent awards and recognition for Postcode Anywhere
Image of Andy Bennett, lead developer for Cleanse+

Postcode Anywhere Announces Simpler, Slicker Route Optimiser

Tue, 22 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 22 February 2011 – Commercial route planning website Route Optimiser will receive a fresh new interface and simplified payment structure this week – making it "easier than ever" for delivery companies to cut costs, plan shorter routes, and improve customer service by providing an estimated time of arrival.

The new payment system offers a choice between pay-as-you-go credits and annual user licences, with prices starting from £15 for the smallest credit pack.

Route Optimiser was launched in 2009 by Worcester-based IT specialist Postcode Anywhere. The company’s managing director Guy Mucklow said: “The new licensing makes it easier than ever for commercial vehicle drivers to use route optimisation technology, and make the most all the associated benefits.

“Where goods delivery is a central part of the organisation, there are a few common factors which can really make the difference between a successful business, and one that’s just surviving. The fact is that no company can afford to just muddle along in today’s economic climate.

“Route Optimiser delivers the technology that helps differentiate businesses from the competition. Thanks to Route Optimiser’s scalable pricing, it can serve large industries - such as the parcels and pallets market - as well as the smallest ‘man-with-a-van’ operations.

“Of course, the service isn’t just a huge asset in the delivery of goods – We have a number of customers who use us to intelligently deploy field sales engineers, for instance, where rather than spending hours manually plotting visits on a map to work out the best route, they can get an immediate and far more efficient journey planned, from wherever they are, with our service.

“For commercial deliveries, cutting journey times by up to 40% gives a huge competitive edge by making the best use of drivers’ time and shielding fleet managers from the ever-increasing cost of fuel.

“But by planning routes carefully and generating an expected time of arrival, it’s also possible to dramatically improve customer service levels, by informing the customer of when the driver is likely to be with them. With growing customer expectations and rising fuel costs in the face of a stark economy, the difference between success and failure is getting slimmer all the time. Route Optimiser widens that gap, and any business which can use it stands to benefit considerably.”

For more information, and to see the new Route Optimiser service in action, visit www.routeoptimiser.com.

ENDS

Media contact for Postcode Anywhere
Jim Williams – PR Manager, Postcode Anywhere
Email Jim
+44 (0) 1905 888 570
Press Centre
Press Pack download

Notes to Editors:

More information about Postcode Anywhere
Recent awards and recognition for Postcode Anywhere

Fun Run Organisers Walk Away from Missed Postal Deliveries

Wed, 16 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester and Sutton Coldfield, UK – 16 February 2011 – Great Midlands Fun Run charity organisers are cracking down on postal failure this year, to ensure participants get their vital information packs in preparation for this summer’s event.

Event Director Mr Tracey Spare hopes address auto-fill technology, supplied for free to the organisers by Postcode Anywhere, will make the difference between a trouble-free event, and the “headache” of replacing lost information packs.

He said: “A capacity 6,000 people participated in last year’s event, raising over £200,000 for over 210 charities, voluntary organisations and community interest groups, taking our total since 2003 over the £1m mark. Participants nominate their own charities, so it’s a great way for us to facilitate people’s individual fundraising targets.

“It’s crucial that we get an accurate postal address. We post out transponder timing tags, run numbers, and participants’ credit slips for paying in sponsor money. Every pack is unique to each entrant. Getting these packs to the entrants is crucial: without them, they can’t participate and they can’t raise the money.

“We’ve had situations where people have put in the wrong postcode or even completely incorrect address details when completing their online entry. Apartment blocks are a particular problem, where the address entered hasn’t matched up with Royal Mail’s data.

“Last year at least 1% of envelopes didn’t reach their recipient. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but that’s 60 people who haven’t received these vital packs. And it’s all up to me to make sure everything is put right, which can take up a considerable amount of administration time. Sometimes it’s just too late to fix. In all, it’s not just an administration chore I don’t want: it’s a considerable headache, and something we’re hoping Postcode Anywhere’s address auto-fill will fix.”

Postcode Anywhere’s managing director Guy Mucklow said: “The Great Midlands Fun Run is an excellent example of an organisation that can seriously benefit from address auto-fill software. It’s senseless to leave important packages at the mercy of human error, when address verification is so reliable and cost-effective. We look forward to seeing a considerable drop in delivery failure and hope the event generates significantly more funds for charities than ever as a result.”

The 8.5-mile route begins at Sutton Coldfield town centre, at 11am on Sunday, 5 June. The entry fee for adults is £16, juniors £10. Prospective fundraisers can register online at www.greatmidlandsfunrun.com or in person at the Sutton Observer office, 40 Birmingham Road, from 10am-3pm Monday-Friday.

For more information about Postcode Anywhere’s range of business efficiency software and services, please visit the website at www.postcodeanywhere.com.

ENDS

Media contact for Postcode Anywhere
Jim Williams – PR Manager, Postcode Anywhere
Email Jim
+44 (0) 1905 888 570
Press Centre
Press Pack download

Notes to Editors:

More information about Postcode Anywhere
Recent awards and recognition for Postcode Anywhere

Postcode Anywhere to “Take Data Cleansing into 21st Century” with New Address Cleanser Launch at TFM&A

Tue, 08 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 8 February 2011 – Address specialists Postcode Anywhere announce today a preview and beta launch of their “radically different” new address cleansing software, Cleanse+. A preview will be available for the first time at 2011’s Technology for Marketing & Advertising (TFM&A) exhibition, at London’s Earls Court on 1-2 March.

Traditional data cleansing software relies on hundreds of thousands of hard-coded rules to match and clean address records. In a departure from this model, Postcode Anywhere’s cleanser uses a self-learning matrix, coupled with a complex mathematical model, to assign probabilities and scrub UK address records based on real user data.

Lead developer Andy Bennett said: “For the technology buffs the self-learning matrix will be the big draw, because it simply hasn’t ever been done before with address cleansing. As consumers we’re used to this kind of process. Google, for instance, learns the likeliest search queries purely from past experience, and suggests as you type - no developer codes rules in directly. By taking a similar approach with address cleansing, we can achieve superior results based on real user behaviour, rather than the assumptions of one development team.

“So the technology is radically different. But for businesses, the real value is in usability. Data quality affects every organisation, yet it’s treated as a commodity service with little value – resulting in very little innovation in the area for over ten years. A significant amount of pre-processing work is needed to ‘straighten out’ data before the cleanse routine can even start. And when it does, from the time-consuming, clunky user interfaces to the outmoded technology behind them, the unfortunate truth is that most enterprise-level data cleansing software would look more at home on a BBC computer than today’s desktop!

“Postcode Anywhere’s new software is aimed squarely at solving these usability problems by finally dragging data cleansing into the twenty-first century. Unlike any other enterprise-level address cleanser, this software doesn’t need babysitting – and you won’t need a doctorate in data management to get results. We’ve made the user interface as clear as possible, and customisation options are pre-selected. Although there’s a lot of fine-tuning available to confident users, this is a piece of kit where you can simply push the button to get your cleanse job.”

Postcode Anywhere’s IT director Jamie Turner added: “The service also uses cloud technologies to speed up the process of data cleansing. Although there’s a client to download to your desktop, all the heavy lifting takes place on Postcode Anywhere’s servers, so cleanses that would previously have taken weeks can now be completed in hours. The other usual advantages of a cloud-based service apply too: all updates can be carried out automatically, without the need to load up CDs, and vast computations are easily possible without in-house server software.”

TFM&A is the UK's largest and longest-running multi-channel marketing, media and advertising event. Postcode Anywhere will demonstrate its new address cleansing software at stand G48.

The company is also seeking beta testers for Cleanse+. Interested parties can join the beta trial by enquiring via support@postcodeanywhere.com or by calling 0800 047 0493 – but spaces are limited. For more information about any of Postcode Anywhere’s services for improving data quality, visit the website at www.postcodeanywhere.com.

ENDS

Media contact for Postcode Anywhere
Jim Williams – PR Manager, Postcode Anywhere
Email Jim
+44 (0) 1905 888 570
Press Centre
Press Pack download

Notes to Editors:

More information about Postcode Anywhere
Recent awards and recognition for Postcode Anywhere
Image of Andy Bennett, lead developer for Cleanse+

Postcode Anywhere Achieves Microsoft Gold ISV/Software Competency in the Microsoft Partner Network

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 1 February 2011 – Web service specialist Postcode Anywhere today announced it has achieved a Gold ISV/Software Competency in the Microsoft Partner Network, demonstrating its ability to meet Microsoft customers’ evolving needs in today’s dynamic business environment.

To earn a Microsoft Gold Competency, organisations must complete a rigorous set of tests to prove their level of technology expertise, have the right number of Microsoft Certified Professionals, submit customer references and demonstrate their commitment to customer satisfaction by participating in an annual survey.

Postcode Anywhere specialises in software and services which improve business efficiency, including address auto-fill, bank account validation, digital mapping and route planning. Its cloud-based platform, built on .NET, has experienced 100% uptime for the past five years. Postcode Anywhere’s data-driven tools for developers are available through web service APIs and pre-built custom integrations. The company’s route planning and optimisation services are also available through the browser-based software RouteOptimiser.com.

Postcode Anywhere’s managing director Guy Mucklow said: “Being awarded the Microsoft Gold ISV/Software Competency marks an important milestone in our development. Having worked with the .Net framework from early beta versions over ten years ago, we remain firmly committed to growing with the technology because of the flexibility and versatility which it provides in enabling us to deliver our web services. We look forward to helping our customers realise their full potential by continuing to focus our areas of technology expertise in response to today’s business needs.”

Jon Roskill, Corporate Vice President, Worldwide Partner Group at Microsoft Corp, said: “The Microsoft Partner Network is designed to empower solution providers to succeed in today’s business environment. By achieving the prestigious Gold competency, participating companies are provided with a rich set of benefits, including increased customer visibility through branding and accessibility, training and support.

“We are proud to put forth a program that provides the right resources to help a company develop the expertise customers demand in today’s competitive market and also provides the community and infrastructure that can connect them to one another, lowering costs for all parties.”

The Microsoft Gold Competency signifies to the market that a company has demonstrated the highest level of skill and achievement within a given technology specialization. All 29 Microsoft competencies are designed to help differentiate a partner’s specific technology capabilities, helping customers find solution providers quickly and easily. Each competency has a unique set of requirements and benefits, formulated to accurately represent the specific skills and services that partners bring to the industry.

Through the Microsoft Independent Software Vendor (ISV)/Software competency, you can gain access to the latest technology, market opportunities, and sales and marketing resources that have been specifically created with ISVs in mind. From planning the development cycle to supporting your customers, you will have the tools and resources you need to build innovative solutions and bring them to market.

The Microsoft Partner Network is designed to equip organisations that deliver products and services based on the Microsoft platform with the training, resources and support they need to provide their customers a superior experience and outcomes.

ENDS

Media contact for Postcode Anywhere
Jim Williams – PR Manager, Postcode Anywhere
Email Jim
+44 (0) 1905 888 570
Press Centre
Press Pack download

Notes to Editors:

More information about Postcode Anywhere
Recent awards and recognition for Postcode Anywhere

New Partner Manager for Address Experts Postcode Anywhere

Wed, 26 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 26 January 2011 – A new partner manager takes over at Postcode Anywhere this week, in charge of nurturing the address management specialist’s growing reseller channel.

Alex Bryan, who moves into the role, holds a degree in Classical Archaeology and a Masters in Computer Science. He joined Postcode Anywhere soon after graduating, and worked in technical support prior to joining Postcode Anywhere’s sales team, where he developed an in-depth understanding of web services and route optimisation technology.

Alex said: “The number one piece of feedback we get from value-added resellers (VARs) is that they want services they know their customers can rely on. On top of that, they want to differentiate products and generate repeat income. We don’t take this challenge lightly, and thanks to Postcode Anywhere’s “it just works” approach, we can not only offer an industry-leading service, but a broad product mix with strong revenue opportunities. Plus, because we are recognised today as an address management leader in the ecommerce and multi-channel retail sectors, partners can take advantage of our brand to win sales.

“We’ve tended to let the technology speak for itself: automatic updates, rapid development, and a web-based system built on the latest industry standards have all stood us in good stead. And thanks to Postcode Anywhere’s scalable pricing model, anyone can take advantage of the same functionality that powers websites like Pizza Hut and Tesco Entertainment.

“But there’s a lot of opportunity for VARs to take the service further. When someone auto-completes an address on an ecommerce website, for instance, why not offer functionality to demographically profile the customer too? This is the kind of differentiator that can really set your proposal apart when competing for business. And with over 250 web services to choose from, the potential for adding value to an offering is huge.

“The relationships we’ve fostered, spanning tried-and-trusted offerings like Actinic’s ecommerce platform, to the innovative Salesforce CRM, show there’s still plenty of room for growth in the partner and reseller channels. It’s a challenge Postcode Anywhere relishes as we move into 2011.”

Postcode Anywhere’s sales and marketing director Phil Rothwell added: “Postcode Anywhere already has a reputation for being a partner-friendly organisation. This is something we want to build upon and Alex, with his broad range of sales and technical skills, is ideal for the role. Our goal is to do what we can help all of our partners succeed. Alex’s appointment is a big step in the right direction.”

If you would like to become a Postcode Anywhere reseller, you can apply online at https://www.postcodeanywhere.co.uk/register/default.aspx?partner=1.

Company expansion has opened up several opportunities within the Worcester-based business efficiency web service company. Potential applicants for sales, support and marketing roles should visit the website at www.postcodeanywhere.co.uk/recruitment.

ENDS

Media contact for Postcode Anywhere
Jim Williams – PR Manager, Postcode Anywhere
Email Jim
+44 (0) 1905 888 570
Press Centre
Press Pack download

Notes to Editors:

More information about Postcode Anywhere
Recent awards and recognition for Postcode Anywhere

Postcode Anywhere Launches PAF® Advisory Services

Tue, 18 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT

London and Worcester, UK – 18 January 2011 – Address management and data quality specialists Postcode Anywhere are offering users of Royal Mail’s Postcode Address File (PAF®) a data ‘health-check’ with data licensing experts Data Advance.

Postcode Anywhere Advisory Services will offer clients expert help with Royal Mail address data and software licensing, compliance and risk assessment. It promises to “drastically reduce the costs of address management for enterprise-level business.”

An initial assessment will be provided to all clients free of charge, and for organisations spending more than £20,000 a year on address management technology, the service will be offered on a “no saving, no fee” basis.

Jennie Longden, former managing director of Royal Mail’s Address Management Unit, and managing director of Data Advance, said: “Procurement managers are demanding more transparency and more cost-effective address management for their companies. We’ve noticed this trend for a number of years, and so are delighted to be working with Postcode Anywhere to address the market’s needs.

“While address auto-fill and verification has been recognised as an essential business tool for over two decades, the Postcode Address File (PAF®) licensing can sometimes look like a potential minefield for businesses. Larger companies, which have grown organically over this time, are also likely to have several address services from several suppliers. This can lead to duplicated costs and disparities in the data.

“These costly situations either go unnoticed, or are tolerated by organisations which are put off from cleaning up their systems due to the perceived hassle of complicated licensing terms or consolidating suppliers. The new Postcode Anywhere Advisory Services equips you with the tools to make an informed decision about your software procurement and ways to reduce costs.”

Peer-to-peer ticket exchange website Seatwave is a Postcode Anywhere customer which recently reassessed their address management requirements. Programme Director Matthew Ephgrave said: “We’re now saving something like £26,000 a year - a staggering £500 every week. Our technical lead wanted us to switch from a major competitor product for some time because of Postcode Anywhere’s installation benefits and the fact that the service is tons cheaper. Suffice it to say he is now a lot happier!

“Postcode Anywhere was incredibly quick to install. It was so easy to integrate the service into our existing systems, our developers did it in less than half a day.”

Postcode Anywhere’s sales and marketing director Phil Rothwell said: “The economic downturn is an obvious spur to businesses who want to reduce overheads and increase operational efficiency. Now there’s no excuse not to re-evaluate internal procedures when it comes to address management thanks to our relationship with Data Advance.”

For more information on Postcode Anywhere Enterprise Services, and to book a free data consultation, please visit www.postcodeanywhere.com/paf-advisory-services

ENDS

Media contact for Postcode Anywhere

Jim Williams – PR Manager, Postcode Anywhere
Email Jim
+44 (0) 1905 888 570
Press Centre
Press Pack download

Notes to Editors:

More information about Postcode Anywhere
Recent awards and recognition for Postcode Anywhere

Postcode Anywhere Launches Faster Satnav

Wed, 12 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 12 January 2011 – Business efficiency software specialist Postcode Anywhere launches a new, smarter satnav service this week, which goes beyond simple A-to-B route planning to re-order multiple waypoints into the fastest “optimised” itinerary.

The feature adds satnav integration to the online routing service RouteOptimiser.com. It enables commercial vehicle drivers to take their optimised routes with them in their TomTom satnav.

Route Optimiser’s lead developer Richard Geary said: “The service is suitable for anyone who has to visit several destinations in a single day. This includes large fleets, but thanks to a scalable, pay-as-you-go pricing plan, is also suitable for smaller organisations and delivery drivers who work for themselves.

“After the waypoints in the route have been entered online at www.routeoptimiser.com and shuffled into the optimal order by Route Optimiser, it takes just seconds to download the journey plan directly to your TomTom satnav. The sat nav will then direct you to each of the stop-off points in order as you drive. The software also gives an expected time of arrival, considerably improving customer service levels.

“Apart from the obvious convenience of in-vehicle navigation, having the route in your satnav is more time and cost-effective than printing out maps and directions. And while voiced instructions are of course preferable to map-reading, there’s the added benefit of TomTom's speed camera and HD traffic technology.

“If you have a large number of waypoints, the new service also saves the time and effort of entering destinations one at a time.”

Postcode Anywhere’s managing director Guy Mucklow said: “Customer service is essential when it comes to making deliveries. Giving customers a time window for their deliveries can really set businesses apart.

“In these times of austerity, it’s also vital to keep a judicious eye on vehicle costs. Route Optimiser’s smart algorithms organise drop-off routes into an order that’s 20-40% faster to visit, using 20-40% less fuel. Sometimes, it can be difficult to see where savings need to be made, which can lead to serious and sometimes unnecessary cost-cutting measures. Technology such as Route Optimiser, which even incorporates real-world traffic congestion data into its calculations, makes last-resort options such as laying off staff a lot less pressing.”

Parshotam Showan, managing director of electrics supplier Sonic Megastore, began using Route Optimiser last year, to improve delivery processes. He said: “Since using Route Optimiser to plan deliveries, we’ve seen a 20% increase in efficiency, by reducing man hours, completing deliveries faster, and using less fuel. Taking the cost of the service into account, by our estimation this means we’ll save around £10,000 in the first year alone.

“Our level of service improved greatly after just one day using Route Optimiser. Suddenly we could give our customers two-hour delivery windows. Now they have to spend less time waiting for their deliveries. Our customers love it.”

All Route Optimiser users need to make use of the new improved service, which transfers optimised routes from computer to their TomTom satnav, is the TomTom HOME software, provided free with devices, and a USB cable. Please note that HOME is not used by newer TomTom satnav devices (GO LIVE 1000/1005 and Via).

For more information about Route Optimiser, please visit www.routeoptimiser.com. To find out about any of Postcode Anywhere’s other business efficiency software and services, visit www.postcodeanywhere.com.

ENDS

Media contact for Postcode Anywhere

Jim Williams – PR Manager, Postcode Anywhere
Email Jim
+44 (0) 1905 888 570
Press Centre
Press Pack download

Notes to Editors:

More information about Postcode Anywhere
Recent awards and recognition for Postcode Anywhere

RouteOptimiser.com “Significantly Outperforms” Human Route-Planning, Study Shows

Wed, 22 Dec 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK - 22 December 2010 - A study of over 300 manually planned routes has shown that Worcester-based IT firm Postcode Anywhere’s commercial route planning software, Route Optimiser, “significantly outperforms” manual routing.

The study, which took the form of a “find the fastest route” competition, involved entrants visiting 20 waypoints and meeting two timeslot deadlines. A prize of £250, awarded to Mr Gabhin Hill, was offered for the fastest route plotted by hand.

Route Optimiser’s lead developer Richard Geary said: “Route Optimiser has significantly outperformed manual attempts to plot the fastest route. Taking real-world traffic data into account, over a third of entrants failed even to deliver to both timeslots punctually.

“Those that did ended up with routes that took, on average, eight hours and 17 minutes to complete – almost an hour and twenty minutes over the optimal answer. It goes to show just how difficult it is to plot efficient routes, even for a mere 20 waypoints!

“It would be a fair observation to say that for more complex routes, of the type typically encountered by hauliers and couriers, Postcode Anywhere's route optimisation can perform up to 20-40% better than traditional methods involving maps and pins when it comes to the length of the routes.

“But it’s also worth noting the time it takes to plan these journeys. Even if you were to finally achieve a relatively optimal route planning by hand, Route Optimiser will give a better or similar result, but in a fraction of the time.

“The efficiencies which this technology can bring to commercial route planning are considerable.”

