IT'S A BUSINESS that was started in the spare bedroom of her mother's home. Now, Hayley Widlake has built up one of the largest leaflet distribution franchises in the United Kingdom - and the collective annual mileage covered by her 90 "posties" is equivalent to walking around the globe twice.

She has expanded the company to offices in Skewen in Wales, where she employs seven office staff and organises a delivery team of 90 people. And it is all thanks to a very clever piece of computer software that she helped to develop.

Her distribution staff deliver to 50,000 homes each week, covering 345 delivery rounds, so it is not surprising that she needed a software program capable of organising the logistics and workflow of her Dor-2-Dor franchise.

Hayley - who has a marketing background and worked for a travel company before starting her own business - had a software program but needed support from the Welsh Assembly government's Flexible Support for Business programme to take it to a higher level.

That advanced software program - Deliver-IT! - has been so successful that she now sells it to other distribution businesses throughout the UK and just had her first sales from Australia to a master franchiser of a leaflet distribution company.

"I appear to have started off as a leaflet distributor and ended up as a software developer," she said. "The support from the [Wales] Assembly Government has been so helpful and enabled me to take on a consultant who developed the software further - which I would not have been able to do.

"The software program makes my life much easier and has been very well received by other Dor2Dor franchise holders in the UK and I'm delighted with my first sales to Australia," added Hayley, 37.

Ieuan Wyn Jones, Wales's Minister for the Economy & Transport, said the Flexible Support for Business programme was designed to help companies at all stages of their development. "It's good to hear of a successful business not only benefiting from this support but enabling it to branch out into another field," he added.

Hayley's service covers Neath Port Talbot, Swansea, Maesteg and Carmarthenshire and she provides a consultancy service to her customers to ensure they are targeting the right markets, and offers a design and print service for leaflets.

"To run the business successfully I need to know exactly what is being delivered where, when and by whom; how long the deliveries will take and that they are delivered on the correct day," she explained.

"I have to ensure we do not post competing leaflets to the same address and need to know who is working and what rounds they are covering. I also need to manage the orders and relationships with my customers, let them know when their drop has been completed and send reports showing where they have been distributed."

Deliver-IT! has not only helped Hayley Widlake run her franchise successfully but has, she said, also opened new business opportunities.

The flexibility of the work appeals to people of all ages including many men in their 60s and 70s - the oldest is 75 who enjoys the exercise and clocks up an average of 50 miles (80km) a week.