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Canadian Tire drives Axios forward in North America

October 26, 2001

IT Service Management software specialist Axios Systems has made further inroads into the North American market by winning a major contract from Canada's most popular retailer.

Toronto-based Canadian Tire will use Axios' assyst solution to integrate four IT Help Desks which serve different sectors of its retail business.

assyst allows organizations - usually with at least 1,000 PCs - to monitor their IT infrastructures, log and track incidents, uncover the causes of underlying problems and manage system changes and upgrades.

Only weeks after opening an office in the United States earlier this year, Axios won its first business there from application service provider QDNS, a subsidiary of Denver-based Qwest Communications.

In addition to its 443 stores across the country, Canadian Tire is also one of the country's largest independent petroleum retailers and owns automotive specialty retailer PartSource.

Its four Help Desks - separately located in the Toronto area - serve the stores, distribution centers and warehouses, and corporate users at the company's head office.

"The big advantage is that this will help us create a single virtual Help Desk by having all our Help Desks operating with the same processes on the same automated foundation," said Allan Nikkila, Director of Production Services at Canadian Tire.

He said Canadian Tire was attracted by the fact that assyst was IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL®)-certified since the company had adopted this as one of its Best Practice models.

"Another reason for choosing assyst is that it is a single product which provides a fully integrated solution for all our support service processes," he added. "Speed to market continues to be a key advantage for Canadian Tire because it enables us to give a better service to our customers."

Mr Nikkila added that Axios "comes across as an organization dedicated to the quality and continuous development of its product. It's tightly focused on just one product."

Axios Systems' Sales and Marketing Director Ailsa Symeonides commented: "Gaining another new customer as prestigious as Canadian Tire so soon after launching our North American operation is another significant boost for us. We look forward to working with their team to meet and surpass expectations."

Axios, which is based in Edinburgh, has also won a contract with Carlton Television which will use assyst for its IT Help Desk which operates from Cardiff. The Desk manages an IT infrastructure which includes around 2,500 computer terminals.

Other new clients include Rotterdam Police, Lynx Communications group member ADP Communications and Aberdeen College.

The company already has several hundred blue chip private and public sector clients, including many which operate internationally.

It now employs more than 100 staff in five countries. In addition to North America and the UK it also has offices in France, Germany and the Netherlands.

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