Parshotam Showan, Managing Director of electrics retailer Sonic Megastore, said: “Since using Route Optimiser to plan deliveries, we’ve seen a 20% increase in efficiency, by reducing man hours, completing deliveries faster, and using less fuel.

“Taking the cost of the service into account, by our estimation this means we’ll save around £10,000 in the first year alone.”

A free trial of Route Optimiser is available through the website at www.routeoptimiser.com. Developers and technology resellers can access customisable route optimisation web services via www.postcodeanywhere.com.

Media contact for Postcode Anywhere
Jim Williams – PR Manager, Postcode Anywhere

jim@postcodeanywhere.com
+44 (0) 1905 888 570

Press centre at: http://www.postcodeanywhere.com/press-centre/
Press Pack download: http://www.postcodeanywhere.com/assets/PDFs/press-pack-2010.pdf

Address Supplier Switch Saves Fan-to-Fan Ticket Exchange £26k

Tue, 14 Dec 2010 00:00:00 GMT

London and Worcester, UK – 14 December 2010 – Fan-to-fan ticket exchange website Seatwave announced annual savings of £26,000 this week after switching its address management to Postcode Anywhere.

Seatwave has used address auto-fill since it began trading in London in early 2007. The company allows music, theatre and sports fans to buy and sell tickets in a secure environment online.

Matthew Ephgrave, Programme Director at Seatwave, said: “Postcode Anywhere creates a good impression and adds to the visitor experience. The address auto-fill functionality considerably reduces key strokes and ensures accurate contact data which means customers’ tickets arrive safely, on time at the right address.

“We’ve saved significant amounts of money by switching from one of Postcode Anywhere’s competitors, but it’s not just about price. The quality of the data we’re capturing means there are less rejected payments, and we have peace of mind that it’s clean and accurate.

“With our previous provider we had to manually install updates every quarter. Not only was this a hassle, but data can deteriorate rapidly in three months. As Postcode Anywhere is a web service, updates are implemented automatically and on a daily basis.

“Now we’re saving something like £26,000 a year - a staggering £500 every week. Moving to Postcode Anywhere has also saved us valuable IT support time, and it’s good that we have immediate access to a real live person should we need technical support. We’re even alerted when our credit packs get to a certain level, so we never have to worry about running out.

“Postcode Anywhere was incredibly quick to integrate into applications. In fact, it was so easy that our developers finished the job in less than half a day. And support was provided free of charge. For some time, our technical lead has wanted us to move to Postcode Anywhere for its ease of integration and low cost of ownership. Suffice it to say, he is now a lot happier!”

Postcode Anywhere’s sales and marketing director, Phil Rothwell, said: “There will always be competitors offering cheaper solutions. But at Postcode Anywhere, we also consider our products to represent the best value, with 100% uptime for five years, daily updates direct from Royal Mail, and ISO 27001 accreditation.

“Although Seatwave’s annual savings of £26,000 are the equivalent of a full time employee, they are dwarfed by the cost reductions enjoyed by some of our other customers. With web-based and cloud based services now proven in the field, organisations of all shapes and sizes can reduce costs.”

For more information about any of Postcode Anywhere’s services, including Royal Mail PAF® address validation and auto-fill, and bank account validation, visit www.postcodeanywhere.com.

ENDS

Media contact for Postcode Anywhere

Jim Williams – PR Manager, Postcode Anywhere
Email Jim
+44 (0) 1905 888 570
Press Centre
Press Pack download

Notes to Editors:

More information about Postcode Anywhere
Recent awards and recognition for Postcode Anywhere

Postcode Anywhere Among Deloitte’s Fastest-Growing Tech Firms Third Year Running

Tue, 07 Dec 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 7 December 2010 – For the third year running, Deloitte has ranked Worcester-based Postcode Anywhere among the fastest-growing technology companies in the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region.

A growth rate of 484% across five years puts Postcode Anywhere within the top 70 technology firms in the UK. The company, best known for its address auto-completion software, attributes its success to “a focus on using internet technologies to extract maximum value for business.”

Postcode Anywhere’s managing director Guy Mucklow said: “Having grown the business organically for almost ten years without external funding, to make the Deloitte ranking for the third year running is cause for celebration.

“Postcode Anywhere has become one of the UK’s fastest-growing IT companies by investing heavily in innovative ‘cloud computing’ internet technologies, which make it far more cost-effective to deliver business software and services.

“It just goes to show that Britain has a lot to offer when it comes to innovation and IT. Frankly, it can be more difficult than it needs to be for small-medium firms to succeed in the UK, thanks to unfortunate ‘sell-out’ attitudes, and government procurement processes that can stifle small businesses while feeding their larger, established competitors. This is why it’s good to see so many UK companies in Deloitte’s EMEA ranking. But there’s no doubt Britain can do better.

“Small businesses, and in particular those within the IT industry, are at the heart of our economy. Postcode Anywhere has always focussed on using internet technologies to extract the maximum value for business.”

“Making the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 is commendable in today’s highly competitive technology industry,” said David Halstead, Deloitte United Kingdom, partner in charge of the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 EMEA programme. “We congratulate Postcode Anywhere on being one of the 500 fastest growing technology companies in the region.”

For more information about Postcode Anywhere, please visit www.postcodeanywhere.com.

ENDS

Media contact for Postcode Anywhere

Jim Williams – PR Manager, Postcode Anywhere
Email Jim
+44 (0) 1905 888 570
Press Centre
Press Pack download

Notes to Editors:

More information about Postcode Anywhere
Recent awards and recognition for Postcode Anywhere

About Deloitte Technology Fast 500 EMEA

The Deloitte Technology Fast 500 EMEA is the region‘s most objective industry-ranking standard to focus on the technology field and recognizes technology companies that have achieved the fastest rates of revenue growth in Europe, the Middle East and Africa during the past five years. Combining technological innovation, entrepreneurship and rapid growth, Fast 500 companies – large, small, public and private – span a variety of industry sectors, and are leaders in hardware, software, telecom, semiconductors, internet, media, life sciences and emerging areas, such as clean technology.
The programme is supported by the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 initiatives, which rank high growth technology companies by location or specifically defined geographic area and is run by the Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited‘s Technology, Media & Telecommunications (TMT) global industry group. Co-sponsors include Taylor Wessing, a leading International law firm with a focus on the industries of tomorrow, and Fidelity Growth Partners Europe, a venture and growth capital investor which backs entrepreneur with aspiration for greatness in the IT and clean technology sectors across Europe.

About Deloitte

Deloitte refers to one or more of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, a UK private company limited by guarantee, and its network of member firms, each of which is a legally separate and independent entity. Please see www.deloitte.com/about for a detailed description of the legal structure of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited and its member firms.
Deloitte provides audit, tax, consulting, and financial advisory services to public and private clients spanning multiple industries. With a globally connected network of member firms in more than 140 countries, Deloitte brings world-class capabilities and deep local expertise to help clients succeed wherever they operate. Deloitte's approximately 170,000 professionals are committed to becoming the standard of excellence.

Postcode Anywhere Blazes Trail For CSR

Thu, 02 Dec 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 02/12/2010 – The champagne corks were popping last Thursday at Sixways Stadium as Postcode Anywhere’s CSR Officer, Angela Davis, received the Individual Award for Excellence in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).

The inaugural event, organised and hosted by the Worcestershire Ambassadors, was devised to celebrate and recognise organisations and businesses in Worcestershire demonstrating a commitment to CSR.

The four award categories included environmental, community, workplace and staff, and individual excellence. The judges were particularly impressed by the winners’ long term commitment and the variety of ways in which CSR is integrated into their lives and businesses on a daily basis.

Other winning organisations included Jutexpo in the environmental category, DHL, who won the community award, and Festival Housing, who secured the workplace and staff award.

Postcode Anywhere’s CSR Officer, Angela Davis, received the award for the range and diversity of CSR activities staff at the Hallow-based technology company participate in. She said: “I was delighted but shocked to receive the award, given the fantastic community profile and dedication demonstrated by the other nominees.

“However, I think the directive for CSR has to come from the top and cascade down to every single employee, so in the case of Postcode Anywhere, without the stalwart support of our directors it would be impossible to achieve the level of community involvement that we do.

“I think it’s also important to acknowledge that the award is for everyone at the company, as every single employee contributes towards our CSR activities. Our corporate culture is based on a “can do” and “will do” approach and this is something that we take to the community. Whatever we do and whoever we do it for, we have fun along the way.”

Added MD, Guy Mucklow: “I’m really pleased that Angela’s won the award as she deserves the recognition for all of the hard work and effort that she has put into the role. CSR has added a new dimension to Postcode Anywhere, providing an excellent means of developing our team, whilst at the same time helping to motivate our people and to make us all more sensitive to the difficulties which others face on a daily basis.”

Having just raised £11,155 for blood cancer charity Leukaemia CARE, which were the proceeds of the Last Choir Standing Corporate charity singing competition, the company is currently planning its Christmas activities.

In collaboration with staff from the Herefordshire and Worcestershire Chamber of Commerce, Postcode Anywhere’s technology troubadours will be taking some Christmas cheer to the elderly. Later on in December they will be entertaining residents from care homes in Droitwich and Hereford with a selection of traditional Christmas carols.

For more information about Postcode Anywhere’s CSR activities, please visit the website at www.postcodeanywhere.com/csr.

ENDS

CSR contact, Postcode Anywhere / interview opportunity

Angela Davis
angelad@postcodeanywhere.com

Tel: +44 (0)1905 888560

Notes to Editors:

More information about Postcode Anywhere
Recent awards and recognition for Postcode Anywhere

Postcode Anywhere Processes 45,000 Donations For BBC Children in Need

Mon, 29 Nov 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 29 November 2010 – BBC Children in Need raised over £18m in this year’s broadcast event, with help from address auto-fill and validation technology supplied by Postcode Anywhere.

The address software, which was supplied free of charge, allowed donors to auto-complete an entire postal address from just the postcode. It was anticipated to speed up the time taken to process donations taken via the website by at least 50%. In total, over 45,000 payments have been processed for BBC Children in Need using this technology with around 33,000 being taken on the night of the event.

Postcode Anywhere’s managing director Guy Mucklow said: “Anything which can optimise processes and ensure more money comes in is going to be a big boon for any organisation. We’re delighted that BBC Children in Need has already managed to raise over £18m to help disadvantaged children and young people across the UK.

“In today’s economy people are obviously going to find themselves strapped for cash, so it would seem pretty realistic to expect donations to charitable organisations to drop across the board. After implementing the service, staff anticipated the address auto-completion technology would double the rate at which orders could be processed on the night.

“Smart technologies like address auto-fill are the unsung heroes of fundraising. They work quietly in the background, ensuring as much cash is raised as possible, and always show an attractive return on investment, whether times are prosperous or not.

“BBC Children in Need has defied the recession to raise such a substantial sum for charity. It’s testament to the spirit of the British public and something we are immensely proud to have helped support.”

It’s not too late to donate to BBC Children in Need. If you would like to make a contribution you can do so via the website at www.bbc.co.uk/pudsey/donate.

Postcode Anywhere typically offers a 10% discount for charities. For more information about any of Postcode Anywhere’s address auto-fill and organisational efficiency software, please visit the website at www.postcodeanywhere.com.

ENDS

Media contact for Postcode Anywhere

Jim Williams – PR Executive, Postcode Anywhere
Email Jim
+44 (0) 1905 888 570
Press Centre
Press Pack download

Notes to Editors:

More information about Postcode Anywhere
Recent awards and recognition for Postcode Anywhere

BBC Children in Need to Boost Donations with Postcode Anywhere

Wed, 17 Nov 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 17 November 2010 – BBC Children in Need will give their website a boost this week thanks to rapid address look-up software from Postcode Anywhere.

The software, which is to be supplied free of charge, speeds up the time taken to process donations by allowing donors to auto-complete an entire postal address from just the postcode. This cuts data entry time by at least 50% and should allow the charity to take a considerably higher volume of transactions on the night.

Beth Courtier, Community Investment Programme Manager for BT, working on behalf of BBC Children in Need, said: “This application will make a significant difference to the number of transactions we can process – we think it could save half the transaction time. And as we know from all our years working on these appeals, what is critical is getting donations processed. Ultimately, every transaction means more money for the charity.”

Postcode Anywhere’s managing director Guy Mucklow said: “Anything which saves money, makes processes more efficient and helps organisations get more for less is going to be very valuable for any organisation.

“Rapid addressing tools which meet this need have been around for a long time, but Postcode Anywhere was the first to use internet technologies to lower the cost of the underlying data, whether the software is used in a desktop application, call centre, or on a website.

“It’s perhaps because of this that Postcode Anywhere has always enjoyed a close relationship with charities, where you simply don’t have the luxury of inefficiencies - and every pound counts.

“In today’s economy, where every budget is stretched, efficiency is even more critical for the third sector. We’re delighted to be working with BBC Children in Need to help them achieve this goal, which should help them collect a considerably higher volume of donations.

“We are also able to offer the service entirely free of charge, which should be an even greater boost for this fantastic cause.”

For more information about any of Postcode Anywhere’s address auto-fill software for charities and call centres, please visit the website at www.postcodeanywhere.com.

You can make a donation to BBC Children in Need by calling 0345 7 33 22 33, or visiting www.bbc.co.uk/pudsey/donate

ENDS

Media contact for Postcode Anywhere

Jim Williams – PR Executive, Postcode Anywhere
Email Jim
+44 (0) 1905 888 570
Press Centre
Press Pack download

Notes to Editors:

More information about Postcode Anywhere
Recent awards and recognition for Postcode Anywhere

Postcode Anywhere Offers Reward for Fastest Santa Delivery Route

Tue, 09 Nov 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 9 November 2010 – Could you find the fastest route for Santa’s Christmas deliveries? That’s the challenge being issued to software integrators, value-added resellers and fleet managers this week, with £250 of Amazon vouchers for whoever can plan the quickest real-world route for St Nick this festive season.

The company running the promotion, Worcester-based IT company Postcode Anywhere, offers a range of software and services for planning more efficient routes for commercial vehicles.

Postcode Anywhere’s lead route optimisation developer, Richard Geary, said: “It’s unlikely that Santa would be able to make his 92 million worldwide deliveries without the help of some kind of route optimisation software. Even then, he’s going to be cutting it fine, with only a thousandth of a second to make each drop-off.

“Fortunately, we’re not challenging anyone to calculate a route for every present Santa delivers - that would be far too difficult. But even given a simple scenario for Santa’s final twenty deliveries, it will take a person some time to figure out what the optimal route would be, whereas our own software found the result within seconds.

“This should go to show how much businesses can really get out of modern route planning systems. Of course, almost anything is better than plotting routes by hand. Some field sales engineers still stick pins in maps, which is massively antiquated when you think about it. But one key difference between services offered by companies such as Postcode Anywhere and more traditional route planning software is that even with sophisticated route planning algorithms, real-world scenarios differ greatly from the maths.

“This is where augmented datasets such as TomTom Speed Profiles come in. By taking actual readings taken from millions of TomToms around the world, the data tells us which roads are busiest at any time of day, so we can adjust routes accordingly. Postcode Anywhere’s results are also informed by other factors such as vehicle height, weight and width restrictions for HGV-friendly routes.”

Postcode Anywhere’s managing director Guy Mucklow said: “The festive season is a crucial time for hauliers and couriers. Although the competition is intended to be a bit of fun, these kinds of services really can be the difference between successful Christmas deliveries and disappointed and upset customers.”

Parshotam Showan, electrical retailer Sonic Megastore’s managing director, reported a 20% efficiency increase and an estimated £10,000 annual saving using Postcode Anywhere’s browser-based route optimisation software, Route Optimiser. He added: “Our level of service improved greatly after just one day. Suddenly we could give our customers two-hour delivery windows. Now they have to spend less time waiting for their deliveries. Our customers love it.”

To enter the Santa competition, simply enter online at www.postcodeanywhere.com/santa. The competition closes at midnight on 17 December.

Postcode Anywhere’s route optimisation web services can be accessed from any device, anywhere with an internet connection, and are designed for use in the development of routing software. The company offers a range of software and services for improving commercial delivery processes, including route planning, “where’s my nearest?” store locator services and address verification software. For more information, please visit www.postcodeanywhere.com. Postcode Anywhere also offers ready-to-use, browser-based route optimisation software at www.routeoptimiser.com.

ENDS

Media contact for Postcode Anywhere

Jim Williams – PR Executive, Postcode Anywhere
Email Jim
+44 (0) 1905 888 570
Press Centre
Press Pack download

Notes to Editors:

Santa Facts

• Rudolf, the ninth reindeer, actually only appeared in 1939, thanks to Robert L. May’s story and song of the same name.
• In Finland, Santa’s reindeer do not fly. It is unclear whether this due to flight regulations or customs laws.
• With the weight of presents and the speed that he needs to travel, Santa faces g-forces of over 17000g during his journey.
• In order to make all his deliveries, Santa travels at approximately 3,000 times the speed of sound.
• Santa’s sleigh is weighed down by at least 321,300 tons, assuming each gift weighs around two pounds. This figure doesn’t include Santa’s own weight, which we can assume is quite substantial.

More information about Postcode Anywhere
Recent awards and recognition for Postcode Anywhere

British Car Part Company Triumphs With Address Capture Technology

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester and Lincoln – 02 November 2010 – British car-part company Rimmer Brothers has switched their website address auto-fill technology to Postcode Anywhere.

The Lincoln-based firm, which specialises in Triumph, Rover SD1, Land Rover, and MG Rover car parts, cites cost-effectiveness and reliability as two reasons for making the change.

Richard Caunt, General Manager of Rimmer Brothers, said: “We updated our website to help offer our customers a better service. We still needed to have address auto-fill on the site, since it makes it so much easier for customers to fill out their details. But we knew there were better options out there, with better technology and better service, for a more affordable price.

“Switching providers always seems a hassle, and it might look easier to stay with what you’ve got. But with the new website, our customer database started from scratch, so it was the perfect time to make a clean break and start as we meant to go on.

“I took a good look at various options on the market, and Postcode Anywhere was the obvious choice for me. It does what it says on the tin. Ultimately, once you’ve ticked all the boxes for what you need - reliable software from a company that’s been around a while - it comes down to cost. And for half the price of most of the competition, it offers better technology, daily data updates and clear, concise, accurate addresses.

“Surprisingly, it was very simple to integrate the service as well. In fact, if I’d have known how easy it was to make the switch we might have done it a while back.

“But on top of this, the level of service offered by Postcode Anywhere has been exceptional. They’ve certainly gone the extra mile for us in the past – they’re very, very good. Postcode Anywhere is wonderful, it does exactly what it’s supposed to, and the team are simply nice people to deal with.”

Postcode Anywhere’s Sales and Marketing Director Phil Rothwell said: “Rimmer Brothers provide a fantastic service by supplying the spare parts which keep classic cars on the road. But as lovely as nostalgia is, when it comes to business software it’s a huge mistake to be tied to old technology.

“If you look under the hood of your IT systems and see something that’s out-dated and costing you a fortune, it’s time to switch to a better service at a better price. Staying tied to ten-year-old software won’t save you a penny. It’s not make-do-and-mend: it’s make-do-and-spend.”

To find out more about Postcode Anywhere’s UK and international address finder services, please visit www.postcodeanywhere.com.

ENDS

Media contact for Postcode Anywhere

Jim Williams – PR Executive, Postcode Anywhere
Email Jim
+44 (0) 1905 888 570
Press Centre
Press Pack download

Notes to Editors:

More information about Postcode Anywhere
Recent awards and recognition for Postcode Anywhere

Gardening Business Grows with Address Validation Software

Tue, 26 Oct 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Hereford and Worcester, UK – 26 October 2010 – Online gardening company Wiggly Wigglers will celebrate 21 years of trade this Christmas – and attributes its success to early adoption of new technology including address validation.

The multi-award-winning business sells a range of gardening products out of their farm in rural Herefordshire, including composting wormeries, plants and eco-friendly homeware.

By taking advantage of emerging technology trends such as social media and “cloud computing” – using services hosted on the internet, rather than building costly internal IT infrastructure – the business has continued to grow through the recession.

Heather Gorringe, founder of Wiggly Wigglers, said: “We live in a village with only 63 people. There are three times more cows than villagers. Internet-based services let us connect with our customers, and without technology we wouldn’t be here.

“Postcode look-up is one of these vital tools. Before using it in our internal systems, we had all the usual problems: addresses that didn’t make sense; mail bouncing back; and incorrect postcodes causing problems with the carrier company, because they weren’t on their system.

“You’d be amazed at how many mistakes can appear and how much trouble it can cause. It used to be a massive hassle just to get some parcels out. And who’s going to blame who for inaccurate addresses? Is it the carrier? Is it the despatch department? Or is the problem in the office, because someone didn’t put the address in properly?

“There’s a lot more love in the workplace since we started using Postcode Anywhere. The address data is fresh and accurate, it’s cost-effective, and there are just no issues with it. Because it’s web-based, we can tap into it wherever we are: at home, in the office, or out and about – wherever there’s an internet connection.

“I wouldn’t dream of entering records onto our database without it. What could take weeks only takes hours - when you have it, you can’t do without it.”

