Innovations in Last Mile Delivery

[Music] today on in the know the challenge of competing the last mile we talked to a number of experts on how they're fulfilling new customer demands for on-time fast and easy delivery here's what they had to say the challenges in the retail world to provide customers quick delivery of the items they're looking for are are really twofold i think first is building the capability to provide a good user experience on the front end to purchase items on their phones and other mobile devices which many retailers have excellent experiences on and some are still building and the challenge there is not just building that capability but ensuring that you are visible not just in your own application but many others so customers can find you the other challenge is building that network out to provide that fast delivery many companies over the years have built excellent ecommerce warehouses across the country where they were able to provide to three or four day delivery to an entire country now they're focused on improving that speed of delivery often leveraging the stores they often have down the street from customers so you're taking a facility that was designed for foot traffic customers at one time and now also using that network and that inventory to get the material to the customers doorstep part of those challenges include understanding urban congestion understanding the implications of that last mile and how it affects their operations so if a customer ordered an item and they're expecting it to come within third of 6:00 in the afternoon for say when something happens it could be bad weather it could be a flat tire for the for the truck the suppliers need to understand that I need to communicate it back to the consumer so the consumers are not in the dark I think there are still tremendous challenges for retailers both large and small conquering the last mile I think you know especially with items that are large or big and bulky like a refrigerator or in a bathtub or tractor people want to buy these things online now like actually getting those to the home is incredibly difficult and getting them at a quality of service level across the United States to any zip code is also very difficult the retailers have very complicated networks of carriers that they need to leverage in order to provide that level of service and to keep the service consistent and high quality is incredibly difficult so chaos of of Technology convergence you have systems that are now getting archaic you have companies that are coming to the realization that the speed of you know juggernauts like Amazon and uber are creating these ripple effects and what's happening is every company in that chain value chain is having to respond and retailers aren't waiting so as the retailer's start to see shrinkage in revenues you have smaller companies starting to get into the act with technologies and the larger companies having to switch and say is my technology that's in-house really as powerful as I need it to be as quick as I need it to be so we're seeing the shift that's happening and there's two trends that come out very clearly people are throwing money at technologies without understanding it and the second trend is people are throwing money at certain verticals without understanding them and so we see opportunities that will become ripe for those companies that have invested a little bit of time and know how to see exactly what value add they provide they can't be all things to all people the state of last mile delivery in the US I still think is emerging in terms of what services customers truly want if you listen to anyone in the industry talk now they talk about customer expectations changing now what's the speed of delivery people expect now well obviously it's faster than it used to be well how fast do they truly expect something delivered without a surcharge and what are they willing to pay a surcharge for and if you look in the industry right now I do think folks feel it's appropriate to pay a surcharge for a hot meal that's delivered to your home you know please pick up that item and bring it to my house and there's an expectation that often restaurants are food delivery services many of whom are in some of the conferences I've been at take on a charge and be make that very transparent there's other types of last mile delivery where folks expect the fast delivery same day or overnight for example to be very customized very transparent but also be included in the cost of the purchase whether that's a large bulk purchase from great warehouse warehouse warehouse stores across the country or maybe electronics purchase where the customer has spent a larger amount of money and they expect that fast delivery to be included in that cost so customer expectations today when it comes to last mile fulfillment have been pretty much set by the Ebers and Amazon's alike they dictated the the rules of the game there's a new standard customers no longer want to be waiting in the dark I knowingly when their service provider or package is going to arrive customers are not going to accept anymore sitting you know between 12 and 5 waiting for a service unknowingly if that service is going to arrive and having their entire day ruined just for purchasing something and and waiting for it to come so we're seeing that in the last mile today that really impacts the way organizations deliver and do business Lotus is really starting on a very steep incline in terms of its popularity and its acceptance changing consumer behavior etc the only thing that I can see that might slow that rapid rate of growth down some people been talking about drones quite frankly I can't see how drones through where there's so many different problems and after all you still have to be home to accept the goods and the beauty the life is is you don't have to be home you collected when you want to from wherever you want suicide absolute convenience so quite frankly I might have rose-colored sunglasses on but I can't see anything slowing out growth down so disruption in the last mile is has many choices you can have a delivery to the home you can have a click and Collect option you can have a like click buy online and click a pick up in the store you can have a lager solutions you have many different choices the last mile delivery is is a process that has been around for as long as we've been doing delivery but at this point we're starting to integrate new technologies in it so you see things like companies like uber are actually he doing an on-demand type of atmosphere and then as well as just a number of automated services automated systems that are starting to tie into kind of existing in nature and the existing processes that have already been in place and sort of make them more streamlined more cost-effective things like that delivery to the doorstep is a phrase that I think really means improving my the convenience of my day oftentimes that's