Four years ago, Online started working with Philip Morris's Victorian and South Australian distribution company, Statewide Tobacco Services, to develop a new, computer-based storage and distribution system. Philip Morris, which sells brands such as Marlboro, Alpine and Peter Jackson, is Online's oldest and biggest customer. Its clients include Coles Myer, the ANZ Bank, Philip Morris, Nissan, Arnott's Snack Foods and ICI Australia's Dulux Paints division. Its turnover has soared from $4 million in its first year to $40 million this year. Online has been marketing a computerised warehousing, order-taking, product handling and distribution service since 1986. One company trying to drag the business into the 1990s is Online Distribution Services, a division of the sprawling Mayne Nickless transport and security group. Usually it is seen as unglamorous and low-tech, and many marketers still use systems that have been in place for 20 or 30 years. Distribution is a key link in the selling chain - the best research, product development and advertising in the world are worthless if a company has trouble getting its products to market - but it is rarely considered essential to marketing.
