Finalists offer better ways for businesses

Business services finalists in this year’s The Irish Times InterTradeIreland Innovation Awards are full of bright and practical ideas

Parcel Motel

Almost everyone has arrived home to find a note in the door saying they’ve missed a parcel delivery and have to trek to a distant depot to retrieve it the next day. For those of us who regularly buy online the experience may be maddeningly frequent.

Irish courier and forwarding service Nightline is offering a solution to this problem with Parcel Motel ( parcelmotel.com). The service allows customers to have their parcels dropped to a convenient "parcel motel" for later collection instead of to their home address.

The Parcel Motel is a container of 80 lockers which can be accessed by customers using PIN codes which they receive by text message when their parcel has been delivered. The beauty of the system is that it is independent of the retailers.

“When you order something online all you have to do is put in your name and Parcel Motel identifier number and our address and it will be delivered to one of our hubs in Dublin and Belfast. We will then despatch it to the Parcel Motel you have specified,” says David Field, chief operating officer with Nightline.

“We have 100 of our Parcel Motel terminals, covering all of the Republic’s main cities, fully operational now and our plan is to expand this to 400 over time,” he adds. “The initial phase of operations was aimed at attracting consumers and has been very successful with 20,000 subscribers signed up already. We are now looking to increase the service’s appeal to online retailers so that they use the service directly from within their websites.”

Key driver

Interestingly, a key driver of the success of the service came about almost by accident. “Almost 95 per cent of online retailers in the UK offer free delivery in the UK,” says Field. “Our subscribers can use our Belfast address for their orders to those retailers and get them delivered free to there. After that we deliver the parcel to their chosen Parcel Motel for the standard €3.50 fee.

“This has proved enormously popular with customers who are using it to avail of the convenience of our service and to make big savings on the postage fees charged by UK retailers to send packages to Ireland. In fact, some of them won’t send packages to Ireland at all and this overcomes that problem as well.”

Sonru

The birthplace of the internet and the home of the Large Hadron Collider, CERN, is now using software developed in Enniscorthy, Co Wexford, by Irish company Sonru to assist it as it recruits Europe’s best and brightest scientific talent.

Sonru has developed a secure, low cost, remote online interviewing service which offers a faster recruitment process at a significantly lower cost and a vastly reduced carbon footprint.

Sonru – from the Irish phrase “bí le sonrú” meaning “to stand out” – was established in 2007 by local man Edward Hendrick and it provides a convenient and economical tool for interviewing people online. It focuses on making the interview process simple, and saves employers time and money.

The system enables the interviewer to post interview questions online, specifying the time allowed to read and answer each one. The candidate records the interview within the deadline using a webcam and the interviewer reviews the video responses at their convenience.

“Sonru launched commercially in October 2009 and although we had won many prestigious clients, contracts, awards and accolades locally we needed to up our game to become a serious contender in the global market,” says Edward Hendrick.

Aggressive internationalisation

This led it to embark on an aggressive internationalisation programme in 2011 which involved establishing a presence in the UK, North America, Middle East, South Africa, Hong Kong, and Australia. It was also adopted by CERN to manage candidate applications across 20 EU states.

In addition, the company developed its first application programming interface (API) which allows the system to be used as part of other proprietary software systems.

Its first Api was launched in April 2012 and allowed users of Taleo Corporation’s talent management solutions to access Sonru’s pre-integrated video interviewing solution.

In October 2012, the Api was made available through Oracle and the company became a Gold Level Partner on the Oracle PartnerNetwork.

This made the solution available globally and the next step was to offer it in multiple languages. It is now available in 10 languages, with clients choosing the language required when creating the interview and candidates receiving all communications in that language.

At present, CERN, Nestle, and Volvo are conducting interviews through French and Telefonica will be using the German version. In Asia, OCBC Bank is interviewing candidates in Chinese and Qatar Airways in Dubai is interviewing candidates in multiple languages.

These developments have seen Sonru grow from a small video technology company to a leading player in global video interviewing. HQ staff has trebled and the company has operations in London, Singapore, Warsaw, Hong Kong and Sydney, and resellers throughout the world.

[ Tickets.ie ]

A ticket sales system developed by Dublin-based Tickets.iehas enabled the GAA to sell tickets to fans from any location in the country without the need for a broadband connection and has eliminated the risk of duplicate sales. Founded in 2004, the company develops software to enable organisations to sell tickets and its systems are responsible for over 2.75 million ticket sales to thousands of events nationwide each year. It also boasts the largest network of ticket agents in Ireland with over 170 outlets nationwide.

The company took over the GAA ticketing contract in January 2011, beating competition from some leading ticketing companies in the process.

"Prior to working with us the GAA relied on pre-printed ticket stock to sell tickets in temporary and mobile box offices," says Tickets.iechief executive John O'Neill. "This was due to broadband connectivity issues that would cause internet-based ticketing solutions to fail. This had severe limitations as the tickets had to be printed without prices and a sticker placed on each ticket when sold to denote the price and if it was an adult, senior or juvenile ticket. After that, time consuming manual reconciliation of ticket sales had to be carried out."

O’Neill says that this was a particularly error prone process for events with designated seating, as any unsold tickets needed to be put back on sale using the main ticketing system. This meant that tickets for the same seat could be sold twice.

Unique product

Tickets.iedeveloped a unique software product called MiniSAM to address the issues.

MiniSAM enables the GAA to sell tickets in any location without the need for an internet connection. MiniSAM allows users to sell and print tickets on demand, thereby reducing stock wastage. Sales are recorded with the correct ticket types and prices, so accurate reports can be instantly generated. The main innovation is that MiniSAM can be synchronised with the main ticketing system any time so that there is automatic reconciliation of sales and revenues. Furthermore, all unsold seats are automatically put back on sale.

This has resulted in significant savings on the staff time required to prepare for ticket sales, pre-print stock, organise ticket type stickers, and reconcile sales. In addition, the overall customer experience is enhanced, as queuing times are reduced due to a more efficient sales process.

“We are now looking at further innovations and applications for MiniSAM,” says O’Neill. “We are looking at events such as outdoor festivals or race meetings where internet access might not be available and an offline ticketing system such as this would offer a solution. We are looking at breaking into the UK market and are targeting Premier League football clubs. We are also pursuing some strong leads in the US.”