Hays renews major contract with Orange
Hays Logistics has been appointed by Orange to manage the distribution of its handsets and accessories throughout Britain.
The three-year contract extends Hays’ existing relationship with Orange UK and will see the partners together invest over £3 million in the logistics specialist’s Banbury location. This investment will see the Orange UK repair and returns facilities upgraded and consolidated into a single unit at the Banbury site. Hays have worked with Orange UK since its launch in 1994. According to Dominic Edmonds, Operations Director of Hays Technology: “In the past eight years the operation has dramatically increased, reflecting the growth of the mobile phone market, the success of Orange UK in gaining market share, and the operational advantages of outsourcing non-core activities such as logistics”.
The services outsourced to Hays are wide-ranging: from receiving, checking & storing phones, accessories, literature and vouchers to building & kitting handsets as well as the electronic pairing of the SIM card with every phone’s unique IMEI number. This last process activates the phone for use and enables Orange UK to deactivate phones that are stolen.
The operation has processed as many as 150,000 phones for shipment or stock in a single day and, with the maturing of the industry, up to 60% of orders can be for single units, meaning that the operation has to undertake a high degree of phone customisation prior to despatch.
An example of the level of customisation that is becoming increasingly important for the industry is the “Hot Staging” activity undertaken by Hays. In this process, Hays uploads call barring software, company logos and phone numbers into the address books of mobile phones. This customisation greatly improves the ease of corporate phone upgrades and is undertaken for a wide range of clients.
The Hays operation also manages the returns process, which includes: categorisation of customer and unit by warranty type and upgrade or replacement; ‘white boxing’ those suitable for sale as used units; and either repairing the phone in-house or forwarding it other Orange UK approved repairers.
