Cisco Networkers, BRISBANE, Australia, September 19, 2007 - Trek Bicycles Australia, the world's leading distributor of U.S.-manufactured Trek bicycles, has deployed a Cisco® Unified Communications solution to link its multiple locations, and improve logistics management, communications and customer service.
Trek Bicycles Australia, a wholesale business, grew out of a long-established Sydney bicycle retail business called Clarence Street Cyclery. Trek Bicycles Australia owns the distribution rights for U.S.-made Trek bicycles and today sells more than 200 models and eight brands of bicycles, clothing and accessories to a network of 140 retail outlets nationally - including Clarence Street Cyclery.
Historically, the head offices for Trek and Clarence Street Cyclery shared the same city location, while the Trek warehouse was established at a separate suburban Sydney site. A decision was recently taken to move the Trek offices to the same site as the Trek warehouse. This office relocation allowed for an improvement in the way in which orders were managed from the city offices to warehouse.
David Cook, business development manager of Trek Bicycles Australia said: "Under the old system, orders were sent from the city office to the suburban Trek warehouse by using a dial-up modem to connect to a remote printer. The hardcopy orders were then picked up and fulfilled by warehouse staff. Inventory management and invoicing were separate, largely manual processes. When we decided to physically separate our Trek wholesale operations from our Clarence Street Cyclery retail business, it was a great opportunity to revamp our technology strategy and 'future proof' both companies by choosing an easily expandable, converged voice and data communications solution."
To achieve this improvement, Trek chose Cisco Cisco Advanced Unified Communications Specialist' IMC Communications to help the company link the two locations. The solution at Trek Bicycles Australia consists of Cisco 2800 Series Integrated Services Routers at each site, a wireless network, including three Cisco Aironet 1250 wireless access points at the 1200 square metre warehouse, and Cisco 7920 Wireless IP phones and Cisco 7960G Unified IP phones at the sites.
IMC Technical Services director, Andrew Gifford, said; "This solution is real world proof that it can be done. Trek have been able to both extract greater productivity out of their Cisco infrastructure investment by combining LAN, Wireless LAN, WAN and Unified Communications whilst increasing the actual employees productivity and efficiency."
Stocktaking at the warehouse is now managed with wireless PDAs, and staff or visitors such as sales representatives can use wireless-enabled laptop computers anywhere on the site for paperless ordering and administration. Internal or external callers can reach the warehouse staff carrying wireless telephones anywhere on site, any time, and Cisco Unity Express messaging and greeting services ensure that there are no lost customer contacts. Messages can be played back using either the Cisco Unified IP phones, or via email.
Sam Gerner, Cisco director of Operations for Commercial Sales in ANZ, said: "Trek is an example of a business which is using the network as the platform to drive efficiencies in communications and inventory management, as well as improving staff communication. We see more and more SMBs in Australia and New Zealand following Trek's lead."
About Clarence Street Cyclery
Clarence Street Cyclery was founded in 1975 by Tony and Christine Cook and is still owned and operated by the Cook family. It is located at 104 Clarence Street Sydney, covers three floors and has over 200 models of bikes on display. For more information go to: www.cyclery.com.au
About Trek Bicycles Australia
Trek Bicycles Australia was founded in 1991 as the wholesale arm of Clarence Street Cyclery. It is the largest distributor of U.S.-made Trek bicycles in the world and sells eight different brands of bicycles, accessories and clothing through 140 resellers nationally. For more information go to: www.tba.com.au
About IMC Communications
IMC Communications is a leading supplier of quality information solutions and value added services to Australian Business. www.imc.net.au