Postcode Anywhere’s managing director Guy Mucklow said: “In the run-up to Christmas it’s more important than ever for ecommerce businesses to ensure delivery details are taken correctly.

“All it takes is five minutes to add address auto-fill to an online checkout or in-house database. By eliminating poor address data, you reduce the cost of lost and replaced packages.

“Just one misplaced digit could spell the difference between a Manchester and a Milton Keynes postcode. That’s a 300-mile wasted round trip, a week’s delay for the customer, and extra delivery charges and reputation damage for the vendor. That’s unacceptable at any time of year.

“Wiggly Wigglers is a great example of a company which keeps several steps ahead of the competition. Anything but an ordinary business, it employs a range of cutting-edge techniques which others in ecommerce would do well to emulate.”

For more information about Wiggly Wigglers’ range of eco-friendly gardening products, please visit the website at www.wigglywigglers.co.uk. To find out more about Postcode Anywhere’s range of data validation tools, and to see how they can improve business in the run-up to Christmas, please visit www.postcodeanywhere.com.

ENDS

Media contact for Postcode Anywhere

Jim Williams – PR Executive, Postcode Anywhere
Email Jim
+44 (0) 1905 888 570
Press Centre
Press Pack download

Notes to Editors:

More information about Postcode Anywhere
Recent awards and recognition for Postcode Anywhere

The Cost of Christmas: £132.5m in Lost Post

Tue, 05 Oct 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 5 October 2010 – Missed deliveries will cost online UK businesses £132.5m this Christmas, according to the latest ecommerce research.

The cost is attributed to the price of replacing and redirecting poorly addressed parcels, “not at home” delivery, and late packages which result in the loss of repeat business from disgruntled customers. The findings have been drawn from studies carried out by Worcester-based address specialists Postcode Anywhere and Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG) earlier this year.

Postcode Anywhere’s MD Guy Mucklow said: “It is taken as a fact of life that goods go astray in the order and fulfilment process. But for the hundreds of thousands of consumers who lose their orders, this is simply unacceptable – and at Christmas, doubly so.

“Our studies show this will translate into direct costs for online businesses this festive season. By improving procedures across the whole ordering process, from sign-up to check-out, ecommerce vendors can save a considerable sum of money, while improving their online reputation and retaining the customers they already have.

“At one extreme of the fulfilment chain, processes could be improved by ensuring goods are delivered by a company offering guaranteed delivery slots. At the other, it could mean revising the online checkout so address details can be captured accurately, using tools such as address auto-fill.

“Despite our sophisticated postal system, incorrect addresses are still a huge problem in the UK. Consider that missing just one letter in a postcode could be the difference between, for example, a Manchester and a Milton Keynes address. That’s a wasted 300-mile round trip for the courier and over a week’s delay for the customer – annoying at the best of times, and unacceptable for a last-minute Christmas gift.

“Although mistyped data is often the ‘fault’ of the consumer, it is up to the e-commerce vendor to make sure they collect an accurate address, because they bear a responsibility to their customers along with the cost of replacement or redirection if things go wrong.

“By our estimations, UK ecommerce will lose £2m on Christmas day alone, simply because of missing postcodes or incorrectly captured addresses. Address auto-fill and validation tools from suppliers such as Postcode Anywhere nip these problems in the bud before the customer has even completed their order.”

Guy is a member of UK technology association Intellect and sits on Royal Mail’s Postcode Address File (PAF®) address database advisory board. For more information on any of Postcode Anywhere’s products and services, please visit www.postcodeanywhere.com.

The scope and range of the data in the study, IMRG’s Valuing Home Delivery Survey 2009-10, represents 95 retailers, more than 12 million online consumers, over 3.5 million active online shoppers and over 14 million parcels dispatched. A summary of the report can be found at www.postcodeanywhere.com/imrg-survey. Estimates for the Christmas period assume online sales of £6.6bn during this time.

ENDS

Media contact for Postcode Anywhere

Jim Williams – PR Executive, Postcode Anywhere
Email Jim
+44 (0) 1905 888 570
Press Centre
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Notes to Editors:

The unusual items Royal Mail looks after thanks to incorrect addresses...

• IMRG estimated the annual cost of missed delivery to ecommerce at £1 billion
• Every week around 600,000 pieces of mail are cannot be delivered because of incorrect addresses and poor packaging
• 25,000 of these have no address on them at all, only the recipient's name
• Lost mail goes to Royal Mail's National Return Centre in Belfast - the only place in the country where it’s legal to open another person’s post
• Unusual items that have been lost include:
• Traffic lights - The post office ran a campaign to trace the owner of this bulky, unaddressed item, but as yet no one has come forward
• Dead animals - the centre receives many dead animals, some of which are stuffed
• Car parts - A car door once arrived at the centre with no clues where it came from or where it was supposed to go
• Film props - One particularly grisly package contained a bloodied prosthetic hand from Saving Private Ryan
• False teeth - Apparently Royal Mail ends up with a lot of misaddressed dentures, which, if traced, are returned to the relevant dentist
• False legs - Royal Mail also receive a lot of misaddressed limbs. Sadly, most are never reunited with their (presumably hopping-mad) owners
• If you have lost something in the post, try Royal Mail’s customer services helpline on: 08457 740 740

More information about Postcode Anywhere
Recent awards and recognition for Postcode Anywhere

West Yorkshire’s Largest Independent Electrics Retailer Saves £10,000 With Route Optimiser from Postcode Anywhere

Tue, 28 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Yorkshire and Worcester, UK – 28 September 2010 – West Yorkshire’s largest independent electrics retailer will save £10,000 this year using faster delivery scheduling software from Postcode Anywhere.

Sonic Megastore uses online route optimisation technology from www.routeoptimiser.com to deliver its range of TVs, washers and cookers faster and more efficiently. Because they can now offer customers a two-hour delivery window, the company also reports a “great” improvement in customer service.

Parshotam Showan, Managing Director of Sonic Megastore, said: “Sonic Megastore is a growing company. As our order volumes grew, we recognised that we were too reliant upon individual driver knowledge to plan delivery routes.

“This led to the undesirable situation of efficiencies and service standards being disproportionately dependent upon the particular driver at the time. What would take one driver four hours to complete would take another six or even seven hours to complete.

“Clearly, it was important that we standardised our routing processes and streamlined our entire delivery arrangements.
“Central to our desire to create additional efficiencies was giving our customers a window within which to expect delivery of their goods. We value and respect our customers’ time and it was important the delivery service we offered did not compromise those values.

“Since using Route Optimiser to plan deliveries, we’ve seen a 20% increase in efficiency, by reducing man hours, completing deliveries faster, and using less fuel. Taking the cost of the service into account, by our estimation this means we’ll save around £10,000 in the first year alone.”

Postcode Anywhere’s Managing Director Guy Mucklow said: “Route optimisation technology can literally double production levels overnight. By providing it as a service on Postcode Anywhere’s online platform, it has finally been made affordable and simple to access.

“Sonic Megastore’s success reaches beyond £10,000 of efficiency savings, because they can now provide customers with estimated delivery times. This kind of customer service benefit is invaluable in a competitive marketplace.”

Route Optimiser can be accessed online through the www.routeoptimiser.com website, with prices starting from as little as £15. No downloads are required and the service works on a pay-as-you-go basis, with no contracts or hidden fees.

For more information about Route Optimiser, please visit www.routeoptimiser.com.

ENDS

Media contact for Postcode Anywhere

Jim Williams – PR Executive, Postcode Anywhere
Email Jim
+44 (0) 1905 888 570
Press Centre
Press Pack download

Notes to Editors:

More information about Postcode Anywhere
Recent awards and recognition for Postcode Anywhere

Candis Magazine Boasts UK’s “Cleanest” Database Thanks To Postcode Anywhere

Tue, 21 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Cheshire and Worcester, UK - 21 Sept 2010 – Rapid address-entry and bank validation software provided by Postcode Anywhere has led to Royal Mail auditors dubbing the Candis magazine call centre database “one of the cleanest they have ever come across.”

The software is used at point-of-sale and in the call centre itself to ensure customer orders go through without a hitch. Thanks to the award-winning technology, Candis magazine publishers Newhall Publications announced savings of almost £10,000 in one year.
Newhall Publications IT Director Chris Harman said: “Before using postcode validation a member of the admin team would spend a minimum of ten hours per week correcting data manually. If you equate this to paying someone £7.50 per hour at ten hours, after 52 weeks of the year it amounts to an annual saving of £3,900.

“Before using Bank Validation from Postcode Anywhere, we estimate that out of the total 60,000 subscription direct debits processed, one in 50 would be rejected. Call centre operator time would also be incurred telephoning the subscribers of the rejected bank details - and more often than not the calls were abortive, basically resulting in a lost sale.

“The admin time spent was significant as well as the cost of lost revenue calculated at two percent of 60,000 subscriptions multiplied by £35, which equals an annual saving of £4,200. The consolidation of the two services has also saved us £1,500 in licence fees, making an overall yearly saving of £9,600.

“Postcode Anywhere’s address validation and BACS verification helps to convert leads into sales. In that respect it is an invaluable point-of-sale (POS) marketing tool.

“We found Postcode Anywhere’s web service easy to integrate into third party software products and their technical support team really helpful. As a testimonial to their service we recently had a Royal Mail database audit which revealed a staggering 99.8% accuracy from over 300,000 records. We were told that it was one of the cleanest databases they had ever come across.”

Postcode Anywhere’s Managing Director Guy Mucklow said: “Correct data is the grease that keeps the cogs of any call centre working. Without it, customers cannot be dealt with efficiently, leads are lost and the process breaks down – resulting in upset callers and lasting reputation damage.

“By providing features which no other address validation company can offer, such as daily Royal Mail updates as standard, Postcode Anywhere brings the freshest data and the best service to the call centre and at point-of-sale.

“Newhall Publications is making intelligent use of these web-based technologies, and as a result can continue to offer world-class customer service while cutting down on administration costs.

“In my view it is the application of business processes such as this which mark the difference between a successful company and a truly outstanding one.”

More information on Postcode Anywhere’s address and bank account validation services can be found at http://www.postcodeanywhere.com/products. For more information on Newhall Publications and Candis magazine, please visit the Candis magazine website.

Postcode Anywhere Uses UK TomToms To Launch Superior Route Optimisation Service

Tue, 14 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 14 September 2010 – Locational data specialist Postcode Anywhere has unveiled a new routing service today, which plans faster routes for commercial fleets with real-world data collected by tens of thousands of customers driving with TomTom devices in the UK.

The service is the first of its kind to combine smart optimisation algorithms and vehicle height, weight and width data with Speed Profiles, the real-world statistical road congestion dataset.

Using Speed Profiles it can re-order journey waypoints according to historical traffic congestion information before putting them into an optimised order for faster and more fuel-efficient routes.

Postcode Anywhere’s lead developer for route optimisation, Richard Geary, said: “What’s most exciting about this new service is that it combines complex optimisation algorithms with real-life traffic information for more refined results than we’ve ever seen before.

“This innovation is not ‘out-of-the-box’ software. It requires integration into a company’s own systems, making it extremely customisable and therefore suitable for larger organisations and resellers, who want a service that works seamlessly with their client applications.

“The Speed Profiles data is collected by millions of TomTom customers across the world. More than two trillion community-contributed, anonymous GPS measurements have been taken to create and match roads against speed profiles. Using this data, waypoints can be re-ordered to give a ‘best-fit’ between road distance and achievable speed.

“The road statistics include average speeds across five minute intervals, on any day of the week. This is in contrast to traditional systems which use standardised estimates to calculate routes - and consequently ignore significant factors such as traffic lights, rush hour, and school runs.

“Because optimised routes are typically planned well in advance of the actual journey, this is the closest commercial fleet managers will get to ‘real-time’ optimisation, and should see more capably planned routes and noticeable savings in emissions.

“This is of course while still having all the benefits of being an online service, hosted by Postcode Anywhere - huge processing power for rapid calculations, automatic data updates every quarter, no costly upgrades, integrations for mobile devices, and the on-demand payment model.

“Quite simply, we believe this is the way forward for smarter commercial routing.”

Nhai Cao, Product Line Manager at TomTom, explains: “With congested roadways and ever-increasing travel times, users of mapping applications are seeking better ways to travel efficiently, minimize transportation costs and find the optimal routes to their destination. Speed Profiles helps commuters and business fleets do just that, easily integrating into navigation and transportation logistics systems.”

Postcode Anywhere provides a range of geographic services for business, including maps, government data and route planning software. The company recently launched the route optimisation website RouteOptimiser.com, aimed at parcel carriers, travelling salesmen and field engineers. More information on Postcode Anywhere’s new service can be found at www.postcodeanywhere.com.

ENDS

Media contact for Postcode Anywhere

Jim Williams – PR Executive, Postcode Anywhere
Email Jim
+44 (0) 1905 888 570
Press Centre
Press Pack download

Notes to Editors:

More information about Postcode Anywhere
Recent awards and recognition for Postcode Anywhere

Wall Street Journal Overhauls Billing System For International Subscribers

Wed, 08 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMT

New York, USA, and Worcester, UK – 8 September 2010 – Dow Jones & Company, publishers of the Wall Street Journal, has refitted its billing system for international advertisers with ‘groundbreaking’ worldwide address entry and validation software from Postcode Anywhere.

The service enables Dow Jones staff to enter accurate and validated account and contact data from across the world in a fraction of the traditional time, thanks to auto-fill technology that looks up and completes the entire address after just a few keystrokes. It has been implemented as a plug-in to Salesforce’s online customer management software, which Dow Jones already uses.

Postcode Anywhere’s Managing Director Guy Mucklow said: “The Wall Street Journal has always been at the heart of international business, so it’s perfectly fitting that Dow Jones should be among the first American businesses to adopt this groundbreaking kind of worldwide address verification and auto-completion.

“We are living in an interconnected world where the final barriers to truly global business are simply technicalities to be overcome. Geographical boundaries are really only significant now because of the political and cultural differences they represent. But these final differences can have huge consequences.

“To my mind, nothing illustrates this better than the variation in address formats around the world. Whether it’s down to a choice of languages, postal codes, scripts, or even deciding whether to put the surname first or last, one simple error could result in offence, lost mail, or even worse, a lost customer.

“Postcode Anywhere’s system dramatically cuts the time needed to take down an address, but even more importantly, it ensures details are accurate and correctly formatted when they go into your database.

“The service doesn’t just work within Salesforce – it will install on e-commerce websites and elsewhere, where it takes the teeth out of international trade and ensures parcels arrive where they’re supposed to.”

Bill Doane, Advertising Projects Manager for Dow Jones, said: “We wanted to capture accurate customer and contact address data for our print and online advertising billing information. With offices in Asia, Europe, North and South America, we needed an address validation solution with the ability to populate addresses over a wide range of international territories and formats.

“We looked at competitors – in fact we had already beta tested a competitor product – but it was only effective at a domestic level (only recognizing ZIP codes) and came with hidden costs.

“We’ve already saved significant time and money by putting only accurate address data into our billing system. We have some 30-40 new accounts to process daily. Before Postcode Anywhere’s solution this would involve the intervention of our sales representatives, pulling out the errors and entering the correct data manually.

“It was really easy to deploy into our customer hub, with minimal IT support. It took a little bit of getting used to - it was quite a change for our internal sales people! But after a little training we’ve never looked back. Postcode Anywhere is great.”

Postcode Anywhere’s IT Director Jamie Turner said: “This software is smarter than traditional address validation. As the user types an address, the digits entered are cross-referenced against data from USPS, Canada Post and other international postal databases.

“The possible results are displayed and narrowed down until you can simply click on the full address, which auto-completes. An address entry process widely adopted in other parts of the world, we believe it is far better than validating the data after it’s been entered, which can be problematic and needlessly time-consuming.”

Postcode Anywhere’s International Address service offers address auto-fill and validation for the Americas, Europe, UK, Australasia and parts of Asia. Software for just the US and Canada is also available.

For more information, please visit www.postcodeanywhere.com/international-address-validation or www.postcodeanywhere.com/us-address-validation.

ENDS

Media contact for Postcode Anywhere

Jim Williams – PR Executive, Postcode Anywhere
Email Jim
+44 (0) 1905 888 570
Press Centre
Press Pack download

Notes to Editors:

More information about Postcode Anywhere
Recent awards and recognition for Postcode Anywhere

Postcode Anywhere To Embark On Trade Mission To America

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 31 August 2010 – Hallow IT company Postcode Anywhere will take business stateside next month, as part of a UK Trade and Investment initiative to foster links between British and American companies.

One of only 20 small businesses selected for the trade mission, Postcode Anywhere will send Sales and Marketing Director Phil Rothwell - who will be greeted at the British Consulate before visiting Boston and Silicon Valley to network and foster new contacts.

The focus of the mission will be on the growing field of IT known as “cloud computing,” the provision of traditional computing resources via the internet, which Postcode Anywhere helped pioneer in the UK when it began trading in 2001.

A company which specialises in the management of contact, geographic and corporate data, Postcode Anywhere already has strong ties in the US through customers such as Dow Jones and its work with customer management software platforms NetSuite and Salesforce CRM.

Postcode Anywhere’s Managing Director Guy Mucklow said: “In our opinion having the technology to access high-quality, consistent data is what separates the ordinary business from the truly successful one. It underpins good customer service and is key to providing the intelligence that puts a company ahead of its competitors.

“At Postcode Anywhere our aim is to take advantage of the increasing recognition of the value of data and build a world-leading brand by providing competitively priced, cutting-edge technology backed up by excellent support.

“We very much look forward to the forthcoming trade mission and are specifically interested in finding integration and resale partners to promote our US and Canadian address validation and auto-fill products.

“We’ll also be discussing our highly innovative data integration web services, MyServices, which were recently described by a leading US technology commentator, Dave Linthicum, as ‘game changing’”.

Postcode Anywhere will visit the two US ICT clusters from 13 - 17 September 2010. For more information about Postcode Anywhere, and its range of data-driven services, please visit www.postcodeanywhere.com.

ENDS

Media contact for Postcode Anywhere

Jim Williams – PR Executive, Postcode Anywhere
Email Jim
+44 (0) 1905 888 570
Press Centre
Press Pack download

Notes to Editors:

More information about Postcode Anywhere
Recent awards and recognition for Postcode Anywhere

Royal Mail County Controversy Misses the Point, Says Postcode Anywhere

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 16 August 2010 – Royal Mail’s announcement that county names are to be completely dropped from their address database has met with a mixed response from marketers and the public – but the controversy ‘misses the point’ according to address data specialist Postcode Anywhere.

County names, removed in 2000 from Royal Mail’s complete address database the Postcode Address File (PAF®), are currently still available in the complementary Alias File - which after extensive consultation is to be phased out by 2016.

Postcode Anywhere’s Sales and Marketing Director Phil Rothwell said: “The decision to completely remove county names from Royal Mail’s files has been a long time coming. We have one of the most sophisticated postal systems in the world – but also the most idiosyncratic, and Royal Mail do a good job maintaining it.

“Getting the right county for an address can be a surprisingly complex and contentious issue. A series of 1970s boundary changes, affecting mainly Londoners, confused the matter. Then the mid 1990s saw the introduction of unitary authorities around major cities – leading to bizarre scenarios where, for example, Derby isn't in Derbyshire - at least administratively speaking!

“County names are an important part of our culture, from cricket clubs to sales patches, and Postcode Anywhere will continue to support all three county definitions after they have been removed from the Alias File. We will also continue to offer a fourth ‘common-sense’ view of the data to aid address capture and database management.

“The reality is that little will change. Details such as counties can be something very personal to the British mentality. Regrettably it may lead to confusion internationally, where address formats tend to be stricter.

“But old habits die hard and people will still be able to add what Ian Beesley, the chairman of the PAF® database advisory board, calls ‘vanity attachments,’ as long as the postcode is correct.

“The crux of the matter is that the county problem has never been with addresses – it’s been in defining geographical areas. We simply don’t have consistent conventions for this, leading to confusion when mapping out sales areas and definitive boundaries.

“As far back as 1966, The Times commented that ‘children will no doubt wonder why their address should refer to a county in which they have never lived’ due to inconsistencies between geographical and postal counties. Counties such as Avon don’t technically exist anymore.

“Providing and maintaining definitive boundary data is the thorny problem most commentators seem to have missed. The storm in a teacup surrounding so-called ‘postcode snobbery’ completely misses the point.”

Postcode Anywhere provides address auto-fill products for e-commerce websites and database applications, as well as a range of services including maps and geographic data. More information can be found at www.postcodeanywhere.com.

ENDS

Media contact for Postcode Anywhere

Jim Williams – PR Executive, Postcode Anywhere
Email Jim
+44 (0) 1905 888 570
Press Centre
Press Pack download

Notes to Editors:

More information about Postcode Anywhere
Recent awards and recognition for Postcode Anywhere

Postcode Anywhere Shortlisted For Two Birmingham Post Awards

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 12 August 2010 – Software and services company Postcode Anywhere has been shortlisted twice in this year’s prestigious Birmingham Post Business Awards, to be held on 20 September at Birmingham’s International Convention Centre.

The internet-based business has made the final three for the Marketing and Communications Award. It is also in contention for the Company of the Year 2010 Award.

