Is Your Last Mile Delivery Software Mobile Ready?

The last decade has been extremely crucial for the E-Commerce industry in India. We have briskly perceived major technological variations, undoubtedly due to the extremely dynamic nature of this industry. It’s been like yesterday when people assured that the retail industry would surely washout if it shifts to an E-commerce or e-store model. Apparently, with time, the long-standing misinterpretations have been proved erroneous, after an exponential growth in the E-Commerce industry.

With an amass evolution of the new technology adopters like smartphones, Tablets, and Phablets, the E-tailers were forced to shift from web-based to a more mobile-friendly platform. A recent article in Economic Times points out that, mobile internet users will grow to 120 Million much more compared to personal computers. Referring to these figures, Shamik Sharma CTO, Myntra, quoted, “Currently, close to 50 percent of our business is driven by M-commerce and with the launch of our Mobile App across all platforms (Android, iOS and Windows), we expect this figure to grow to 70 percent by end of this fiscal,” and further concluded that,

“Mobile is now one of our most strategic channels for driving revenue and customer acquisition. We are investing to build strong technology and marketing platforms that allows us to accelerate our growth on mobile” — Courtesy Economic Times

How does this impact on the logistics and supply chain ecosystem, especially the last mile delivery?

The major shift of E-Commerce to M-Commerce paved the way for a highly complex logistics and supply chain ecosystem. Heavy technological elevation has progressively become an unavoidable necessity from being just a mere requirement. M-Commerce entities are struggling hard especially with their Last Mile Delivery Software. The nature of this industry has turned highly competitive, forcing the M-commerce players to adopt a more customer-centric approach. Nevertheless, the customers’ expectations have now become more categorical, when it concerns their orders and deliveries.

Customers demand to track their orders on the go, they are keener on changing the delivery locations, they want instant notifications on their order delivery status and they want all the essential details of the delivery guy for co-ordination and so much more. Since we call it the age of information; we need to be prompt at providing information at every step, making it all the more difficult for the last mile delivery management Software.

So, how can you upgrade your last mile delivery structure to cater to this dynamic M-commerce age?

To answer this question efficiently, create a checklist of prerequisites to analyze and evaluate your logistics and field service management ecosystem, emphasizing more on the last mile delivery. Whether you have an in-house Logistics setup or a 3PL partner, refer to the set of questions mentioned below which will facilitate further evaluation –

1. Do you have a responsive mobile interface ready for customers to track their order?

2. What is the current Logistics and supply chain scenario of your company to meet the M-commerce demand?

3. Do you have the right SaaS-based technologies tracking and analyzing point to point package movements?

4. Are you leveraging machine learning driven analytics to improve your estimated time of arrivals (ETA’s)?

5. Do you have a real-time tracking solution in place, to track your line and long haul?

6. Have you optimized your last mile delivery routes for quick deliveries?

7. Do you have a cloud-based technology in place to Geo-tag and Geo-fence the delivery zones for the last mile delivery milk runs?

8. Can you track your delivery associates in real time through smartphone apps, when they are out for delivery?

Systematically countering all these questions will generate enough data for you to strategize and streamline your logistics and field service management ecosystem and optimize your long/line haul, transport fleet, inter and intra-city delivery routes, last mile delivery, workforce management and much more…

So, think again, is your logistics and field service management ecosphere ready for the M-commerce revolution?