delivering something to my home but it also can mean consolidating my errands into one location whether that's a delivery Locker whether that's curbside pickup as you see many come many retailers doing partnering with technology companies so I think in in when we use the term and delivery to my doorstep and home delivery we need to make sure we encompass all of the other innovative aspects about improving the amount of time or increasing the amount of time I get to spend home and reducing the amount of time I spend aggregating the things I need so that last mile of delivery today provides a lot of options to consumers and to suppliers from the consumers point of view you can have the service delivered by next day maybe even same-day delivery and maybe even a couple of days and they're provided with options that are you know given to them by their by their retailers now from the retailer's perspective they're given also several options either using their own fleet of drivers using crowdsource therefore drivers or maybe using different couriers to provide these these options and for the current for their for the suppliers what important to maintain that that service level they promise to their customers for those different types of delivery options and again that that model of of elastic delivery really comes into play whether it's in malls or retail areas where you have people going to pick up a certain amount of they're going to pick up groceries and they have an also a locker of another retailer that delivered an item there or whether it's consolidating retail orders and pickups by certain companies that can bring them all to one location you pick them all up in one spot as well as you know let's let's not forget some of the great technologies coming out or we'll see how they play whether it's drones or some of the robots that are delivering in people's neighborhoods in the near future so we're seeing service providers they actually providing more visibility into their operations they providing customers the opportunity to have a voice a to comment on the experience to communicate not only with the dispatches but also with their drivers and really get engaged and feel unique feel part of that experience and we're seeing a lot of customers out there a lot of a sorry a providers and meeting those consumers and engaging them really from the entire supply chain point of view yeah I think they're they're tremendous number of a tremendous amount of innovation that's happening in this space in the last mile and you know drones lockers these sort of things are interesting but from my perspective the innovation is gonna happen more on your mobile device than anywhere else as a consumer that is your epicenter of everything that you do today and that's the device that you want to be able to use to get information to be able to make changes etc and so well I think there'll be many many interesting innovative stuff coming down the pike all that's going to be controlled through your phone and the customer or consumer is going to expect that the phone allows them to do whatever they want to do and so if it's you know they want to schedule that delivery or they want to you know get them get the drone to come to this place versus that place it's all gonna happen through their mobile device well at the moment it's still growing however we've filled a lot of clients around the world who are placing them outside their carriage bricks and mortar stores to increase their trading hours to effectively 24/7 but they were also found large residential apartments in car parts universities subway stations it's unlimited really we've been placing our e-commerce lockers around the world around about six years now placed outdoors and indoors they've been able to get through very harsh summers and very severe winters in areas such as the Americas so Canada has really embraced that lockers enormous Lee USA is just starting off South America they're already been placed down there but particularly through Asia Australia we've had them round about six years now and throughout parts of Asia so click and Collect is working in a way that you go and shop on our website and it's distributed to a collection point and at the collection point you simply come at your own choice and pick up the products you're purchased well in terms of geographies I would say like our focus in the beginning it was suburban areas and now we focus on urban areas the biggest challenges are urban areas for everybody like the retail US and I bring it into a corner hotel to have concierge who can receive the stuff and also consumers how did it take delivery when you live in an urban area so we are focusing a lot on urban areas right now making high street collection points for people and even into office towers and condo towers will make a clicking collect points I think the future of Locker technology is that it will bring so many different communities together rather be the transport arms the post offices the retailers a little bit like ATMs automatic teller machines so automatic teller machines you may remember they started off as Islands each bank had their own system and there was very frustrating for consumers where they had to to pay extra to take money out from a different bank that's so forth however I see that the future lock is winning all those communities together with one central system so robots are kind of all the talk right now in a number of fields there especially last mile delivery because the last model of delivery is about 60% of the cost of the total delivery for any sort of product you product you get so whether or not that be packages groceries things like that so robots allow that entire process to be brought down to a cost that is actually achievable by the consumer something that people are interested in paying something people are more readily they you know prepare to actually move forward with I mean I see a wave of innovation that's gonna go on for years and years so I think it's not gonna there I don't predict that there will be discontinuous change in terms of one day we wake up and everything's different but I think when you look back across five or even ten years things are gonna look very different you know back in time if you will and so I think is just going to be a slow and steady evolution worried you know new stuff is coming out on almost a monthly basis and then in five years we'll realize that a revolution has occurred it might look as a radical change hey that's coming but eventually it will become the standard as it is today you're expecting visibility into process it's a standard if you're not providing that kind of a service today you're already behind so there you have it expert comment on completing the last mile now you're in the know

Channel: SupplyChainBrain

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Id: rzdeE0oiJ4U

Length: 14min 3sec (843 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 23 2020