Sales and Marketing Director Phil Rothwell said: “Just to be shortlisted for the Birmingham Post Business Awards is a huge honour and reflects the hard work and commitment of the team.

“As a Midlands-based company delivering technological answers to business and marketing problems we’re delighted to be up for the Marketing and Communications Award.

“The entry process looked at areas such as customer service, growth and service excellence. That the judges have also decided our performance makes us eligible for Company of the Year is a fantastic endorsement.”

Postcode Anywhere is a supplier of business efficiency and marketing software, typically available as a service over the internet. Its flagship product is “what’s your postcode?” address look-up, used in e-commerce websites and desktop database applications.

To find out more about Postcode Anywhere, please visit www.postcodeanywhere.com.

ENDS

Media contact for Postcode Anywhere

Jim Williams – PR Executive, Postcode Anywhere
Email Jim
+44 (0) 1905 888 570
Press Centre
Press Pack download

Notes to Editors:

More information about Postcode Anywhere
Recent awards and recognition for Postcode Anywhere

Image: Members of Postcode Anywhere's marketing team, L-R: Ralph Ashby, Lauren Rees, Gemma Britton.

Over 70% of government software dislocated from vital data, say Postcode Anywhere

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 26 July 2010 – Government data needs to be made more widely available to public sector staff in order to achieve better service delivery, according to a new survey polling those who look after it.

The findings have been revealed by address data specialist Postcode Anywhere after conducting a survey of Local Land and Property Gazetteer (LLPG) custodians.

There are hundreds of LLPG datasets across the UK, each containing local address and location data, created and maintained by local authorities. The data is used in a wide variety of critical citizen services, from education to refuse collection.

The LLPG gazetteers form a “patchwork” of amalgamated datasets from across the UK which make up the national, or NLPG, database.

Postcode Anywhere’s sales and marketing director Phil Rothwell said: “100% of the government custodians who responded believe wider access to their LLPG data can bring about better data quality and improved citizen services.

“But we’ve also found that less than one in three local government software applications are enabled to use it.

“There seems to be an unfortunate scenario in the public sector where the data that forms such a fundamental part of effective service delivery is effectively kept under lock and key, siloed away from the staff who need to access it.

“Local authorities in the UK have made a large investment in their LLPG data, and with a series of sweeping public sector cuts inevitable, now’s the time to maximise the return on that investment.

“Over a third of respondents identified data accuracy as a primary objective for government. They also saw the bigger picture when it comes to the breadth of the data. According to our survey, 62% of local authorities require access to data outside the boundaries of their LLPG, with a significant portion needing access to the entire NLPG dataset.

“With traditional solutions, improving access to the LLPG and NLPG data is a tall order – more often than not involving costly custom integrations and consultants. That’s before we consider efforts to meet compliance and regulatory restrictions.”

IT director Jamie Turner added: “We believe proven internet-based technologies can meet these needs for local government. Postcode Anywhere’s solution, NLPG Anywhere, provides easy, secure and centralised access to LLPG and NLPG data, as well as other datasets such as Royal Mail PAF®. Users can even integrate and ‘mash-up’ their own data in a few clicks and visualise it on a map.

“The desktop application automatically integrates with any software in seconds, while the browser-based version can be accessed rapidly through a web browser such as Internet Explorer, safely behind the organisation’s firewall.

“Services like this should drive public sector efficiencies and finally allow LAs to maximise the use of their data entitlement under the Pan Government and Mapping Services Agreements.”

The survey polled 136 LLPG custodians across the UK, of which over 18% responded. A summary of the findings can be found at www.nlpganywhere.co.uk/downloads/LLPG-Custodians-Survey-2010.pdf.

To find out more about NLPG Anywhere, and to arrange a free trial of the service, please visit www.nlpganywhere.co.uk.

ENDS

Media contact for Postcode Anywhere

Jim Williams – PR Executive, Postcode Anywhere
Email Jim
+44 (0) 1905 888 570
Press Centre
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Notes to Editors:

More information about Postcode Anywhere
Recent awards and recognition for Postcode Anywhere
More about Postcode Anywhere's D&B service

Postcode Anywhere Joins Public Sector ICT Body Socitm

Tue, 13 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 13 July 2010 – Software and services company Postcode Anywhere joins public sector ICT body Socitm (the Society of Information Technology Management) this week.

The firm will take advantage of Socitm’s networking and peer support, professional development, and access to research on policy and technology issues.

Sales and marketing director Phil Rothwell said: “Socitm should prove to be an invaluable point of contact for us. Postcode Anywhere has a great deal to do with the public sector through customers such as HMRC, the Identity and Passport Service, and many Local Government Authorities.

“These are challenging times for the public sector; the more effective the communications are between solutions providers like Postcode Anywhere and LGAs, the better.

“For example, LGAs face a central government directive instructing them to publish all financial transactions over £500. Innovative, specialist software such as Postcode Anywhere’s MyServices platform enables LGAs to seek out and publish all this financial data, rapidly and securely.

“Software like this, which takes established “cloud computing” technologies and applies them in secure, pioneering ways, heralds a sea-change in the way local government conducts its affairs.

“Small-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in particular are often overlooked when it comes to procurement. But often, they are the very specialists with the technology that government needs. They’re often more agile than their larger counterparts – and frankly, easier to deal with.

“This is just one instance where a small, UK-based company can offer real answers to the challenges faced by local government. By partnering with Socitm, Postcode Anywhere hopes to better understand the needs of the public sector and deliver yet more services which increase efficiency and safeguard resources.”

For more information about Socitm, visit their website at www.socitm.net. To find out about Postcode Anywhere’s range of data-driven services for the public sector, please visit www.postcodeanywhere.co.uk.

ENDS

Media contact for Postcode Anywhere

Jim Williams – PR Executive, Postcode Anywhere
Email Jim
+44 (0) 1905 888 570
Press Centre
Press Pack download

Notes to Editors:

Postcode Anywhere is the provider of a range of government services, including Geographical Information Systems (GIS) software NLPG Anywhere and AL2 Anywhere, with clients including HMRC, the Identity and Passport Service, Kent County Council, Worcestershire County Council, and Cornwall County Council.

Recent awards and recognition for Postcode Anywhere

Meanbee and Postcode Anywhere Launch First International Address Look-Up for Magento E-Commerce

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Bath and Worcester, UK – 8 July 2010 –Meanbee web design has made global trade on the Magento e-commerce platform possible for the first time this week, with a free-to-download international address auto-fill module.

Powered by technology from Postcode Anywhere, it is the only plug-in of its kind that allows developers to add international address auto-fill into their checkout forms.

Tom Robertshaw, managing director of Meanbee, said: “It's very exciting for us to be able to bring address look-up to a wider audience. Almost a standard feature on Britain’s e-commerce websites, it’s something the UK’s 30 million online shoppers take for granted.

“But for the international marketplace, with their umpteen language formats and character sets, the task is far more complex - and until now has been an unfortunate barrier to selling and shipping to any of the international customers that land on your website.

“Without any way to capture address details efficiently, customers can become disillusioned with the functionality of your site; and if there’s no way to guarantee data accuracy, goods can get lost even if they’re shipped.

“Either way, it’s easy to see why most e-commerce stores only ship inside their own country’s borders. With UK e-commerce representing only a fraction of the international marketplace, this is a huge wasted opportunity.

“Now, Magento store owners can finally validate billing and shipping addresses worldwide. Streamlining the checkout not only saves customers’ time; it increases conversion rates and shipping accuracy.

“Postcode Anywhere, the address specialists who built the underlying auto-fill technology, are a breeze to work with. Their data is always up to date and we never have any problem with availability.”

Meanbee offer both the international and UK-only Magento modules for free if users sign up through the online form and then buy a credit pack. For more information on the Magento modules, as well as screenshots and demonstration videos, please visit the website at www.meanbee.com/modules. You can also follow Meanbee on Twitter: http://twitter.com/meanbee.

For more information on Postcode Anywhere, please visit www.postcodeanywhere.com.

ENDS

Media contact for Postcode Anywhere

Jim Williams – PR Executive, Postcode Anywhere
Email Jim
+44 (0) 1905 888 570
Press Centre
Press Pack download

Notes to Editors:

Recent awards and recognition for Postcode Anywhere

Online Timber Shop Logs 100% Delivery Rate With Postcode Anywhere

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester and Axminster, UK – 29 June 2010 – Online wood-burning stove fuel business Woof! Wood Fuel celebrates two double milestones this week: two years in business and 2,000 customers served without a single missed delivery.

The company - which sells logs, pellets and charcoal for wood-burning stoves and ovens - attributes its 100% delivery rate success to address auto-fill technology from Postcode Anywhere.

Will Lloyd, founder of Woof! Wood Fuel, said: “Something that’s really expensive in any business is when things go wrong. Incorrect addresses which result in missed deliveries are a classic example of this. If it happens, the number of hours you then spend on the phone just chasing people up can cost a fortune. This is on top of a double charge from the delivery company and the potential loss of business.

“It’s amazing how many people make a typo, or spell their road incorrectly, when filling out forms online. In the early days before we used address validation, some deliveries could go astray. The idea that we might send something out only for it not to arrive is not good in business. Even if 2% of our deliveries were to go awry, the effect would be huge - we simply wouldn’t be able to cover £50-£60 for every wrong delivery.

“Address auto-fill stops failed deliveries from happening. Since using Postcode Anywhere, we haven’t had a single wrong address or delivery failure from over 2,000 orders.

“Postcode Anywhere immediately gives you credibility. It shows your company is reliable. It speaks to the customer and tells them you’ve got a sophisticated system in place to help them and protect their delivery – just as sophisticated as your security company or bank.

“Our businesses is six or seven times bigger than it was this time last year, and Postcode Anywhere has played an important part in that. As the company has grown, the admin surrounding incorrect addresses would have been unmanageable without address management to eliminate them. Having these things in place has allowed our company to mature.”

For more information on Woof! Wood Fuel’s range of kiln dried and eco-fuel logs, Blazers fuel logs, wood pellets, charcoal, kindling and natural firelighters, please visit their website at www.woofwoodfuel.co.uk. To find out more about Postcode Anywhere’s address auto-fill for e-commerce websites, visit www.postcodeanywhere.com.

ENDS

Media contact for Postcode Anywhere

Jim Williams – PR Executive, Postcode Anywhere
Email Jim
+44 (0) 1905 888 570
Press Centre
Press Pack download

Notes to Editors:

Recent awards and recognition for Postcode Anywhere

Children’s charities increase donations with AA’s smarter route planner, Route Optimiser

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester and Edinburgh, UK – 28 June 2010 – National children’s charities including the NSPCC and Child Line are doubling productivity with Route Optimiser – an advanced route planning technology which helps field agents visit more donors, faster.

Route Optimiser is a piece of commercial routing software approved by the AA and engineered by Worcester-based IT company Postcode Anywhere. Accessible through any internet browser - such as Internet Explorer - it takes a list of inputted postcodes and finds the quickest way it can to visit them all in one trip.

Michael Willis, a 41-year-old account manager from Edinburgh, said: “Working for Service Innovation Group, I manage large supermarket donors for children’s charities such as the NSPCC and Child Line. Spending ten hours a day on site visits, time is a precious commodity for me. I used to spend two hours every night ordering addresses for my journey the next day - pins in one hand and map in the other. It started to get too much.

“Route Optimiser has saved me so much time I can’t believe it. Rather than two hours, in two minutes I have my route. Productivity has doubled too: before using Route Optimiser, I’d be lucky to fit in six site visits a day. Now I make 12-13. Head office want to know what coffee I’m drinking!

“When you represent charities, that difference means a lot. There is only one word for Route Optimiser: ‘fantastic.’”
Postcode Anywhere’s managing director Guy Mucklow said: “We’re starting to see Route Optimiser change the standard operational practices of organisations across the country. Route planning doesn’t have to be a time-consuming chore anymore, because Route Optimiser can do it in minutes.

“More significantly, Route Optimiser plans better routes – so we’re seeing in some cases companies literally doubling their productivity overnight. This technology provides more than a competitive edge.

“Because of our new web-based model, smaller firms or charities which have been locked out of route optimisation technology for years due to prohibitively high prices can now log on though their internet browser and try it for free online.”

Businesses of any size can sign up for a free trial of Route Optimiser at www.routeoptimiser.com. A one-off optimisation of up to 100 waypoints is available for £15, with other pay-as-you-go pricing options available for longer routes.

ENDS

Media contact for Postcode Anywhere

Jim Williams – PR Executive, Postcode Anywhere
Email Jim
+44 (0) 1905 888 570
Press Centre
Press Pack download

Notes to Editors:

Recent awards and recognition for Postcode Anywhere

PCA Launches Fast Cloud Development Service; iPad Prize for Smartest Programmer

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 24 June 2010 – Data specialist Postcode Anywhere will make its award-winning web services platform freely available for the first time next week, allowing developers to upload their own data to the cloud and build custom services around it. The company is offering an Apple iPad for whoever develops the most impressive service.

The “MyServices” platform, launching at London’s Cloud Computing World Forum on 29 June, will allow developers to rapidly build APIs and web services around any data either hosted on their own machine, or uploaded to the cloud. It will be offered to testers for free while the service is in beta.

Postcode Anywhere’s sales and marketing director Phil Rothwell said: “Data is at the top of the agenda today for both business and government, and MyServices finally let developers and CIOs make the most of it, either as publicly-available services or to staff within the firewall.

“We’re issuing a challenge to web developers to see what they can do with the service, either with their own data or with new, freely available resources such as Ordnance Survey’s OpenData.

“The potential for the private and public sectors is huge. UK local authorities, for instance, are now obligated to publish all expenditures over £500 by 2011. Using My Services this can be achieved in a few minutes.

“Moreover, authorities can rapidly build any kind of services they want around the data, in a fraction of the normal development time. The data can be brought to life by adding in information from other wards, or by mashing it up with mapping visualisations.

“Web middleware isn’t a new thing, but it’s typically either clumsy or costly – and if you want something a bit more exciting, you often have to hand over control to the consultants.

“With MyServices, organisations have finally been handed the keys to their own datasets. Of course they can host their own data securely in the cloud and build web-based APIs around it. But what My Services offer are ways to rapidly build myriad applications too – without having to pay someone else to turn that API into a service, and without the normal headaches associated with data management.

“Services like Amazon’s EC2 have led the way with this kind of service. What MyServices offer now is a more flexible, robust system - with rapid development tools included - so you can not only store your data in the cloud, but truly take charge of it with reliable, value-added development.”

Organisations such as the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) and Severn Trent Water have been testing the My Services platform to build custom services both on internal systems and public-facing websites. Severn Trent’s projects include a proposed service which allows customers to check current and planned works in their area or throughout the Severn Trent Water region.

Fraser Pithie, Senior Operations Manager for Severn Trent, said: “Working with the Postcode Anywhere team is truly something different. Using some of the latest tools available, they work hard and quickly to deliver simple solutions to frustrating and seemingly complex needs.”

Cloud computing expert and CTO of Bick Group David Linthicum said: “What's unique about this is the ease of creating the feed. While you can certainly build APIs around your data via weeks of custom development, or leverage one of the existing players that provide API enablement services, the cost of development and management headaches make this path impossible for traditional enterprises.

“The core notion of this technology is to provide enterprises with an easy and guided path for creating, testing, and managing a data feed that takes hours, not days. While your mileage may vary, I suspect the return on investment for this type of project is almost immediate.

“As cloud computing continues its quick rise, the need to externalize core business data in a cost effective and easy way will continue to increase. Approaches such as MyFeeds make this externalisation process finally within reach of the traditional enterprise.”

More information on MyServices, as well as full terms and conditions for the iPad offer, can be found at www.postcodeanywhere.com/myservices after the show launch. The Cloud Computing World Forum runs from 29 June to 1 July 2010; Postcode Anywhere will be exhibiting at stand 9.

ENDS

Media contact for Postcode Anywhere

Jim Williams – PR Executive, Postcode Anywhere
Email Jim
+44 (0) 1905 888 570
Press Centre
Press Pack download

Notes to Editors:

Recent awards and recognition for Postcode Anywhere

Postcode Anywhere Launches Dun and Bradstreet Business Data for Sales Teams

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 15 May 2010 – Software and services company Postcode Anywhere launches a new service for sales teams this week – a prospect list-builder and customer retention tool powered by Dun and Bradstreet business data.

The service, aimed at sales teams and managers across the UK and worldwide, provides access to Dun and Bradstreet business data on a per-click basis. By hosting the data on an online platform it is now available for companies of all sizes and resources, to use in any application.

Postcode Anywhere’s Sales and Marketing Director Phil Rothwell said: “According to research, 88% of high-growth companies succeed by selling more of the same to existing customers and others just like them.

“Using D&B data you can profile existing customers and use this information for generating prospect lists. Segmentation can be based on company size, structure, financial data and SIC code.

“Thanks to Postcode Anywhere’s pay-as-you-go pricing model, sales managers can finally find new customers at home and abroad, develop new business from existing customers, and improve the performance and return of direct marketing activities.

“If you aren’t making use of tools like this, your sales team simply isn’t performing as well as it could be.”

Sales teams from companies of any size can access Dun & Bradstreet’s market-leading data and generate leads on a per-look-up basis, with credit packs available from £50 and look-ups from as little as four pence per click. For more information, please visit www.postcodeanywhere.com.

ENDS

Media contact for Postcode Anywhere

Jim Williams – PR Executive, Postcode Anywhere
Email Jim
+44 (0) 1905 888 570
Press Centre
Press Pack download

Notes to Editors:

Recent awards and recognition for Postcode Anywhere

Postcode Anywhere Achieves International Standard for Data Security

Mon, 07 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 07 June 2010 – Business efficiency software supplier Postcode Anywhere announced this week it is among the first UK companies – and the only web services specialist – to be accredited with the ISO 27001 international standard for data security.

The standard outlines best practice for an Information Security Management System (ISMS), and sets rigorous requirements for data protection, particularly critical in areas of business such as the finance, health, public and IT sectors.

Postcode Anywhere, whose suite of products includes UK and international address auto-fill, payment validation, route planning and mapping services, joins a select group of ISO 27001 accredited organisations including Microsoft, BT, Sun Microsystems and the United Nations.

Along with Salesforce.com, it is one of very few ‘cloud computing’ or software-as-a-service providers to meet the standard.

Postcode Anywhere’s managing director Guy Mucklow said: “Unprotected systems are vulnerable to a wide variety of threats, so it is essential when choosing a service provider that users are mindful of the security levels they’re offered.

“Postcode Anywhere hosts over one billion separate data records from suppliers including Ordnance Survey, Dun & Bradstreet, Royal Mail, USPS and local government authorities, so we take our information security very seriously.

“Without systems to safeguard against security breaches, users take a significant risk when they involve a third party with their data, particularly when that data includes sensitive information or payment details.

“Ultimately, using a data specialist with a trusted independent accreditation such as ISO 27001 is the only way to be sure your solutions provider has a system in which you can place genuine confidence.

“With more and more businesses, and now government, looking at migrating infrastructure into the cloud to reduce costs and increase efficiency, data security is increasingly high on the agenda – and our accreditation demonstrates that we meet this need.

“Moreover, one of the advantages of our cloud-based model is that even small businesses, using low volumes of Postcode Anywhere’s services, can enjoy the same security standards as our larger clients.

“Along with other innovations – such as supplying daily Royal Mail PAF® updates as standard for our UK address products – Postcode Anywhere continues to lead and push the data services industry for superior security, higher-quality data, and increased customer satisfaction.”

Postcode Anywhere was approved to meet ISO/IEC 27001:2005 by Lloyd’s Register Quality Assurance Limited, an organisation accredited by The United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS). The ISMS accreditation is applicable to the “provision of verification, recording and maintenance of accurate data using hosted or local web services.”

To find out more about Postcode Anywhere’s range of services, please visit www.postcodeanywhere.com.

ENDS

Media contact for Postcode Anywhere

Jim Williams – PR Executive, Postcode Anywhere
Email Jim
+44 (0) 1905 888 570
Press centre
Press Pack download
Full-size image of web manager Jonathan Fisher and sales executive Charlotte Lewis at: www.postcodeanywhere.co.uk/assets/Stock/jonathan-fisher-charlotte-lewis.jpg

Notes to Editors:

About Postcode Anywhere

Postcode Anywhere has been providing address services for ten years and is the fastest-growing reseller of Royal Mail’s Postcode Address File (PAF). A multi-award-winning organisation, it has also appeared in successive Deloitte fast-growth European technology company lists. Postcode Anywhere supplies software and services which improve the day-to-day operations of over 8,000 organisations worldwide. Best known as a provider of address auto-fill and verification software, the company offers a range of data-driven services, including route planning and customer profiling.

For more information about Postcode Anywhere, please visit www.postcodeanywhere.com.

