About OfficeWorks

Established 25 years ago in Richmond, Victoria, Officeworks is committed to making bigger things happen for its customers, team, the community and stakeholders. Part of one of Australia’s largest listed companies, Wesfarmers, Officeworks is focused on continuing to deliver satisfactory returns to shareholders over the long term. It operates 167 stores across Australia, a website that is home to more than 40,000 products, a national call centre, and a business team that helps micro-, small- and medium-sized businesses start, run and grow. Officeworks offers customers a wide range of office supplies, technology, furniture, art supplies, education resources and helpful services like print and copy and on-site tech support through Geeks2U – delivering an experience that is easy and engaging, no matter how customers choose to shop. Officeworks is focused on the safety, well-being and career progression of the more than 8,000 team members it employs. It is also dedicated to operating in a sustainable manner, including building and maintaining meaningful connections with the communities in which it operates, fundraising for its national partners and local community groups, continuing to reduce its impact on the environment and source responsibly.

Challenge

When Officeworks decided in late 2017 to launch self-branded NBN and mobile phone services to its customers, it faced a choice: Develop it internally or partner with a third-party provider.

The decision to launch Officeworks-branded Mobile Voice and Data (MVD) and NBN services was part of a broader Officeworks focus to leverage its success in selling business products to small, medium and large customers into a range of business support services.

Officeworks Business Manager for Technology Sandy Young said Mobile Voice and Data and NBN services complemented the hardware devices sold by Officeworks. “We are always looking for opportunities to expand our offer to better meet customers’ needs and complement the existing products and services,” he said.

“It was early in 2018 that we settled on Acurus as the partner of choice. When we weighed it all up, Acurus had a compelling proposition with regards to the Anex platform and its capability to be simply updated, that allowed us to deliver a branded customer-friendly platform which integrated nicely with our existing website.”

“The service Acurus provides as part of our Accord with Officeworks offer goes hand-in-hand with our existing range of technology products, meaning that we can now offer customers a more complete solution.”

Solution

Built cloud-native, Anex tailors ‘white label’ services to customer needs

Acurus is a Melbourne-based company that developed the Anex Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) to let customers deliver tailored broadband, telecommunications and utility services quickly and easily.

Anex is a modern PaaS that operates entirely in the cloud, with no installation required on customer premises, thereby avoiding maintenance or associated staff costs for the customer. Built as a cloud-native platform hosted on AWS, it is designed to scale easily to rapidly deliver “white-labelled” services to market.  Anex supports every step of the process, from promoting services and nurturing inquiries through to service delivery, billing management and customer support.

Acurus maintains and enhances the Anex platform as well as providing customer service and technical support, which allows Officeworks to focus solely on delivering its Accord for Officeworks services in the marketplace.

Young said ensuring a great experience for Officeworks customers was central to choosing Acurus. “The initial scoping on the Acurus platform demonstrated it was able to deliver an easy and engaging user experience in line with our expectations,” he said. “This was reinforced during the discovery phase with a thorough integration of both-front and back-end capability before development commenced.”

Acurus has designed Anex to integrate seamlessly with upstream service providers, such as telecommunication network providers and the National Broadband Network, as well as the business systems of customers like Officeworks.

This intricate integration makes the Anex platform completely transparent to both Officeworks customers buying Accord with Officeworks mobile services or NBN plans and to Officeworks team members who monitor sales performance of these services in the marketplace.

“Acurus was highly engaged and responsive from the outset – they were always ready to move quickly to get through any of those small challenges that can crop up from time to time. They were there to focus on resolving those problems very, very quickly.”

Success

Mr Young said the Anex platform helped Officeworks to differentiate its mobile and NBN services in a competitive marketplace. “We were  aware of how noisy and crowded that space had become,” he said.

“As mobile is a highly competitive and fragmented market, we looked to provide choice across all the value propositions in there. The approach we’ve taken with our Accord with Officeworks mobile plans is all about simplicity and transparency for our customers.

“They are very simply structured across small, medium and large plans to suit however the customer wants to consume what is primarily data – that’s what everybody uses today. There are no lock-in contracts. It’s a month-to-month arrangement at very compelling prices with no hidden catches.

“The Acurus platform allowed us to create an Officeworks-branded online environment that was easy for our customers to navigate and choose the best plan for their individual needs.”