Address verification software can help you do lots of things – ensure address integrity, streamline business operations, etc.

But one thing it’s never been able to do before now – and this is quite impressive – is help Santa Claus out.

That’s right. You read it correctly. Santa Claus.

It may be a little early in the season to be discussing old Kris Kringle, but an address verification software solutions provider has set forth a challenge to all IT personnel. Whoever is able to plan the quickest real-world route for old Mr. Claus will earn themselves £250 worth of Amazon vouchers.

Think of all the nail polish and electronics you could buy with that dough! And all for helping out old St. Nick. To enter the competition, you must enter online at www.postcodeanywhere.com/santa. The competition ends as of midnight on Dec. 17.

It’s a wholesome advertising campaign, if you think about it. Postcode Anywhere, the company sponsoring this opportunity, offers software route planning services for commercial vehicles. And what’s more commercial than Santa?!

Postcode Anywhere’s lead route optimisation developer, Richard Geary, said: “It’s unlikely that Santa would be able to make his 92 million worldwide deliveries without the help of some kind of route optimisation software. Even then, he’s going to be cutting it fine, with only a thousandth of a second to make each drop-off.

“Fortunately, we’re not challenging anyone to calculate a route for every present Santa delivers - that would be far too difficult. But even given a simple scenario for Santa’s final twenty deliveries, it will take a person some time to figure out what the optimal route would be, whereas our own software found the result within seconds.”

Geary added, “This should go to show how much businesses can really get out of modern route planning systems. Of course, almost anything is better than plotting routes by hand. Some field sales engineers still stick pins in maps, which is massively antiquated when you think about it. But one key difference between services offered by companies such as Postcode Anywhere and more traditional route planning software is that even with sophisticated route planning algorithms, real-world scenarios differ greatly from the math.”

“This is where augmented datasets such as TomTom (News - Alert) Speed Profiles come in. By taking actual readings taken from millions of TomToms around the world, the data tells us which roads are busiest at any time of day, so we can adjust routes accordingly. Postcode Anywhere’s results are also informed by other factors such as vehicle height, weight and width restrictions for HGV-friendly routes.”