Recent Awards and Recognition for Postcode Anywhere

Red Herring Top 100 Europe - 2010
Best Small IT Supplier of the Year - UK IT Industry Awards (finalist) – 2009
One of Europe's fastest-growing IT firms - Deloitte Technology Fast 500 EMEA 2008/9 & 2009/10
Dell Small Business Excellence Award (UK finalist) – 2009
Small-Medium Sized Business of the Year (regional finalist) - National Business Awards 2009
Orange Best Use of Technology (Midlands) - 2008 National Business Awards
Growth Business of the Year - Chamber Awards 2008
Small Business of the Year - Chamber Awards 2008
Customer Service Team of the Year (finalist) - National Customer Services Awards 2008

Postcode Anywhere “Best Practice” Supplier for E-Commerce

Tue, 01 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 01 June 2010 – Address data specialist Postcode Anywhere is now a listed supplier for the Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG) online retail delivery initiative, which accredits e-retailers who offer online shoppers superior purchase and delivery processes.

Postcode Anywhere provides a range of e-commerce website optimisation technologies, including UK and international address auto-fill, “where’s my nearest?” store finder functionality, and interactive maps.

The Internet Delivery Is Safe (IDIS) Gold Standard results from the latest industry research, including the recent IMRG and Postcode Anywhere report, which calculated the annual cost to UK e-commerce of failed postal delivery at up to £1 billion. Of this, £146m was attributed to poorly addressed packages.

Postcode Anywhere’s managing director Guy Mucklow said: “With the cost of failed delivery putting an estimated seventy pence onto the average price of every single parcel dispatched in the UK, it’s encouraging news that IMRG is encouraging e-tailers to adopt best practice when it comes to online delivery.

“This situation is easy to correct, with the address auto-fill technology available from companies such as Postcode Anywhere not only affordable but also offering an attractive return on investment.

“We are delighted to be included as a Gold Standard solutions provider and will to continue to work with the e-commerce industry to try to make online shopping easier and more efficient.”

IMRG’s Delivery Director Andrew Starkey said: “Shoppers have come to expect choice, convenience and first-time delivery when ordering online.

“Retailers gaining accreditation to the Gold Standard will be able to display the Gold icon to highlight the quality of their delivery offer and, for the first time, make their delivery service a key element of their marketing and retail proposition.

“Supported by innovative solutions provided by our Gold listed suppliers such as Postcode Anywhere, all retailers will be able to achieve the Gold Standard to remove cost and drive up customer satisfaction.”

More information on the IDIS Gold Standard can be found at www.idisgold.org. To find out more about Postcode Anywhere’s e-commerce solutions, or to sign up for a free trial, please visit www.postcodeanywhere.com.

ENDS

Media contact for Postcode Anywhere

Jim Williams – PR Executive, Postcode Anywhere
Email Jim
+44 (0) 1905 888 570
Press centre
Press Pack download

Notes to Editors:

About Postcode Anywhere

For more information about Postcode Anywhere, please visit www.postcodeanywhere.com. A summary of the original Postcode Anywhere and IMRG report can be found at www.postcodeanywhere.com/imrg-survey.

Recent Awards and Recognition for Postcode Anywhere

Best Small IT Supplier of the Year - UK IT Industry Awards (finalist) – 2009
One of Europe's fastest-growing IT firms - Deloitte Technology Fast 500 EMEA 2008/9 & 2009/10
Dell Small Business Excellence Award (UK finalist) – 2009
Small-Medium Sized Business of the Year (regional finalist) - National Business Awards 2009
Orange Best Use of Technology (Midlands) - 2008 National Business Awards
Growth Business of the Year - Chamber Awards 2008
Small Business of the Year - Chamber Awards 2008
Customer Service Team of the Year (finalist) - National Customer Services Awards 2008

About IMRG

IMRG is a membership community for the e-retail industry, whose vision is to maximise the commercial potential of online shopping. With more than 18 years experience in a rapidly-changing e-commerce market IMRG helps members maximise business opportunities and stay up-to-date with developments in the e-retail marketplace.

About the IDIS Gold Standard

The IDIS Gold Standard represents the optimum level of delivery service available to the online shopper, consistent with the products sold by an e-retailer and the individual and specific needs of the shopper for each and every delivery.

The IDIS Gold Standard was born out of the realisation that successful first-time delivery can present problems for up to one in five home shopping customers, and that even retailers who respect the existing IDIS Charter may not always be able to satisfy the needs of such people.

The Gold Standard raises the bar, giving e-retailers who have tackled the delivery problem head-on the chance to convey to customers that they offer a delivery capability above and beyond the norm, in line best practice for the industry. IDIS Gold also sets a new target level for delivery excellence for the e-retail market as a whole.

Postcode Anywhere MD Guy Mucklow Joins Board of Intellect

Tue, 25 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 25 May 2010 – Guy Mucklow, entrepreneur and managing director of business efficiency software company Postcode Anywhere, joins the board of Intellect today.

Intellect is the UK’s leading technology sector trade association, of which Postcode Anywhere is a member. Postcode Anywhere provides data-driven software and services including UK and international address auto-fill, commercial route planning, and customer profiling.

Mr Mucklow, who joins other senior executives from organisations such as Siemens, Fujitsu, Oracle, BT, Intel and BAE Systems, said: “It’s a great honour to be joining the ranks of such strong influencers in the UK technology industry.

“Having spent the last ten years working extremely hard to establish a successful internet-based business, I have a firsthand experience of the challenges that SMEs face in getting their businesses off the ground.

“Intellect has provided invaluable support to my company in this process, both through its comprehensive learning and training programmes, as well as through the invaluable networking opportunities we get from meeting other IT members.

“It also provides us with a voice in the technology industry and represents our interests, both to businesses and government, to help us influence the future direction of the UK IT sector.

“The technology industry is a huge force in the UK’s economy, and I look forward to representing the interests of small-medium-sized businesses (SMEs) in my new role on the board.

“Although the conglomerates and multinationals may steal much of the limelight, small businesses are the engine of the economy. According to the 2008 Glover report they constitute 99.9% of businesses in the UK, making up 59% of private sector workforce and 52% of business turnover.

“Technology drives innovation and growth, and in my view it’s the small-medium-sized companies that can generally be found at the cutting edge.”

Intellect’s Board meet six times a year to debate the challenges and opportunities for the technology industry. John Higgins, Director General of Intellect, said: “I am delighted to welcome Guy to Intellect’s Board of Directors.

“His experience of building a successful and cutting-edge technology business based in the UK will be a valuable addition to our board. I look forward to working with him as Intellect campaigns to make the UK one of the best places in the world for the technology businesses to operate.”

Intellect provides a collective voice for its members and drives connections with government and business to create a commercial environment in which they can thrive. It represents over 750 companies, ranging from SMEs to multinationals.

To find out more about Intellect, please visit www.intellectuk.org. More information about Postcode Anywhere can be found at www.postcodeanywhere.co.uk.

ENDS

Media contact for Postcode Anywhere
Jim Williams – PR Executive, Postcode Anywhere
Contact Jim
+44 (0) 1905 888 570

Press centre
Press Pack download

Notes to Editors

About Intellect

Intellect works with and for members to:
Develop the UK’s capability to support a strong and growing technology sector, and improve their business performance by:

Providing insights into markets and supply chains and constructively influencing their development
Engaging with government and regulators to create the most favourable environment for growth and employment
Maintaining the industry’s reputation and championing its strategic importance
Sharing and promoting best practice

Intellect’s mission is to use our expertise and knowledge to provide the highest quality of service and intelligence to our members in the technology industry, helping them to make the right business decisions to deliver commercial solutions and achieve growth and profitability.

We are constantly striving to provide work environments where our members can meet their potential and thrive in an atmosphere of excellence through working closely with the government, regulatory bodies, policy makers and businesses. More information on intellect can be found at the Intellect website.

Young techies clean up at enterprise contest

Thu, 20 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 20 May 2010 - Hallow-based technology company Postcode Anywhere is always keen to support both enterprise and technological innovation.

At the Young Enterprise competition finals recently, students from Worcester Sixth Form College were euphoric when they received the Postcode Anywhere Best Use of IT awards at both the South Worcestershire and Herefordshire and Worcestershire presentation evenings.

The eight budding entrepreneurs and their company the Pod came home with no less than two awards from Postcode Anywhere. They also received the QinetiQ prize for Innovation and the Young Enterprise 2010 Spring Fair ‘Best Company Stand’ shield.

The group’s product is a weekly podcast devised to communicate topical issues to young people across Worcestershire. The programme content features everything from exam tips, film and music reviews with a perspective from students hailing from outside the UK. It has also provided an ideal medium to promote new music and up and coming local bands to sports activities and the coolest new places to visit in the county.

Young Enterprise’s Company Programme was devised to encourage and nurture the skills for enterprise and employability. Postcode Anywhere has supported the charity for four years by providing bursaries and awards with an emphasis on developing technology.

Postcode Anywhere’s, managing director, Guy Mucklow believes that both enterprise education and technology will need to become more important as part of the school curriculum if the UK is to maintain its edge in a competitive global market place. He says: “Podcasts are an important element of social networking and, if used correctly, provide and exceptionally cost effective communications channel for both small and larger businesses alike.

“It is very encouraging to see Young Enterprise students becoming more alert to these opportunities and great, that in the case of Pod, it is designed to promote local talent.”

The students and their Young Enterprise Link Teacher, Mrs Sheila Smith were all delighted to receive an invitation to visit Postcode Anywhere’s offices where they were treated to a tour of the site followed by lunch.

ENDS

Editors’ Notes

Press Release issued by Angela Davis, Postcode Anywhere (Europe) Limited, Enigma House, Elgar Business Centre, Moseley Road, Hallow, Worcester, Elgar Business Centre, Moseley Road, Worcester, Worcestershire, WR2 6NJ d/d 01905 888560 Mobile: 0780 731 7155 e-mail: angela.davis@postcodeanywhere.co.uk

About Postcode Anywhere

Postcode Anywhere supplies software and services which improve the day-to-day operations of over 8,000 organisations worldwide. Best known as a provider of address auto-fill and verification software, the company offers a range of data-driven services, including route planning and customer profiling.

For more information about Postcode Anywhere, please visit www.postcodeanywhere.com.

Notable Awards and Recognition for Postcode Anywhere

Named in 2009 Deloitte Technology Fast 500
Dell Small Business Excellence Award (UK finalist) – 2009
Small-Medium Sized Business of the Year (regional finalist) - National Business Awards 2009
Named in 2008 Deloitte Technology Fast 500
Orange Best Use of Technology (Midlands) - 2008 National Business Awards
Best Use of Technology in an Emerging Business - European Retail Solutions Awards 2007
ITC BET Award 2007
Orange Best Use of Technology in Business - National Business Awards 2006
Best Growth Through Use of Technology - Sage Daily Telegraph Business Awards 2005
Most IT-Enabled Small Business (less than 500 employees) - Computing Awards 2005
Best Address Management Software - Smart Awards 2004

Postcode Anywhere’s AA Route Optimiser shortlisted for 2010 National eWell-Being Awards

Tue, 18 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 18 May 2010 – Worcester-based IT company Postcode Anywhere announced today that its AA-backed Route Optimiser software - which significantly reduces commercial journey times, fuel costs and carbon emissions - has been shortlisted for the 2010 National eWell-Being Awards.

The awards, supported by UNISON and PC Pro magazine, celebrate the social and environmental benefits of innovation in IT. Postcode Anywhere joins 41 finalists vying for an honour.

Route Optimiser’s lead developer Richard Geary said: “Route Optimiser is making a strong impression in the market as the first viable way for small companies to take advantage of route optimisation technology, through low cost and easy access.

“The service reorders any postcodes entered to find the fastest route it can that visits them all. It’s useful for any organisation with travelling salesmen, couriers, or indeed any use of a route with multiple delivery points.

“Using route optimisation typically results in a 20-40% shorter journey – with a similar reduction in carbon emissions.

“Because the service is internet-based, users can access it through a web browser such as Internet Explorer and be up and running in minutes – while the low-cost pay-as-you-go pricing makes the technology viable for all.

“Being shortlisted for this award is a huge honour for us, and we’re up against some really innovative services in our category.”

UK Centre for Economic and Environmental Development (CEED) CEO Chris Murray said: “We would like to congratulate all the organisations who have made it to the final of the 2010 National eWell-Being Awards.

“Despite the difficulties of the current economic climate we were extremely impressed by the scale and quality of the work that is still being done throughout the country and the real benefit this work is bringing to people’s lives.”

Route Optimiser has been nominated for the Small-Medium-Sized Enterprise Innovation award, with the winners’ announcement and ceremony taking place on 16 June at UNISON offices in Leeds.

For more information about Route Optimiser, or to take a free trial, visit www.routeoptimiser.com. A one-off optimisation of up to 100 waypoints is available for £15, with other pay-as-you-go pricing options available for longer routes.

ENDS

Media contact

Jim Williams – PR Executive, Postcode Anywhere
Email Jim
+44 (0) 1905 888 570

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Notes to Editors:

About Postcode Anywhere

About The National eWell-Being Awards

The National eWell-Being Awards, launched in 2002, is the UK's only national awards programme that identifies and promotes the environmental and social benefits of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). The Awards are now entering their 8th successive year, and since their launch have earned a high level of awareness and recognition, generating substantial media interest and coverage and support from a range of public, private and voluntary sector organisations.

Over 120 entries were received this year, which the judges reduced to 41 finalists. Shortlisted entrants will be invited to attend the awards event on June 16th at the offices of UNISON Yorkshire and Humberside in Leeds, attended by senior representatives from the public, private and voluntary sectors, where the winning and commended initiatives will be announced.

Since their launch in 2002 by SustainIT, an initiative of the UK Centre for Economic and Environmental Development (UK CEED), the Awards have attracted over 900 high-quality entries from a diverse range of organisations in the public, private and voluntary sectors.

UK CEED

The UK Centre for Economic and Environmental Development (UK CEED) is an entrepreneurial charity founded in 1984 with the aim of supporting environmental enterprise. This is the harnessing of business innovation and economic prosperity to protect and enhance the environment. The Centre undertakes research, develops policy, implements technology demonstration projects and carries out a wide range of engagement and education activities with its partners in the UK and across Europe.

SustainIT

SustainIT is an initiative of the UK Centre for Economic and Environmental Development (UK CEED), a leading sustainable development charity. The initiative aims to maximise the environmental and social benefits of ICT through innovative research, project demonstration, and the identification and dissemination of best practice. SustainIT works in a variety of areas, including:

Digital and social inclusion
Public service transformation
Climate change and environmental efficiency
Better ways of working enabled by ICT (e.g. e-work)
On-line consultation and appraisal tools
Policy engagement

To find out more about the eWell-Being Awards visit: www.sustainitawards.co.uk or call SustainIT on 01733 311644.

Postcode Anywhere a Finalist for the 2010 Red Herring 100 Europe Award

Mon, 17 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 17 May 2010 – Postcode Anywhere announced today it has been selected as a finalist for Red Herring's Europe 100 award, a prestigious list honouring the year’s most promising private technology ventures from the world European business region.

The Red Herring editorial team selected the most innovative companies from a pool of hundreds from across Europe. The nominees are evaluated on both quantitative and qualitative criteria, such as financial performance, technology innovation, quality of management, execution of strategy, and integration into their respective industries.

This unique assessment of potential is complemented by a review of the actual track record and standing of a company, which allows Red Herring to see past the “buzz” and make the list an invaluable instrument for discovering and advocating the greatest business opportunities in the industry.

"This year was especially difficult," said Alex Vieux, publisher and CEO of Red Herring. "Despite the global economic situation, there were many great companies producing really innovative and amazing products that we had a difficult time narrowing the pool and selecting the finalists. Postcode Anywhere shows great promise, and therefore deserves to be among the Finalists. Now we’re faced with the difficult task of selecting the Top 100 winners of Red Herring Europe award. We know that this year’s crop will grow into some amazing companies that are sure to go far."

Finalists for the 2010 edition of the Red Herring 100 Europe award are selected based upon their technological innovation, management strength, market size, investor record, customer acquisition, and financial health. During the several months leading up to the announcement, hundreds of companies in the telecommunications, security, Web 2.0, software, hardware, biotech, and clean tech industries sent in their submissions to qualify for the award.

The Finalists are invited to present their winning strategies at the Red Herring Europe Conference in Paris, May 25-27, 2010. The Top 100 winners will be announced at a special awards ceremony on May 27 at the event.

ENDS

Media contact for Postcode Anywhere

Jim Williams – PR Executive, Postcode Anywhere
Email
+44 (0) 1905 888 570

Press Centre at: http://www.postcodeanywhere.com/press-centre/
Press Pack download: http://www.postcodeanywhere.com/assets/PDFs/press-pack-2010.pdf

Notes to Editors:

About Postcode Anywhere

For more information about Postcode Anywhere, please visit www.postcodeanywhere.com.

Read about recent awards and recognition for Postcode Anywhere.

Optimise your route for £15: Postcode Anywhere unveils new improved AA Route Optimiser

Tue, 11 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 11 May 2010 – Now anyone running a delivery round with multiple drop-offs can afford to make their route shorter and more efficient, thanks to a new £15 single-fee service from the AA and Postcode Anywhere.

The service, operated through www.routeoptimiser.com, can cut journey distances by over 20%, with similar savings in time, fuel, carbon emissions and vehicle wear-and-tear.

Traditionally costing in excess of £50,000 for a single vehicle licence, technology provider Postcode Anywhere uses the “software-as-a-service” model to make the product accessible via internet browser. Due to spread development costs, a one-off optimisation can now be performed for only £15.

The new service has been used by a wide variety of customers – from politicians electioneering across their constituencies, to estate agencies and delivery companies. Freelance leafleteer Marvin Baker said: “Route Optimiser was a great help when doing my annual theatre leaflet delivery run. I managed to deliver 30% more leaflets than I did last year.”

Postcode Anywhere MD Guy Mucklow said: “This new feature is particularly useful for infrequent users and those who simply want to run a check to find out if their regular delivery route is as good as it can be. The impact of this service shouldn’t be underestimated.

“Imagine a scenario where a man-with-a-van is making the same inefficient route, day after day. It could be a leafleteer, or maybe a milkman or sandwich vendor. Think of all the time wasted, not to mention the unnecessary fuel costs and carbon emissions building up over the course of years if the route isn’t optimised.

“Now he can make that regular route typically 20% shorter for a single £15 flat fee.”

Technical architect Richard Geary said: “One of the greatest things about software-as-a-service is its flexibility. As soon as we make improvements like this, we roll them out to our online platform and they’re available immediately to our customers – without affecting service levels or availability.”

The complete list of improvements to RouteOptimiser includes:

One-off £15 optimisations possible with no annual vehicle licence necessary
Delivery prioritisation and timeslots now available for basic licence holders
Vehicle capacities and delivery sizes to eliminate vehicle overloading

The £15 one-off charge applies for a single vehicle visiting up to 100 waypoints along a route. Route Optimisation performed on a more regular basis is available from 1p per waypoint. To find out more, visit the RouteOptimiser website at www.routeoptimiser.com.

Route Optimiser quotes:

“Using Route Optimiser has made my job a lot easier. Plotting the route and loading the van accordingly has allowed me to visit 70 deliveries a day in five hours, whereas before it would have taken seven-and-a-half to eight hours.” Carl Street, DHL Driver

“Using Route Optimiser has meant we have saved an immense amount of time... what used to take two to three hours a day now only takes two to three minutes. Postcode Anywhere provides a totally integrated solution which does exactly I was looking for.” Harj Baines, Harvey Baines (Estate Agency)

“We advise Route Optimiser of our delivery addresses and they sort out a route and email it back. It saves us many man hours trying to work out a route with maps, and I estimate that on a recent run of delivering 150 orders throughout the country, Route Optimiser saved us £3000. It enabled us to efficiently undertake the operation in our own vehicle rather than using our courier.” Warren Thomas, Indoor Fireworks Ltd

“Using Route Optimiser to plan my routes saves me hours trying to figure out how to get around the country. I know it’s an old cliché, but in my view it’s worth every penny.” Peter Hurwood, JCDecaux (Billboard advertising)

“It used to take me 20 minutes to plan my journey. Now all I have to do is put the postcodes in and within 30 seconds I have the optimised route – it saves so much time!” Adrian Mitchell, Fastway couriers

“The biggest saving for us is in not having to sit for four hours in an evening planning the next day’s visits – what took four hours now takes two minutes.” Kirk Day, Templar Bespoke Solutions (Debt recovery)

“Route Optimiser is a superb service. It saves me around £10 a week, it’s very easy to use and I will definitely recommend it to others.” Roberta Nicholls, Nicholls Hire (Portable toilet company)

“Route Optimiser is exactly what we were looking for. One of our drivers told me it saved him two hours a day. I would think Route Optimiser will save us £2,000 a year on diesel per vehicle alone.” Chris Edwardson, Just Doors UK (DIY and double glazing)

ENDS

Media contact for Postcode Anywhere
Jim Williams – PR Executive, Postcode Anywhere
Contact Jim
+44 (0) 1905 888 570

Press centre at: http://www.postcodeanywhere.co.uk/press-centre

Getting the chemistry right for new recruits

Tue, 11 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 11 May 2010 - Hallow-based technology company Postcode Anywhere is pleased to announce three new key appointments with plans to recruit even more personnel.

Joining Postcode Anywhere’s rapidly expanding marketing department, is Lauren Rees who takes up her position as a marketing executive with responsibilities for event management, trade show and exhibition support.

