Parnell Agencies Limited is an importer and wholesaler of homeware and giftware.

Parnell Agencies, as regular attendees of the Gift Fairs were aware of the paper war created by each fair. The double handling of taking orders and then heading back to their headquarters in Wellington and having to re-enter orders into their Attache Accounting Software was a long winded process. As well, their representatives based in Auckland and the South Island took hand written orders in the field that were posted and faxed back to head office, so there were delays in getting orders out to customers.

In early 2001 they became aware that a paperless solution written in New Zealand was available - albeit there were only a handful of companies using the solution and within the Giftware industry it was totally untried.

	Haydn Virtue applied for a position with Parnell Agencies at the same time - in early 2001. At the job interview Haydn was asked what he knew about SalesLink. As luck would have it he'd read in the 'Dominion' about a company in the Food Trade who had just implemented SalesLink, so at the job interview he was able to demonstrate that he knew about this new innovative solution.

Haydn got the job as Company Manager and Parnell Agencies took a leap of faith and purchased SalesLink. They were the first Giftware company in New Zealand to run with an automated Sales order/entry system and there was much interest and a degree of scepticism when they attended their next Gift Fair.

Almost five years on and at the October 2005 Christmas Auckland Gift Fair over twenty companies now use SalesLink Mobile.

Haydn has been responsible for Parnell Agencies' management of SalesLink Mobile since day one.

The pitfalls?
"At the beginning we lost a few orders - one rep needed more schooling than the others - they kept letting their battery run flat" said Haydn .

"But with the reps buying their devices they look after them and can access 3,500 products for over 1000 customers easily and accurately. The reps run on different networks so being able to run on Telecom and Vodafone is a good feature."

Parnell Agencies interface to Attache Accounting Software using Customer Link as the interface - "We've had Attache for nearly twenty years and it works well."

"Our customers loved it straight off ." Haydn said. "We were the first to use it at Gift Fairs and the bar code lookup streamlines taking orders." Asked about the Return on Investment ( ROI ) Parnell were unequivocal "SalesLink is worth one Full Time Position in our business."

So on an initial investment in 2001 with six users we estimate SalesLink has paid for itself in excess of ten times over. The only significant costs since purchase have been investment in new handheld devices. "The initial units lasted about four years before their memory went kaput. So there was a need to upgrade the devices - this cost about $750 per device. Other than that we are really happy with Saleslink and the reliability it brings to our business."