CASE STUDY | LEADERS IN LOGISTICS BREAKFAST
30 AUGUST 2019 | LOGISTICS MIDDLE EAST http://www.logisticsmiddleeast.comdoesn’t want to pay the delivery fee because e-com platforms
offer long delivery windows for free.”
Echoing comments made in the cross-border session, Ra-
bih pointed out that another challenge for the last mile was
reconciling the growth of the KSA and USA e-com markets.
“What’s more critical is international e-commerce is speed-
ing up, cross-border is speeding up,” he says. “So the bulk of
our volume comes in from China and we’ve actually found
that it’s cheaper to get that directly into Saudi Arabia from
China than from Dubai to KSA, and it takes around the same
amount of time, 3-5 days.”
Something that Rabih and Mohamed Sleeq, chief digital
officer, Aramex both pointed out was that last mile operators
are increasingly required to wear many hats as the last mile
becomes more digital. “Sometimes I feel like we’re a bank and
logistics provider and e-commerce portal all at once,” said
Rabih, pointing out that Fetchr is not only finding the cheapest
and fastest ways of getting customers goods from China and
elsewhere, but also deploying technology to enhance the last
mile, while simultaneously handling cash-on-delivery logistics.
The theme of last mile providers essentially fulfilling the
services of a bank on behalf of clients was something that
Sleeq touched on as well. “With cash-on-delivery you’re not
just delivering the package, you’re also acting as a bank be-
cause you’re handling the cash and depositing it on behalf of
the client,” he said. “And the last mile operators have adapted
to this in the region and it’s what helps us compete with our
would-be clients, because if you look in North America and
Europe, Amazon is one of the largest disruptors in the last mile.”
“So there are challenges, but we have started a big leap in
investment in technology to transform the way we handle
package delivery, such as moving away from the dependency
on descriptive addresses, this is something that was a major
challenge that we have now overcome,” he added.
Borhene Ben Mena, CEO, Shipa Delivery agrees, saying
that technology is the key to all the challenges facing last mile
operators. “We as enablers of these e-commerce companies
we have to work with these
parameters (free and fast
shipping) and use technol-
ogy to best serve them, but
there’s also the cost element
of these things. Technology
today is abundant, I think we
can do a lot of things with
technology and can tweak it
down to what the customer
really wants and what he is
willing to pay for. I call this
finer personalization.”
For Gaurav Biswas,
founder & CEO, Trukker
Technologies, his platform
has leveraged technology
to reduce the number of
touchpoints for a product,
and therefore get it to the
customer faster. “Trukker
has deals with most of our
retail customers to delivery
the product by the follow-
ing day, our aggregation
model supports that because
we’ve been able to train and
maintain standards of deliv-
ery teams by reducing the
touchpoints.” According to
Biswas, Trukker has 250 ve-
hicles dedicated solely to the
last mile market, delivering
the types of products that
consumers would not usu-
ally transport themselves.
“It’s primarily furniture and
white goods, so our custom-
ers are happy with next-day
delivery because they’re
not going to go and buy the
fridge or washing machine
and load it themselves.”
Fadi Amoudi, founder &CEO, IQ Fullf ilment closed t he
session by emphasizing that
the last mile and the technol-
ogy has two sides to it. “There’s
what you see, and what’s behind
the scenes,” he said. “When the
product is ordered it needs to
immediately be communicated
to the warehouse and the items
need to be picked, sorted and
dispatched, it has to be perfectly
aligned to deliver the speed
that customers are demand-
ing.” According to Amoudi,
our level of technology now is
seemless enough that robots
and computers can do the job
of huma ns, even more complex
tasks like picking and sorting.
“Computers can see, comput-
ers can sense, computers can
talk,” he said.
Fadi Amoudi is offering
through the company a revolu-
tionary solution to the logistical
headaches e-commerce busi-
nesses often come up against by
eliminating a high percentage
of labour-intensive and costly
warehouse tasks, replacing
them with robots to substan-
tially improve efficiency. “We
bring together advanced tech-
nology, industry experts from
all over the world, and passion
that, when combined, will offer
the best facilities and services
in fulfilment. We believe tech-
nology will give our customers
the edge they need to launch
ahead in their industry, and
our robots are meticulously
curated and custom made for
the region.”sales manager, Dubai,^ Adrien Aoun, area
Abu Dhabi, Al Ain & Levant, SSI Schafer.