Lauren, 28 studied for a marketing degree at Birmingham City University. She has gained extensive experience in an integrated service marketing department through her previous position working for Bovis Homes at their South West regional office in Cheltenham.

Also joining Postcode Anywhere in a technical support role is Jason Ford, who lives in Mathon. The twenty-three year old is a former John Masefield High School and Sixth Form Centre student and studied for a degree in Chemistry and Management at the University of Bath.

Jason is delighted to be joining the award-winning company that has a growing customer-base of over 8,000, encompassing small-medium enterprises, public sector, charity and multinational organisations. He says: “I was so pleased to be given the opportunity of working for, what I consider to be, one of the most dynamic and fastest growing companies in the technology sector. Although I graduated in Chemistry, IT is a passion and hobby for me, so you can imagine what a thrill it is to be surrounded by cutting-edge technology.”

Supporting the growing demands of Postcode Anywhere’s technical development team is Andy Bennett who has been appointed as a software developer and algorithm specialist.

Andy studied at the University of Birmingham, Edgbaston where he attained both a Masters and PhD in Chemistry, and was impressed by the friendly atmosphere and warm welcome he received at his interview. He says: “The opportunities available and exposure to cutting-edge programming technologies and hardware (and of course BBQ days in the summer and the Wii room) confirmed to me that developing my career with Postcode Anywhere was the right choice.”

The company is currently recruiting for a Trainee Web Services Account Executive to support its rapidly expanding sales department. .http://www.postcodeanywhere.co.uk/about-us/recruitment/

ENDS

Editors’ Notes

About Postcode Anywhere

For more information about Postcode Anywhere, please visit www.postcodeanywhere.com.

Notable Awards and Recognition for Postcode Anywhere

Named in 2009 Deloitte Technology Fast 500
Dell Small Business Excellence Award (UK finalist) – 2009
Small-Medium Sized Business of the Year (regional finalist) - National Business Awards 2009
Named in 2008 Deloitte Technology Fast 500
Orange Best Use of Technology (Midlands) - 2008 National Business Awards
Best Use of Technology in an Emerging Business - European Retail Solutions Awards 2007
ITC BET Award 2007
Orange Best Use of Technology in Business - National Business Awards 2006
Best Growth Through Use of Technology - Sage Daily Telegraph Business Awards 2005
Most IT-Enabled Small Business (less than 500 employees) - Computing Awards 2005
Best Address Management Software - Smart Awards 2004

UK Address Specialist Postcode Anywhere Joins Forces with Talend for Real-Time Address Cleansing

Tue, 04 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT

UK - 4 May 2010 - Open source data solutions company Talend has signed a partnership with UK address specialists Postcode Anywhere to provide pay-as-you-go address cleansing services and free data health-checks for its suite of data manipulation software.

Talend, the leading provider of open source data management software, turns complex and time-consuming data integration and data quality tasks into simple drag-and-drop processes that take minutes.

Its data cleansing tool, Talend Data Quality, eases the task of verifying and scrubbing records including addresses, phone numbers, spellings, synonyms and abbreviations.

As part of Talend Data Quality, Postcode Anywhere’s service enables users to:

Rate any address record’s cleanliness and reliability for free against a 1001-point confidence rank
Replace unreliable records with corresponding valid UK postal addresses from Royal Mail’s Postcode Address File (PAF®)
Augment address data with coordinate NHS and local government data from Royal Mail’s Postzon® database

Talend’s UK Sales Director Martin James said: “Data quality involves more than just inputting correct details. It also means getting rid of pre-existing poor, corrupted, or duplicate data – which can spread quickly across a system.

“The consequences of poor address data are increasingly well-known. The latest IMRG (Interactive Media in Retail Group) research puts the cost to e-commerce of poor UK address data at £146m a year, through the cost of redirection, lost customers and replacement goods.

“By using Talend Data Quality with Postcode Anywhere’s address cleansing service, users can combine custom reformatting processes with state-of-the-art scrubbing to ensure their business isn’t caught out by dirty data.”

Postcode Anywhere’s Sales and Marketing Director Phil Rothwell said: “In line with Talend’s ethos of freeing data processes and putting them into the hands of people who need them, Postcode Anywhere’s pay-as-you-go pricing finally makes address cleansing accessible to all.

“Evaluating the quality of an address is effectively free, while up to 5,000 records can be cleansed for just £50. This is especially remarkable when you consider that Postcode Anywhere’s data is the best in the business, with daily updates direct from Royal Mail piped into its system.”

The new Postcode Anywhere service for Talend is supplied in the form of Talend components, directly usable in the market leading open source data quality solution, and which are free to download on the Talend Exchange at http://www.talendforge.org/exchange/.

ENDS

Media contact for Talend

Kirsten Grimmer – Account Manager, Spreckley Partners
grimmer@spreckley.co.uk
+44 (0)20 7388 9988

Media contact for Postcode Anywhere

Jim Williams – PR Executive, Postcode Anywhere
Email Jim
+44 (0) 1905 888 570

Notes to Editors:

About Talend

Talend is the recognized market leader in open source data integration. More than 1,000 paying customers around the globe, including Yahoo!, Virgin Mobile, Sony and Swiss Life, use the Talend Integration Suite of products and services to optimize the costs of data integration, ETL and data quality. With more than seven million lifetime downloads and 1.5 million core product downloads, Talend’s solutions are the most widely used and deployed data integration solutions in the world. The company has major offices in North America, Europe and Asia, and a global network of technical and services partners. For more information, please visit http://www.talend.com.

About Postcode Anywhere

Graze.com Ruminates On Two Years Of Success With Postcode Anywhere

Tue, 27 Apr 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 27 April 2010 – “Healthy eating by post” company Graze.com celebrated another 50,000 successful food deliveries on its two-year anniversary this week - and attributes much of its success to an online mail-order model made possible by companies like Royal Mail and Postcode Anywhere.

Edd Read, co-founder of Graze.com, said: “We had this great idea for a business, based on the fact no one seemed to be able to get decent food at work – why not use the online mail-order model for food packages?

“With co-founder Graham Bosher’s experience of online subscription services through setting up LoveFilm, establishing a business that sent good, healthy and tasty food through the post seemed to be the obvious answer.

“In retrospect, what helped make it possible for us were factors like Royal Mail’s progressive postal system changes, which allowed us to send slim packages for a reasonable price.

“On top of that, one of our biggest business needs has been to maximise the number of people that convert through our online sign-up process. For that, we see using Postcode Anywhere’s address auto-fill as a bit of a no-brainer.

“Not only do you increase your conversion rate because the form’s quicker - but, due to the accuracy of the address data, every package is more likely to meet its recipient too.

“This is especially important seeing as we have a policy of sending replacement packages out if anything loses its way. “Better addresses have helped us grow. We set up the business exactly two years ago; now we’re in a warehouse near Heathrow and our staff is over 15-strong and growing fast.”

Postcode Anywhere’s Sales and Marketing Director Phil Rothwell said: “Intelligent and efficient use of address data is essential for this new breed of business start-up. They might use the power of the internet to set up shop and grow at unprecedented rates, but will often rely on the good old postal service to deliver physical goods to the consumer.

“The obvious benefit to an online business is that faster form-filling leads to increased conversion rates and more sales. But more than that, according to the latest research, a mistyped address could cost your business from £4.25 for each late delivery to an average £91.34 if it results in the loss of a customer.

“Many entrepreneurs plan on mailing out goods or marketing materials at some point in the sales cycle. If they wish to emulate the success and fast growth of companies like LoveFilm and Graze, they should bear these costs in mind.”

More information on Postcode Anywhere’s products and services can be found here: www.postcodeanywhere.com. If you have yet to try a Graze box for yourself, you can get your first one for half price at the Graze.com website: www.graze.com

ENDS

Media contact for Graze

To arrange a chat with one of the founders or find out more, just email claire@storypr.co.uk

Media contact for Postcode Anywhere

Jim Williams – PR Executive, Postcode Anywhere
Email
+44 (0) 1905 888 570
Image at: http://www.postcodeanywhere.com/assets/Stock/box-ongrass.jpg
Press Centre at: http://www.postcodeanywhere.com/press-centre/
Press Pack download: http://www.postcodeanywhere.com/assets/PDFs/press-pack-2010.pdf

Notes to Editors:

About Graze (www.graze.com)

Graze.com was started by seven friends who all share a passion for food. When we found we couldn't eat the food we loved at work, we asked around and realised there were loads of people just like us. So in April 2007 we decided to stop playing off-peak foodies and go full time. We took the plunge, gave up our jobs and built the graze kitchen.

We now spend all our time sourcing the foods we love and finding even better ways to get them to you. In our first month we sent out over 8,000 boxes and six months later we were already feeding 20,000 people every week.

About Postcode Anywhere

For more information about Postcode Anywhere, please visit www.postcodeanywhere.com.

Read about recent awards and recognition for Postcode Anywhere.

Postcode Anywhere Launches Route Optimiser for OS MasterMap

Mon, 26 Apr 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 26 April 2010 – Worcester-based IT firm Postcode Anywhere unveils a new range of web-based services today, designed to help Local Government Authorities make the most of the Integrated Transport Network (ITN) Layer data, part of Ordnance Survey’s MasterMap.

Local Government Authorities (LGAs) can access ITN data, which can be used to help plan strategic services, under the Mapping Services Agreement. Usually this entails the need for specialist Geographic Information System software, but Postcode Anywhere is now offering a unique, web-based, solution.

Postcode Anywhere’s new route optimisation web service cuts journey times and fuel cost across complex journeys (with multiple stop-offs) by over 20%.

Postcode Anywhere MD Guy Mucklow said: “Postcode Anywhere’s service allows LGAs to tap into the data they’re entitled to use under the Mapping Services Agreement in a far easier way and cost effective way.

“By opening up the data for use through a web service, Postcode Anywhere gives local government the tools it needs to drive service delivery to the next level.”

Chief Architect Richard Geary added: “Possible applications of the Postcode Anywhere services range from planning transportation routes to calculating or redefining catchment areas such as school bus pass entitlement.

“By making use of this kind of technology, government can realise even greater value from these datasets. We still read in the press about school bus controversies and so-called “postcode lotteries” - often a result of inaccurate reporting tools.

“The days of taking a wooden trundle-wheel out of the back of the closet to settle boundary disputes should be in the distant past, but they’re still here with us to this day.

“Now Postcode Anywhere has built in reliable, useful ways to access and manipulate the data, LGAs can deal with these kinds of issues by clicking a mouse or typing out a few postcodes.”

Tom Satterthwaite, Ordnance Survey Product Manager for transport, comments: “Many Local Authorities are already reaping the benefits of using ITN data, but what this service offers is the opportunity to access it via the web – something which has never been possible before. I think many local councils will be very excited by the prospect.”

The new web services include:

Distance – Works out the distance between two locations, either “as-the-crow-flies” or by road, using the quickest or shortest route. ‘Polylines’ and ‘TOIDs’ which allow the route to be placed on a map are optional
Nearest – Retrieves an ordered list of nearest locations, within a given radius of a grid reference or postcode
Single Vehicle Optimise – Re-sequences a set of locations to obtain the shortest route that visits them all

Postcode Anywhere’s new route planning service can be found at: http://www.postcodeanywhere.co.uk/route-planner-services/api.aspx. Users wishing to trial the services will need a data licence as given under the Pan Government or Mapping Services Agreement.

ENDS

Media contact for Postcode Anywhere
Jim Williams – PR Executive, Postcode Anywhere
Email
+44 (0) 1905 888 570

Notes to Editors:

About Postcode Anywhere

“Daily Royal Mail Updates A Must For Enterprise,” Says Postcode Anywhere

Thu, 22 Apr 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 22 April 2010 – Address auto-fill and validation users who want to keep an eye on data quality could be in for a shock if they don’t frequently update their dataset, says UK address management company Postcode Anywhere - with as many as one in every 24 records becoming corrupt over the course of a year.

Postcode Anywhere MD Guy Mucklow said: “Although Royal Mail monitors and updates its Postcode Address File (PAF®) address data every day, users aren’t always on the receiving end of the benefits.

“If users don’t choose the right address management supplier, they might not end up with records as accurate as they might assume.

“With almost 5,000 address changes taking place every 24 hours to the 28 million records in PAF®, the database is not a static file and is constantly changing to reflect new builds, updates and deletions.

“According to our studies of how the PAF® data has changed so far in 2010, we could be on track for between 1.2m and 1.6m changes to the file in total this year – a record high. After just one week, if you’ve not updated your data you could find around one in every 900 records are incorrect.

“This is a significant number if you’re counting on valid address data as a vital part of your business operations.

“By making use of the daily updates Royal Mail makes to the data, common problems such as not being billed by a utility because they don’t have the address of your newly-built property could become a thing of the past.

“As the pioneer of the web service approach to UK addressing, which completely removes the need for customers to manage and install updates, Postcode Anywhere is proud to be the first address management supplier to offer daily updates as standard, and show customers another way to enjoy the freshest data.”

Because all updates are automatic, Postcode Anywhere users have the advantage of the freshest data without any user intervention. The updates are piped direct from Royal Mail every morning at 2am; updates are at no extra charge and come as standard with the Postcode Anywhere service.

For more information, visit www.postcodeanywhere.co.uk/uk-address-finder.

ENDS

Media contact:
Jim Williams – PR, Postcode Anywhere
Tel : + 44 (0)1905 888 562
Contact

Notes to Editors:

About Postcode Anywhere

Postcode Anywhere has been providing address services since 2001 and is the fastest-growing reseller of Royal Mail’s Postcode Address File (PAF). A multi-award-winning organisation, it has also appeared in successive Deloitte fast-growth European technology company lists.

Recent Awards and Recognition for Postcode Anywhere

Best Small IT Supplier of the Year - UK IT Industry Awards (finalist) – 2009
One of Europe's fastest-growing IT firms - Deloitte Technology Fast 500 EMEA 2008/9 & 2009/10
Dell Small Business Excellence Award (UK finalist) – 2009
Small-Medium Sized Business of the Year (regional finalist) - National Business Awards 2009
Orange Best Use of Technology (Midlands) - 2008 National Business Awards
Growth Business of the Year - Chamber Awards 2008
Small Business of the Year - Chamber Awards 2008
Customer Service Team of the Year (finalist) - National Customer Services Awards 2008

Missing Postcodes Cost Online Businesses £146m A Year

Mon, 12 Apr 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 12 April 2010 – Incorrect delivery addresses cost online UK businesses over £146m every year, according to a study released by Worcester-based IT firm Postcode Anywhere this week.

The Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG) and Postcode Anywhere report found that every year 5.8 million items ordered online failed to deliver first time because of an error in the address.

Postcode Anywhere MD Guy Mucklow said: “It’s shocking that in this day and age we still can’t seem to fill out our addresses accurately. But the problem doesn’t lie with the customer: more often it’s a result of poorly-put-together online forms and ill-conceived data capture.

“E-commerce businesses are shooting themselves in the foot if they take shortcuts with their address forms. According to our results, every delivery that fails due to an incorrect address costs an average £25.50 to put right, through refunds, redeliveries and wasted man-hours.

“Averaged out, current levels of delivery inefficiency add 70p to the cost of every single parcel dispatched in the UK, and 75p for every delivery.

“Clearly, there is a strong argument for e-tailers to take more care in how they collect customer information. It even affects customer service levels: as consumers, we’ve probably all experienced the frustrating scenario of being forced to select a US state from a drop-down box, or abbreviate words because they won’t fit in the fields.

“While we’ve learnt missed delivery levels are high, it also seems likely that even more customers will never go through with the order in the first place if they meet with a particularly troublesome form.

“Solutions do exist which make the purchase process quicker for customers, and ensure addresses are captured accurately and easily. In fact, by installing technology that auto-fills an address from a UK postcode - such as that available from Postcode Anywhere - e-commerce vendors can sidestep these problems altogether.

“Postcodes collected from online forms cannot be underestimated – they’re even useful for delivery drivers’ sat-navs.

“We asked our customers, and two thirds of them said they’d noticed a reduction in the number of items lost in the post after implementing address auto-fill technology. Over 70% agreed it reduced shopping cart abandonments.

“But as this study shows, although many of the big names in e-commerce are wise to the benefits of address auto-fill and validation, a significant percentage of vendors can’t see what they’re missing.”

The research made findings representing more than 12 million online consumers, 3.5 million active online shoppers and almost 800 million home deliveries.

To see Postcode Anywhere’s award-winning range of UK and international address auto-fill and validation software, visit www.postcodeanywhere.co.uk.

ENDS

Media contact

Jim Williams – PR Executive, Postcode Anywhere
jim@postcodeanywhere.co.uk
+44 (0) 1905 888 570

Press Centre at: http://www.postcodeanywhere.co.uk/press-centre/
Press Pack download: http://www.postcodeanywhere.co.uk/assets/PDFs/press-pack-2010.pdf

Notes to Editors:

About Postcode Anywhere

Read more about about Postcode Anywhere or see our awards.

Postcode Anywhere Launches New Website

Tue, 06 Apr 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 1 April 2010 – Business efficiency web service company Postcode Anywhere unveils its new website today, after more than 12 months of preparation.

The new website has an improved user interface and an increased focus on the company’s entire suite of award-winning services, including international address validation and route optimisation.

Managing director Guy Mucklow said: “As a company leading the charge rather than merely following the constant march of technological progress, the new website reflects just how much the web has changed in the last few years.

“It’s about more than adding a new blog section and Twitter feed. The entire purchase process, from landing on the page, to finding out more about the product; the sales process; right through to the actual usage of our services has been brought in line with the latest best practice.

“We are exceptionally proud of our market-leading service platform, and we just hope our new website meets with similar approval from our customers.”

Marketing manager Rob Willis said: “To support the company’s phenomenal growth over the last few years, it’s essential to have the marketing infrastructure in place to support our expanding portfolio of products, which are all aimed at improving the internal processes of businesses.

“With new data licensing coming into effect, including Royal Mail’s Postcode Address File (PAF®) changes, the way we use these services is different - so now’s the perfect time to launch.”

To see the new website for yourself, visit www.postcodeanywhere.co.uk.

ENDS

Media contact:
Jim Williams – PR, Postcode Anywhere
Contact

Postcode Anywhere First To Offer Daily Updates With Address Look-Up Services

Thu, 01 Apr 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 1 April 2010 – Address auto-fill firm Postcode Anywhere announced today it will be the first address management company to bundle automatic, daily data updates into key services as standard.

The changes affect those using Postcode Anywhere services which access Royal Mail’s Postcode Address File, or PAF®, and are effective from today.

Managing director Guy Mucklow said: “With almost 5,000 address changes taking place every 24 hours to the 28 million records in Royal Mail’s Postcode Address File database, daily updates will significantly improve data accuracy.

“With daily updates, common problems such as not being billed by a utility because they don’t have the address of your newly-built property will become a thing of the past.

“As the pioneer of the web service approach to UK addressing, which completely removes the need for customers to manage and install updates, we felt we should also be the first to show customers another way to enjoy the freshest data.”

The updates will be piped direct from Royal Mail every morning at 2am. There is no extra charge for the increase in update frequency, which will affect Postcode Anywhere’s UK address auto-fill and validation, as well as their UK address cleansing service. Because all updates are automatic, Postcode Anywhere users have the advantage of the freshest data without any user intervention.

For more information, visit www.postcodeanywhere.co.uk/uk-address-finder.

ENDS

Media contact:
Jim Williams – PR, Postcode Anywhere
Contact

Postcode Anywhere Embraces Changes to Royal Mail Licensing

Thu, 01 Apr 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 1 April 2010 – Royal Mail data licensing changes which come into effect today could have large repercussions for businesses, say Worcester address management company Postcode Anywhere.

Royal Mail is changing the way in which it licenses the UK address database, PAF® (Postcode Address File), for internal use. The address data is used in services such as Postcode Anywhere’s UK address auto-fill and validation.

Marketing manager Rob Willis said: “Postcode Anywhere is a major advocate of the pay-per-click approach to licensing: we firmly believe it’s not only more equitable, but also creates a simpler framework through which other useful datasets can be added. “As one of the world’s largest web service providers of pay-per-click data we’ve lobbied hard to persuade Royal Mail to allow unrestricted per-click use of UK address data in internal applications.”

Postcode Anywhere MD Guy Mucklow said: “We’re seeing some impressive changes from Royal Mail. The best way to make PAF more widely available as a data source to users generally is to make it more cost-effective. The introduction of a transactional licence for light business users is a massive plus here.

“We’ve always been the strongest advocate of transactional licensing for internal business use, on the basis that most users don’t actually use PAF on a regular basis – say between two and five look-ups a day. With a transactional licence they can share that out to a number of users, so it’s far more cost-effective.

“For us, it all ties in with our culture of maintaining the data centrally and letting users pick and mix from a whole range of web services. For businesses with multiple instances of the same application on their desktops, the hosted route is a much more cost-effective and efficient way of delivering the data.

“With a single instance of a hosted service, integrated into multiple applications on the desktop, why bother going elsewhere?” For more information on Postcode Anywhere’s range of PAF-powered services, visit the website at www.postcodeanywhere.co.uk/products.

