Background

Cox Agri is a fifth generation agricultural supplies company. They supply a substantial catalogue of agricultural equipment via a nationwide network of merchants and distributors.

One of their unique products is livestock identification or cow tags.

Challenge

With the unfortunate health issues faced by livestock (mad cow disease a decade ago and more recently the reappearance of foot and mouth) all cattle must be identified using a government approved tagging system.

Tags are custom produced using laser etching so that each animal can be uniquely identified.

The issue

Each agricultural merchant had been ordering tags using a faxed form; and with 400+ order lines a day the man power and duplication of effort was vast.

Solution

In 2002 i-KOS developed a desktop client application (written in java) that allowed rural merchants to connect and batch transfer orders using a dial-up account.

Products and software updates could be downloaded on demand so that Cox could ensure their customers had up to date ordering information.

This had a profound effect on the speed and efficiency for Cox as due to the increased efficiency were able to offer an outstanding market initiative. They were able to offer a guaranteed next day delivery for all cattle tags for orders placed before 4pm. Considering that such an order has to be verified by MAFF and then laser etched in tome for that nights post is REMARKABLE.

In 2007 i-KOS were commissioned to develop www.agriculturalordering.co.uk to replace the desktop application.

Result

This online fast-track ordering tool that, launched in March 2007, has been rolled out to merchants across the UK and now manages hundreds of order lines per day. Each order comes with an attachment that has been formatted to integrate with Cox’s internal stock inventory and accounting software.

The benefits to the merchant include access to previous orders for repeat ordering, account status, search by SKU (stock code), and access to a database of every farm delivery address in the UK