LOGISTICS & DISTRIBUTION
retailers to delivery partners – must start working together in a more collaborative way . This approach could be extremely effective when it comes to deliveries , with more businesses working together , where appropriate , over the last mile to reduce the existing levels of delivery traffic , particularly during the morning peak .” Meanwhile in the US , deliveries have much larger distances to cover to even be in a position to deliver last mile services . “ We need more visibility here , but not just on primary distribution ( port to delivery centre ),” notes Shome . “ Our specialism is secondary outbound distribution ( last mile ), in some cases in the US last mile is the tertiary outbound distribution because deliveries go from a factory or port to a regional DC ( delivery centre ), and then a local DC before going out for delivery . What I ’ m seeing is the visibility of that big order being broken down into a smaller order from a consumer perspective . Where in the past we ’ ve had processes that made sense to the retailer or brand , now we need to have that visibility also available to the consumer . It ’ s why the US market is slightly behind - the main issue is that primary / secondary function before local heroes complete the local last mile delivery where there ’ s no visibility or ownership of the process . This is where Centiro can really help to be a systemic enabler to get that customer expectation to be a part of the solution .” Shome expects to see an acceleration of last mile capabilities thanks to the ‘ Amazon effect ’ driving customer expectations .
Shome ’ s goal for Centiro is to continue working quietly in the background with more brands – whether wholesalers , retailer or manufacturers – that want to address b2c and b2b2c , and with logistics providers who are starting to offer a total ecommerce solution , managing inventory and taking payment on behalf of brands , rather than just fulfilment . He concludes : “ In the past supply chain was about removing costs , but today the businesses that are forging ahead see supply chain as a growth driver and enabler . So , getting their supply chain to add value requires investment and they are the ones that will do well in the future and take advantage of the speed of change we ’ re seeing in our industry around last mile .”
64 June 2018