ENDS

Media contact:
Jim Williams – PR, Postcode Anywhere
Contact

The AA and Postcode Anywhere’s Route Optimiser Shows Significant Fuel and Time Savings

Thu, 01 Apr 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, UK – 1 April 2010 – Route Optimiser customers from across the UK are finding fuel costs and route planning times cut drastically by the new online service, launched by the AA and Postcode Anywhere and powered by TeleAtlas logistics.

Route Optimiser is an online service that uses sophisticated algorithms to help businesses plan optimal routes for single vehicles or whole fleets. The service, which launched last August, is now picking up loyal support from all sectors.

DHL driver Carl Street said: “Using Route Optimiser has made my job a lot easier. Plotting the route and loading the van accordingly has allowed me to visit 70 deliveries a day in five hours - before it would have taken up to eight.”

Kirk Day, from bailiff firm Templar Bespoke Solutions, said: “The biggest saving for us is in not having to sit for four hours in an evening planning the next day’s visits – what took four hours now takes two minutes.”

Three of Mr Day’s employees, who earn £30 an hour, use the service, suggesting a potential saving of over £350 per day. Postcode Anywhere’s senior developer Richard Geary, the algorithms specialist behind Route Optimiser, said: “The beauty about Route Optimiser is that it’s suitable for use in any industry where there’s commercial road travel.

“One of our customers is a portable toilet company. We have canvassing estate agents using the service alongside theatre companies delivering leaflets, and the diversity of use doesn’t stop there. Wherever there is road travel, and especially deliveries, there’s a saving to be made.

“Route Optimiser takes a route you might have spent hours planning, and shaves hours off the journey in seconds.”

Route Optimiser enables drivers to:

More accurately estimate arrival times
Consume up to 20% less fuel
Reduce carbon emissions by up to 30%

For more information on Route Optimiser, and to try the service for free, visit www.routeoptimiser.com.

ENDS

Media contact:
Jim Williams – PR, Postcode Anywhere
Contact

PCA hitting much more than musical high notes

Wed, 24 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Leukaemia CARE’s corporate manager Lauren Billington was delighted to receive the proceeds of the funds raised from the Last Choir Standing corporate event organised and hosted by local technology company Postcode Anywhere recently.

It was a double celebration for the blood cancer charity as the choir they entered, an alliance of Leukaemia CARE staff and Barclays Commercial Banking team, also won the award for the ‘Best Corporate Choir’ for their lively rendition of a Grease medley.

As part of the 40th anniversary celebrations in 2009 Leukaemia CARE had been encouraging local businesses to stage their own fundraising events and Postcode Anywhere came up with the idea of a Last Choir Standing Corporate Event. Staff at the charity were so inspired by the idea of the corporate sing-off that they insisted on joining in the fun.

The Last Choir Standing Corporate Event held back in October 2009, raised nearly a staggering £10,000, and the singing competition proved to be so successful and popular that Postcode Anywhere has decided to host it again this year at the Forum, Malvern Theatres.

Postcode Anywhere’s, IT director Jamie Turner was proud to be able to hand over the proceeds which were a culmination of lots of hard work from all of the organisations that participated in the choral extravaganza.

Jamie said: “It was a humbling and slightly comedic experience to watch solicitors, accountants and bankers obviously out of their comfort zones entertaining a huge audience to raise money for such a good cause. I didn’t sing at last year’s event, as the prospect was terrifying, so I feel every single person gave a truly valiant performance.

“There was a little bit of friendly rivalry amongst the ranks of choirs participating, which I think may intensify this year. I’ve heard rumours that Leukaemia CARE and Barclays Corporate Banking team have already had several rehearsals.”

Organisations from South Worcestershire including Ballard Dale Syree Watson, Harrison Clark, hotelshopUK, the NHS Mental Health Partnership, Rabjohns and Thursfields also supported the lively fund raiser which was loosely based on the TV series The Last Choir Standing.

Postcode Anywhere and Leukaemia CARE are urging companies in Malvern to join in the fun. All businesses, including retailers and organisations in both the public and private sector are most welcome to participate in the event. Choirs can comprise two to 50 members; singing anything from Rap to Rachmaninoff. Interested? Please contact Angela Davis on 01905 888560 or e-mail: angela.davis@postcodeanywhere.co.uk.

Ends/

Editors’ Notes

Let’s get physical

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Staff at Hallow-based technology company, Postcode Anywhere donned their sports gear to take part in a physical group challenge to raise money for Sport Relief.

Everyone in the company asked friends and family to sponsor them for a twenty minute session on the exercise bike located in the company’s gym. To add a bit more fun to the ‘bikeathon’ the team donned sports attire depicting their own sporting heroes.

The ‘bikeathon’ challenge involved Postcode Anywhere’s team of 25 taking it in turn to ride the exercise bike consecutively in twenty minute sessions. The cumulative mileage of everyone participating added up to an impressive 150 miles.

The event raised over £600 for Sport Relief which means that all the funds will be spent by Comic Relief to help poor and vulnerable people here in the UK and overseas.

The £600 raised will really make a difference to people lives. For example it will pay for one hundred and twenty mosquito nets to protect African children from contracting life threatening malaria, or feed 300 children orphaned by AIDS for one day.

Included in the sporting hero line-up were golf, polo, rugby, tennis players as well as a Winter Olympic skier.

Postcode Anywhere’s managing director, Guy Mucklow said: “I’m a great fan of team sports because, to be successful, everyone has to play their part. Our charity bike ride gave all of our staff an opportunity to feel that they made a valuable contribution to the business team as well to an exceptionally worthwhile charity.”

Ends

Editors’ Notes

Postcode Anywhere

Postcode Anywhere is a UK-based company best known for its market-leading “what’s your postcode” technology, used to quickly complete your address when buying online. It was established by Guy Mucklow and Jamie Turner in 2000. By seeing the internet’s value as a much more efficient information delivery medium than traditional methods - which typically involved burning data onto CDs and shipping out to the customer - Postcode Anywhere has turned the market upside down. The company’s range of services, all delivered via the internet, are specifically designed to boost business efficiency. They include route optimisation, international addressing, data cleansing, business information services and lifestyle profiling. Postcode Anywhere has a diverse customer base encompassing small-medium enterprises, public sector organisations, charities and multinationals, including the Learning & Skills Council, The Identity & Passport Service, National Savings & Investments, HMRC, Oxfam, The British Heart Foundation, Rolls Royce, Xerox, Disney, Heinz, Siemens and Citibank.

Notable Awards

Orange Best Use of Technology (Midlands) - 2008 National Business Awards
Herefordshire and Worcestershire Chamber of Commerce Small Business and Growth awards
Best Use of Technology in an Emerging Business - European Retail Solutions Awards 2007
ITC BET Award 2007
Orange Best Use of Technology in Business - National Business Awards 2006
Best Growth Through Use of Technology - Sage Daily Telegraph Business Awards 2005
Most IT-Enabled Small Business (less than 500 employees) - Computing Awards 2005
Best Address Management Software - Smart Awards 2004

What The Postcode Can Do for Your Charity’s Marketing

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT

The postcode was originally intended to make it easier for people to send and receive mail. Now, it’s become a powerful tool for organisations large and small to make their operations more efficient. Guy Mucklow, MD of business efficiency software firm Postcode Anywhere, tells us how useful they can be. Guy is also a member of Royal Mail’s Postcode Address File (PAF) Advisory Board. Charities, like any organisation with limited resources, can be caught in a double-bind when it comes to marketing. Is it better to spend intelligently, and trust you’ll recoup the cash? Or to batten the hatches and cut down on marketing altogether? It can be a difficult choice when you’re under intense scrutiny from all sides.

Being aware of all the wonderful things the humble postcode can do for you could give your charity a real boost – without breaking the bank.

Postcodes tell you about people

The postcode is a great way to sort and categorise your donor base. It’s relatively easy to map out the areas where your biggest donations are coming from, and modify your marketing activity accordingly. This demographic profiling could be as simple as putting different coloured pins on a map.

But postcodes do more than that: they can tell you how much a person earns and even which newspaper they read. Once you figure out where the money’s coming from you can start to run adverts in their favourite paper!

It’s a common expression in marketing that “50% of your advertising dollars is wasted money – but no one knows which 50%.” Rather than taking a scatter-gun approach to your base of benefactors – sending blanket mail-outs with bland, universal messages – why not sort them into classified groups, and target your communications accordingly?

You can rely on your own knowledge of certain postcode areas, but more sophisticated services are easy to implement. Just take a list of postcodes and run them through a profiling service; it’s relatively inexpensive. It will turn a list of random contacts into sorted, segmented leads.

Postcodes can be used on your website too

Your website can be the first point of contact for people who want to find out more about your charity. Similarly, your website contact form might be the only way they reach out to you. It doesn’t cost anything to organise the form so that it’s short and easy to use. Cut out unnecessary details and you’ll get more sign-ups. How is the postcode relevant here? Firstly, make sure you capture it in the first place. It could come in handy later, if you decide to profile them – or you could even classify them as they sign up and start as you mean to go on by sending them an appropriately targeted email.

You can also make your address forms easier to fill by installing address look-up, if you don’t already have it. This technology has been around for years. Because everyone knows their own postcode, it’s probably the easiest way to find their geographic coordinates – and then direct them to their nearest store or even charity event. This kind of service has been used to impressive effect with charities running special events such as “bring and buy” sales – though it may well require some development work from whoever maintains your website.

How the PAF licensing affects charities

Recent changes to Royal Mail’s PAF licensing have made it easier for organisations to use postcodes internally as well as on their website. New per-click transactional licensing plans for light users inside the company firewall have made it much more viable for light users to use postcode data in a range of internal applications.

Why isn’t PAF free?

There has been a lot of discussion recently about access to data. The “free our data” campaign aims to persuade the government to make Royal Mail’s data available to people at no cost, with the aim of encouraging more widespread use. While this seems like a fairly noble idea, the situation is not as simple as may appear. Most importantly, the data is constantly changing – with over 100,000 changes made to the PAF data every month – and there is an associated cost. If you want to work with sophisticated postcode services, you don’t have to go with the most expensive supplier – but it makes sense to use someone that is licensed with Royal Mail.

Postcode facts

Britain first started using postcodes in Norwich in 1959
A letter with a postcode can be sorted 20 times faster than one without
The Royal Mail postcode database contains more than 29 million addresses
Santa’s UK postcode is SAN TA1. In Canada it’s H0 H0 H0
Each postcode covers an average of 15 addresses

An abridged version of this article is published in the Spring issue of Charities Management Magazine.

International address management - the guilty secret that blights business

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT

The internet has created an international marketplace. The trouble is that international custom comes from foreign countries: they do things differently there. With over 130 different address formats in the world, 10,000 languages and innumerable accents and character sets, it’s easy to see why poor international data is the guilty secret that continues to blight big business.

Guy Mucklow takes a look at the world of international address management.

The problem is two-fold: foreign customers used to seeing their address details shown in one specific format are often unwilling or even unable to fill out their details, and aren’t completing the purchase process. For those customers that do complete their details, the lack of address validation often results in goods being shipped to the wrong address - or not delivered at all. Both result in major headaches for the company involved, with failed deliveries often costing more than the item being shipped.

Overseas address databases can be more temperamental than in the UK

The Data Warehousing Institute (TDWI) reported back in 2002 that “poor quality data costs United States businesses a staggering $611 billion a year in postage, printing and staff overhead,” and the situation doesn’t seem to have got any better. Studies consistently find well over 95% of businesses agreeing that inaccurate data costs them money.

But are businesses really stuck in a trap where inescapable rules of “best fit” are compromising the precision of their data? Or are people just too inured to human error and the mismanagement of international addresses and happy to accept second best ?

It’s understandable why so many data professionals simply throw their hands up and adopt a simple one-size-fits-all approach. After all, most are in marketing or design and are probably neither interested nor aware of the complexities of international addressing. The problem is that this approach is not one that will encourage international customers to buy from your site.

Examples of this approach are legion. US websites often force non-American customers to select from a drop down list of US states, for example. German sites show the street number before the street name, confusing customers where the conventional format is the reverse.

Specialists are sourcing diverse address datasets

Fortunately international addressing experts are approaching the problem pragmatically, so what was once a headache, particularly for e-commerce, can now be simple to put right.

Considerable advances have been made by vendors in the last few years when it comes to international address data. Addressing specialists have sourced diverse global address datasets, with the prime focus on validation – correcting and standardising address data after it’s been entered onto a database. At Postcode Anywhere we’ve teamed up with international address expert Graham Rhind to create our GRC (Graham Rhind Cleansing) tools for just this purpose.

However, for us, the real focus has always been on getting addresses right at the point of data entry. There’s not much point in shutting the door after the horse has bolted!

“Don’t assume everyone living in France speaks French”

But more than that, because international address data is so diverse, the focus simply has to be on usability. As Graham Rhind says, “don’t assume everyone living in France speaks French.” And don’t assume that 35-character box will be large enough for every user to enter their name.

You simply have to offer the right options to guide address entry. If this doesn’t happen, even if users do manage to input something, the resulting data will probably never stand up to a batch cleanse.

More than cleaning up a dataset

It’s about more than cleaning up a dataset. Each indigenous culture has its own set guidelines on how things should and shouldn’t be done. Address entry is no different. We’ve always treated UK data with care at Postcode Anywhere. With that in mind, we’ve actually gone one step further with Postcode Anywhere International, to develop the only offering out there that allows international users to auto-fill addresses as they type. Appropriate fields and language options are populated according to the user’s IP address, and the focus is on making the process of address entry painless and intuitive.

There will doubtless be further advances in the field of international address data management – in so many respects, it’s still in its infancy. But the most important thing to bear in mind is that those customers are out there. They need to be understood and catered for, not treated as mere data to be cleaned – and never as an annoyance.

An abridged version of this article appeared in February's issue of Database Marketing.

Funds boost for blood cancer charity

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

For immediate release
Date: 25/02/10

The Last Choir Standing Corporate Event held at the end of last year, raised a staggering £10,000. Organisations from South Worcestershire including Ballard Dale Syree Watson, Harrison Clark, hotelshopUK, the NHS Mental Health Partnership, Rabjohns and Thursfields also supported the lively fund raiser which was loosely based on the TV series The Last Choir Standing.

Due to popular demand the event is being repeated this year at the Forum, Malvern Theatres on 15 November 2010. If your company would like to join in the fun, please contact Angela Davis on: 01905 888560 or e-mail:angela.davis@postcodeanywhere.co.uk.

Ends/

Editors’ Notes

Postcode Anywhere

By seeing the internet’s value as a much more efficient information delivery medium than traditional methods - which typically involved burning data onto CDs and shipping out to the customer - Postcode Anywhere has turned the market upside down.

The company’s range of services, all delivered via the internet, are specifically designed to boost business efficiency. They include route optimisation, international addressing, data cleansing, business information services and lifestyle profiling.

Postcode Anywhere has a diverse customer base encompassing small-medium enterprises, public sector organisations, charities and multinationals, including the Learning & Skills Council, The Identity & Passport Service, National Savings & Investments, HMRC, Oxfam, The British Heart Foundation, Rolls Royce, Xerox, Disney, Heinz, Siemens and Citibank.

Notable Awards

Orange Best Use of Technology (Midlands) - 2008 National Business Awards

Herefordshire and Worcestershire Chamber of Commerce Small Business and Growth awards

Best Use of Technology in an Emerging Business - European Retail Solutions Awards 2007

ITC BET Award 2007

Orange Best Use of Technology in Business - National Business Awards 2006

Best Growth Through Use of Technology - Sage Daily Telegraph Business Awards 2005

Most IT-Enabled Small Business (less than 500 employees) - Computing Awards 2005

Best Address Management Software - Smart Awards 2004

For further information about Postcode Anywhere, please visit www.postcodeanywhere.co.uk

Leukaemia CARE

Leukaemia CARE is a national charity that provides care and support to patients, their families and carers during the difficult journey through the diagnosis and treatment of leukaemia, lymphoma or an allied blood disorder. Leukaemia CARE provides the only dedicated free 24 hour phone CARE Line for patients and their families that enables people to discuss their feelings, concerns and emotions at such a difficult period of time. In addition, Leukaemia CARE is heavily involved with patient advocacy and provides information, holidays, discretionary financial support and has a network of Volunteers throughout the United Kingdom to ensure that there is local support wherever a patient and their family live.

For further information, please contact:
Gemma Harris gemma.harris@leukaemiacare.org.uk 01905 755977 ext 227

Last Choir Standing 2010 corporate charity fund raiser at Malvern Theatres

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

For immediate release
Date:16/02/10

Due to the overwhelming popularity of last year’s inaugural event, the Postcode Anywhere’s Last Choir Standing corporate fund raiser is being rolled out again and will take place at the Forum, Malvern Theatres on the 11 November 2010.

Last year’s event proved to be a great success as Postcode Anywhere and the other seven corporate choirs raised nearly £10,000 for the blood cancer charity, Leukaemia CARE. Organisations from Worcestershire including Barclays Corporate Banking team, law firm Thursfields and hotelshopUK joined the lively fund raiser which was loosely based on the TV series The Last Choir Standing.

Other businesses participating in the event and performing included Ballard Dale Syree Watson, Harrison Clark, the NHS Mental Health Partnership and Rabjohns.

Postcode Anywhere’s managing director, Guy Mucklow was overwhelmed by the standard of the singing and the way that local organisations immersed themselves totally into the fun element of last year’s event to raise money for such a good cause.

He said: “Last year’s event was a pilot really, so we didn’t really know how successful it would be in terms of patronage and the quality of the choirs’ performances. However we were amazed with the way so many local businesses came together to support both us and Leukaemia CARE. We were literally inundated with requests from all those involved to do it again this year.

“The standard of singing was fantastic last year but judging by comments I have received many organisations are raising their game and becoming a little more competitive. I think it is important that we provide a venue with a large stage and good acoustics. It will enhance the performance of those choirs participating and give them a boost of confidence. This is why we chose to hold it at Malvern Theatres.”

Postcode Anywhere and Leukaemia CARE are urging companies in Malvern to join in the fun. All businesses, including retailers and organisations in both the public and private sector are most welcome to participate in the event. Choirs can comprise two to two hundred members; singing anything from Rap to Rachmaninoff. Interested? Please contact Angela Davis on 01905 888560 or e-mail: angela.davis@postcodeanywhere.co.uk.

Editors’ Notes

Postcode Anywhere

Notable Awards

Orange Best Use of Technology (Midlands) - 2008 National Business Awards

Herefordshire and Worcestershire Chamber of Commerce Small Business and Growth awards

Best Use of Technology in an Emerging Business - European Retail Solutions Awards 2007

ITC BET Award 2007

Orange Best Use of Technology in Business - National Business Awards 2006

Best Growth Through Use of Technology - Sage Daily Telegraph Business Awards 2005

Most IT-Enabled Small Business (less than 500 employees) - Computing Awards 2005

Best Address Management Software - Smart Awards 2004

For further information about Postcode Anywhere, please visit www.postcodeanywhere.co.uk

Leukaemia CARE

For further information, please contact:
Gemma Harris gemma.harris@leukaemiacare.org.uk 01905 755977 ext 227

Comment: New PAF Licensing

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

We see a lot of opportunity with the PAF licensing changes as businesses reposition themselves to take advantage of better pricing deals or, in certain areas, to mitigate against higher PAF costs.

The main areas of opportunity, we believe, are:

Where there are multiple PAF products from different value-added resellers (VARs) being used by the same user. In the past, if there were three separate copies of PAF on a desktop, then only one PAF royalty would need to be paid. Under the new arrangement users will have to pay three royalties, unless they are using a hosted service where the data can be integrated into multiple applications for just a single user license fee. Businesses who want to make use of PAF will soon realise there’s little sense in buying value-added services from several vendors if they can get the same services from just one, for a fraction of the cost.
Mid-market users (around 300+ users) that were previously on a single server licence will potentially see a rise in price with the introduction of banding. For these users, the opportunity will be to provide a more flexible solution which enables the customer to take advantage of either the new internal credit packs, individual licences, or a combination of the two, which would suit a business where there are heavy and light PAF users.

We’re seeing some impressive changes from Royal Mail. The best way to make PAF more widely available as a data source to users generally is to make it more cost-effective. The introduction of a transactional licence for light business users is a massive plus here. We’ve always been the strongest advocate of transactional licensing for internal business use, on the basis that most users don’t actually use PAF on a regular basis – say between two and five look-ups a day, which wouldn’t justify a £150 licence.

With a transactional PAF licence they can share that out to a number of users, so it’s far more cost-effective. For us, it all ties in with our culture of maintaining the data centrally and letting users pick and mix from a whole range of web services. For businesses with multiple instances of the same application on their desktops, the hosted route is a much more cost-effective and efficient way of delivering the data. With a single instance of a hosted service, integrated into multiple applications on the desktop, why bother going elsewhere?

Guy Mucklow, Managing Director, Postcode Anywhere

An abridged verison of this comment appeared in February's Information World Review

Postcode Anywhere Announced Official NLPG Reseller

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT

WORCESTER, UK - 11 Jan 2010 – Address data specialist Postcode Anywhere was unveiled today as one of the first official resellers of the National Land and Property Gazetteer (NLPG), a government-backed address database maintained by Local Authorities.

With gazetteer application NLPG Anywhere, Postcode Anywhere joins only two other firms as a reseller of the geographic data.

By assigning unique reference numbers to buildings and points of interest across the UK, NLPG data can be used in a variety of public sector functions, from refuse collection to emergency service logistics.

Postcode Anywhere’s managing director Guy Mucklow said: “It’s an exciting time to be granted official reseller status, and everyone at Postcode Anywhere is very much looking forward to extending our services for the public sector.

“Because the software service is hosted over the internet or local intranet, NLPG Anywhere allows Local Government Authorities (LGAs) and other bodies to quickly and seamlessly integrate NLPG data with any of their existing software applications.”

Jamie Turner, Postcode Anywhere’s IT director, said: “By providing a powerful yet intuitive interface for the gazetteer data, it really can be utilised across entire organisations - not only improving access to, but also the accuracy of this vital asset.

“The possibilities for this kind of use of the NLPG data are virtually limitless.” Nick Turner, Business Development Manager a

t Intelligent Addressing, which manages the NLPG data, said: “The NLPG is a mature and valuable data asset that can be exploited by a wide variety of organisations. It has particular resonance for those serving domestic customers in their homes but will also be of interest to utilities that have to service many buildings and locations without a postal address.

“Postcode Anywhere, as one of the first NLPG resellers, has the expertise, software and confidence in working with the NLPG to enable them to leverage new licensing and partnership opportunities in the wider commercial market.”

NLPG Anywhere combines the gazetteer data with mapping visualisations, simple installation and the ability to access the dataset through any software application. There are no set-up or development costs. For more information on NLPG Anywhere please visit the website at www.nlpganywhere.co.uk or call Postcode Anywhere on 0800 047 0493.

ENDS

Media contact:
Jim Williams – PR, Postcode Anywhere
Contact

Interview opportunities
Guy Mucklow – Managing director, Postcode Anywhere
Contact

Intelligent Addressing
Gayle Gander - Head of Marketing
Tel: +44 (0)207 747 3500
Email: ggander@intelligent-addressing.co.uk
Web: www.intelligent-addressing.co.uk

Notes to Editors:

About Postcode Anywhere

Postcode Anywhere supplies software and services which improve the day-to-day operation of over 7,000 organisations worldwide. A value-added data reseller, it is best known as a provider of address auto-fill and verification software.

Postcode Anywhere’s NLPG Anywhere application, at www.nlpganywhere.co.uk, allows Local Government Authorities and other bodies to maximise the use of their address data. As a centrally managed web service, NLPG Anywhere integrates quickly and easily with any application, combining the gazetteer data with an intuitive interface and mapping visualisations for efficient, joined-up service delivery.

For more information about Postcode Anywhere, please visit www.postcodeanywhere.com.

Notable Awards and Recognition for Postcode Anywhere

Dell Small Business Excellence Award (UK finalist) - 2009

Small-Medium Sized Business of the Year (regional finalist) - National Business Awards 2009

Named in the 2008 Deloitte Technology Fast 500

Orange Best Use of Technology (Midlands) - 2008 National Business Awards

Best Use of Technology in an Emerging Business - European Retail Solutions Awards 2007

ITC BET Award 2007

Orange Best Use of Technology in Business - National Business Awards 2006

Best Growth Through Use of Technology - Sage Daily Telegraph Business Awards 2005

Most IT-Enabled Small Business (less than 500 employees) - Computing Awards 2005

Best Address Management Software - Smart Awards 2004

About Intelligent Addressing and the NLPG

The National Land and Property Gazetteer (NLPG) is a joint venture between all local authorities in England and Wales, the Local Government Information House and part of IDeA and Intelligent Addressing Limited.

Intelligent Addressing is contracted under the terms of the Mapping Services Agreement for Local Government to manage the NLPG hub. IA is required to receive, validate and integrate Local Land and Property Gazetteer (LLPG) data from the Local Authorities into the national hub and then distribute the data as part of the NLPG. Under a separate public private partnership agreement, IA has been contracted to act as the sole agent for the commercialisation of the NLPG, and promote its use in market sectors beyond the scope of the MSA (Mapping Services Agreement).

The feast at St. Stephen’s

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 00:00:00 GMT

For immediate release
Date:23/12/09

Residents at St. Stephen’s Residential Home received an unexpected Christmas treat when they were visited by staff from Hallow-based technology company, Postcode Anywhere.

The Postcode Anywhere choristers entertained their audience by their repertoire of traditional Christmas songs. The residents were even more delighted when they received gifts of chocolates, mince pies and sherry.

Last year, staff at Postcode Anywhere sang at the annual Age Concern Christmas lunch and enjoyed the experience so much they offered to repeat the performance at St. Stephens.

Over forty of the residents gathered in the dining room for mince pies, sherry and a good old sing-along. St. Stephen’s, part of the Festival Housing group, provides 24-hour care and support to elderly people who find it difficult to cope at home and need a little more help than their carers are able to give them

Although St. Stephen’s has a lively daily programme of activities that residents can choose to be involved in such as regular entertainment and trips out, visits from local organisations are greatly encouraged. The highly experienced and qualified management team is committed to delivering the very highest levels of care as well as giving residents the best possible quality of life.

Staff are trained to deal sensitively in responding to the individual needs of elderly people, ensuring that they maintain their dignity and independence, which includes helping them to pursue hobbies and interests.

Angela Harris, who is responsible for organising social activities at the home, said: “Our residents thoroughly enjoy engaging with diverse sectors of the community as it helps everyone gain a different social perspective. They always extend a warm welcome to anyone visiting St. Stephen’s, and today has been no exception.

“The team from Postcode Anywhere demonstrated real community spirit by entertaining us and providing treats. Each of our residents received a box of Thorntons chocolates, which we thought was a really lovely gesture, given in the true spirit of what Christmas should be all about.”

Ends/

Editors’ Notes

Postcode Anywhere

Notable Awards

Orange Best Use of Technology (Midlands) - 2008 National Business Awards

Herefordshire and Worcestershire Chamber of Commerce Small Business and Growth awards

Best Use of Technology in an Emerging Business - European Retail Solutions Awards 2007

ITC BET Award 2007

Orange Best Use of Technology in Business - National Business Awards 2006

Best Growth Through Use of Technology - Sage Daily Telegraph Business Awards 2005

Most IT-Enabled Small Business (less than 500 employees) - Computing Awards 2005

Best Address Management Software - Smart Awards 2004

For further information about Postcode Anywhere, please visit www.postcodeanywhere.co.uk

A celebration of pupil achievement

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 00:00:00 GMT

For immediate release
Date:17/12/09

Every year the Chantry High School celebrate the achievements of the year 11 pupils who left for pastures new at the end of the summer term.

An annual ‘Oscar’ style award ceremony is held every year and has proved to be a great success with governors, students, parents and teaching staff. The event was devised to reflect on the achievements of each year group from when they first arrive as year seven students to when they leave in year 11, after sitting their GCSE examinations.

The Chantry High School, situated in the heart of rural Worcestershire, has an outstanding record of academic attainment with the 2008/2009 GCSE examination results raising the bar even higher. It also has one of the lowest absence rates in the country.

Head Teacher, Stephen Jowett said: “Our awards evening is a special night for so many reasons. It gives us the opportunity to present awards to students who, not only excelled in their performance in school, but who also contributed much to the life of the school.”

The actual awards themselves are donated and presented by local sponsors, including businesses and other organisations that have supported the school, such as G Herbert Banks and the Worcester Warriors. The Chantry prides itself on building strong-community based relationships.

New to the fold of school sponsors is Hallow-based technology company Postcode Anywhere which donated several awards including the Literature and ICT prizes at this year’s event.

Postcode Anywhere’s IT director, Jamie Turner was amazed at the outstanding level of academic achievement the school has and says: ”As an expanding technology company in the Chantry’s catchment area we are really keen to build on our newly found relationship. We already have two first-class, computing science graduates in our team who are part of the school’s alumni, and as a rapidly expanding company with a growing workforce we see the school as being fundamental to our future plans.”

Ends/

Editors’ Notes

Postcode Anywhere

Notable Awards

Orange Best Use of Technology (Midlands) - 2008 National Business Awards

Herefordshire and Worcestershire Chamber of Commerce Small Business and Growth awards

Best Use of Technology in an Emerging Business - European Retail Solutions Awards 2007

ITC BET Award 2007

Orange Best Use of Technology in Business - National Business Awards 2006

Best Growth Through Use of Technology - Sage Daily Telegraph Business Awards 2005

Most IT-Enabled Small Business (less than 500 employees) - Computing Awards 2005

Best Address Management Software - Smart Awards 2004

For further information about Postcode Anywhere, please visit www.postcodeanywhere.co.uk

Postcode Anywhere Announced Worcestershire’s Top Technology Firm

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester, United Kingdom - December 11, 2009 - Hallow-based software company Postcode Anywhere is among the fastest-growing technology companies in the world, according to a recent ranking by consultancy firm Deloitte.

Postcode Anywhere grew 500% from 2005 to 2009, assuring its place for the second year in a row among 500 of the strongest-performing technology firms across Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

Managing director Guy Mucklow said: “As all of our growth has been organic and funded from internal resources, it’s great to be recognised not only as a top-performing company locally, but on a global scale as well.

“In a recession it’s even more vital that technology companies, who often have the best tools for growth, make use of their abilities.

“With the launch of several new products this year – including Route Optimiser, an AA-endorsed service that plans shorter routes for commercial vehicles – we’ve pushed hard for progress.”

Deloitte Technology Fast 500 EMEA 2009 is a ranking of the 500 fastest growing technology companies across the whole of Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Rankings are based on percentage revenue growth over five years.

David Halstead, partner in charge of Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500 EMEA programme, said: “Attracting enough customers to attain such fast growth over five years makes a strong statement about the quality of a company’s product and its leadership.

“Making this ranking is a testament to a company’s commitment to technology. With its 500% growth rate over five years, Postcode Anywhere has proven that its leadership has the vision and determination to grow in difficult conditions.

“Postcode Anywhere has shown the right stuff for growth.”

###

Media contact:
Jim Williams – PR, Postcode Anywhere
Tel : + 44 (0)1905 888 562
Email

Interview opportunity

Guy Mucklow – Managing director, Postcode Anywhere
Tel: +44 (0)1905 888 555
Email

Notes to Editors

About Postcode Anywhere

Notable Awards

Dell UK Small Business Excellence Award (Finalist) - Dell UK Small Business Excellence Award 2009

Business of the Year (Regional Finalist) - National Business Awards 2009

Top 500 European Fast-Growth IT Firms - Deloitte Technology Fast 500 EMEA 2008

Orange Best Use of Technology (Midlands) - 2008 National Business Awards

Best Use of Technology in an Emerging Business - European Retail Solutions Awards 2007

ITC BET Award 2007

Orange Best Use of Technology in Business - National Business Awards 2006

Best Growth Through Use of Technology - Sage Daily Telegraph Business Awards 2005

Most IT-Enabled Small Business (less than 500 employees) - Computing Awards 2005

Best Address Management Software - Smart Awards 2004

Press enquiries

James Williams – PR, www.postcodeanywhere.co.uk Tel : + 44 (0)1905 888 562 Email

Worcester Whiz-Kid Picks Up Corking Prize

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 00:00:00 GMT

WORCESTER, UK – 30 Nov 2009 – A Worcester software guru who is the brains behind technology which “could save the planet” has flexed his brainpower by scooping a prestigious prize this week.

Postcode Anywhere’s senior software developer Richard Geary, 30, swapped cracking codes for cracking open champagne after solving iQ Magazine’s logic puzzle in the record time of five minutes.

Now Geary says the magazine is asking if he’d like to set the problems. He said: “I’m really pleased that my talent for building complex software can be applied elsewhere.

“I’ve always loved maths problems and algorithms. To not only win a bottle of champagne but be invited to actually set the puzzles has knocked me for six!”

Geary, who has taken a PhD in algorithms, is the brains behind a powerful “Route Optimiser” launched by Postcode Anywhere and the AA, which plots shorter journeys for hauliers and couriers.

He added: “Using Route Optimiser, commercial fuel costs, journey time and carbon emissions can be cut by up to 20%. It doesn’t just save money - it’s technology like this which could well help to save the planet.

“But for now, I’m content simply to save the back-issues of the magazine charting my success as Worcester’s own king of the puzzles!”

ENDS

Media contact:
James Williams – PR, Postcode Anywhere
Tel : + 44 (0)1905 888 562
Email

Interview opportunity:
Richard Geary – senior technical architect, Postcode Anywhere
Tel : + 44 (0)1905 888 557
Email

Notes to Editors:

About Postcode Anywhere

Postcode Anywhere specialises in making businesses more efficient.

Its services, typically built around data and available on a pay-as-you-go basis, include route optimisation, data cleansing, business contact look-ups, demographic profiling and address auto-fill.

Its diverse customer base encompasses small-medium enterprises, public sector organisations, charities and multinationals, including the Learning & Skills Council, The Identity & Passport Service, National Savings & Investments, HMRC, Oxfam, The British Heart Foundation, Rolls Royce, Xerox, Disney, Heinz, The Wall Street Journal, Siemens and Citibank.

For more information about Postcode Anywhere, please visit www.postcodeanywhere.com.

Notable Awards and Recognition for Postcode Anywhere

Dell Small Business Excellence Award (UK finalist) - 2009

Small-Medium Sized Business of the Year (regional finalist) - National Business Awards 2009

Named in the 2008 Deloitte Technology Fast 500

Orange Best Use of Technology (Midlands) - 2008 National Business Awards

Best Use of Technology in an Emerging Business - European Retail Solutions Awards 2007

ITC BET Award 2007

Orange Best Use of Technology in Business - National Business Awards 2006

Best Growth Through Use of Technology - Sage Daily Telegraph Business Awards 2005

Most IT-Enabled Small Business (less than 500 employees) - Computing Awards 2005

Best Address Management Software - Smart Awards 2004

About Intellect

Intellect is the leading trade association for the technology sector which comprises the Information and Communications Technologies (ICT), Electronics Manufacturing and Design, and Consumer Electronics (CE) sectors, including defence and space-related IT.

For more information about Intellect, please visit: http://www.intellectuk.org.

About iQ Magazine

iQ is a quarterly magazine providing a whistle stop tour of industry topics packed full of interesting articles. The magazine was launched in October 2008.

To find out more or download iQ magazine, visit: http://www.intellectuk.org/content/view/4634/483/.

The AA and Postcode Anywhere Select Tele Atlas Logistics to Power Efficient Business Routing and Planning

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:00:00 GMT

GENT, Belgium & LONDON - 10 November 2009 - With lower consumer spending, reduced freight volumes and volatile fuel prices, trucking companies have increasingly invested in turn-by-turn navigation systems to maximize the efficiency of their fleets. To further optimize route planning and limit expensive out-of-route miles, the UK’s leading motoring organisation, the AA, and business efficiency specialist Postcode Anywhere have unveiled a smart Route Optimiser powered by Tele Atlas® Logistics®.

Route Optimiser is an online service based on sophisticated algorithms that enables businesses to plan optimal routes for single vehicles or whole fleets. Working with Tele Atlas, a leading global provider of digital maps and dynamic content for navigation and location-based solutions, the AA delivers the online service from Postcode Anywhere to users in the enterprise and fleet sectors.

With Route Optimiser, business users can plan routes that take into account truck restrictions and preferred attributes for major highways, interconnecting roads and the local street network to enable seamless, connected routing for commercial vehicles. Businesses using Route Optimiser can help their drivers and dispatchers calculate the safest, most efficient routes for commercial vehicles while reducing unnecessary risks and costs.

Tele Atlas Logistics is a specialized digital map database designed for fleet owners and operators who manage large trucks and other road-restricted vehicles, as well as application developers who serve this market. When combined with the Tele Atlas MultiNet digital map database, which features superior positional accuracy, comprehensive addressing, geocoding functionality and rich map display, Tele Atlas Logistics meets specific commercial vehicle telematics needs.

With data from Tele Atlas Logistics, Route Optimiser enables drivers to:

More accurately estimate arrival times;

Consume up to 20% less fuel;

Reduce carbon emissions by up to 30%.

Commercial vehicles face a number of road restrictions based on their height, length, weight, number of axles and cargo type, including hazardous materials. Tele Atlas Logistics enables Route Optimiser to help provide routes that are specifically designed for commercial vehicles and ultimately help these vehicles better identify and avoid situations that may cause damage to the vehicle or infrastructure.

About AA

The AA is the UK’s leading breakdown service with more dedicated patrols than any other UK roadside assistance provider. The professionalism and high standards valued by its 15 million members in the event of a roadside breakdown are also the hallmark of many more AA products and services.

The AA offers personal financial services including motor and home insurance, loans, and breakdown repair cover. There are AA products and services to help both private and fleet motorists to choose and run vehicles. The AA’s website is a motoring, travel and leisure portal and its popular route planner calculates around four million routes per week. The AA is the largest independent travel publisher in the UK and one of the top 10 worldwide. Its many publications include maps, travel and lifestyle guides. AA Public Affairs helps guide and shape motoring policy by analysing and researching issues, and campaigning on behalf of members and motorists.

For more information, visit www.theAA.com

About Postcode Anywhere

Postcode Anywhere is a software company set up in 2001. It has developed and hosts Route Optimiser, an online service that enables businesses to plan optimal routes for single vehicles or whole fleets. Actual customer tests carried out by Postcode Anywhere have shown that Route Optimiser enables a reduction in journey times and fuel saving of between 20 – 40% with a follow on carbon emission reduction of 10 – 30%. More information: www.routeoptimiser.com

Contact

About Tele Atlas

Tele Atlas delivers the digital maps and dynamic content that power many of the world’s most essential navigation and location-based services (LBS). Through a combination of its own products and partnerships, Tele Atlas offers map coverage of more than 200 countries and territories worldwide. The company was founded in 1984 and has offices in 27 countries around the world. Today, Tele Atlas maps are developed with the insight of a community of millions of GPS system users worldwide, who are adding to the company’s unmatched network of sources to track and validate changes in real time, and deliver the best digital maps and dynamic content. For more information, visit www.teleatlas.com or http://investors.tomtom.com/index.cfm.Tele Atlas is a subsidiary of TomTom N.V. (AEX: TOM2).

Tele Atlas and the Tele Atlas logo are registered trademarks of Tele Atlas. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.

Tele Atlas
Sandra Van Hauwaert
Phone +32 9 244 92 22
Sandra.VanHauwaert@teleatlas.com
or
The AA
The Press Office
Phone +44 (0) 1256 495969
Press.office@theaa.com

Droitwich company win judges’ prize at Last Choir Standing corporate event

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:00:00 GMT

For immediate release
Date: 29/10/09

Blood cancer charity Leukaemia CARE stole the show and the trophy at the Last Choir Standing Corporate Event, hosted by technology company Postcode Anywhere at Sixways recently.

Singing and dancing to a Grease medley, the Leukaemia CARE choir, comprising staff and volunteers from the charity and Barclays Commercial Banking team, wowed the audience and judges with their performance.

Walking away with the Judge’ prize were staff from Droitwich-based hotelshopUK, for their stunning rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody, accompanied by a lively Brian May ‘look-a-like’ guitar riff, which had the audience rocking in their seats.

The evening was a great success and it is hoped that Postcode Anywhere’s fund raising target will be met. The event was in aid of Leukaemia CARE. To celebrate its 40th Anniversary in providing support, advice and care for the many adults, children and families affected by blood cancer, the charity has been encouraging local businesses to support them by staging their own events.

Other businesses participating in the event and performing included Ballard Dale Syree Watson, Harrison Clark, the NHS Mental Health Partnership, Rabjohns and Thursfields.

“I was really pleased with the way that so many local businesses came together to support the event and Leukaemia CARE. Judging by the wholehearted way in which the choirs threw themselves into their performance and the very positive feedback that I received on the night, I really do feel that we have the basis for an annual fund raising event that can only become more successful over time.

“The Postcode Anywhere team would like to extend a huge thank you to all the choirs that participated, Radio BBC Hereford and Worcester’s Dave Bradley, our esteemed panel of judges, lead by Martin Schellenberg, the Elgar School of Music, Sixways Events team, local auctioneer Adrian Mackwell and everyone involved in the event that helped to make it a night to remember.”

Ends/

Editors’ Notes

Postcode Anywhere

Notable Awards

Orange Best Use of Technology (Midlands) - 2008 National Business Awards

Herefordshire and Worcestershire Chamber of Commerce Small Business and Growth awards

Best Use of Technology in an Emerging Business - European Retail Solutions Awards 2007

ITC BET Award 2007

Orange Best Use of Technology in Business - National Business Awards 2006

Best Growth Through Use of Technology - Sage Daily Telegraph Business Awards 2005

Most IT-Enabled Small Business (less than 500 employees) - Computing Awards 2005

Best Address Management Software - Smart Awards 2004

For further information about Postcode Anywhere, please visit www.postcodeanywhere.co.uk

Leukaemia CARE

For further information, please contact:
Gemma Harris gemma.harris@leukaemiacare.org.uk 01905 755977 ext 227