Driving Last Mile Digital Transformation with Smart Data Capture

Digital transformation in the last mile has never been more necessary with delivery businesses facing up to several challenges on a number of fronts.

Right now, four factors are driving industry change:

• E-commerce’s continual rise.
• Rising customer expectations.
• Unpredictable demand.
• Pressure to reduce last mile costs.

At the same time, new market entrants bring an added threat to established players.

According to the Wall Street Journal, supply chain technology startups raised $24.3 billion in venture funding in the first three quarters of 2021.

Larger last mile businesses want technology to be the same dynamic force it is for start-ups. Indeed, 61% of supply chain organizations say technology provides a competitive advantage.

Many are already well advanced on their digitalization journey. Others are still in the early stages – grappling with old, disconnected systems and manual processes.

Businesses want fast-track and easily deployable solutions

Last mile businesses want flexible technology solutions that can be quickly deployed, without locking in investments or causing significant disruption.

Innovative technology, like smart data capture on smart devices, offers an accessible option to revolutionize last mile workflows.

It uses today’s technological macro-trends and moves businesses towards a more effective digital transformation strategy. It supports any stage of digital transformation and provides a platform for continuous innovation.

A good example of this is the French postal service La Poste. It started developing smart device applications for its delivery workers in 2011.

La Poste now has 18,000 delivery workers making 4m daily scans using Scandit technology.

Smartphones are becoming the number one device choice

Using state-of-the-art hardware, like smartphones, is the smart choice. It can help manage unpredictable delivery volumes with greater flexibility. All while staying future proof – unlike traditional single-function hardware scanners.

It provides:

• Scalability: easily deployable to scale fast and more cost efficiently.
• Ruggedness: there are plenty of ruggedized smart devices, and related hardware accessories, on the market to survive the toughest conditions.
• Employee satisfaction: increase worker productivity and faster deliveries.
• Flexibility: like a swiss army knife, one device is a cost-effective multi-tool
• Versatility: easily adopt new innovations like augmented reality (AR) guidance for drivers to complete tasks without complex workarounds due to long tech cycles.

Quick Scaling and Implementation

Unpredictable delivery peaks are becoming increasingly common. Fast capacity scaling of existing and future services is crucial to staying ahead of the competition.

Smart data capture on smart devices supports rapid and cost-effective scaling without disrupting operations by:

• Equipping drivers with a powerful, multi-functional tool, with the flexibility to switch between delivery tasks.
• Improving worker productivity by providing a high-performance data capture tool that can handle a wide range of tasks.
• Optimizing the opportunities of crowdsourced delivery and the gig economy to meet peak demands.
• Eliminating the need for additional, and expensive, hardware that becomes redundant during demand troughs.

Deploying BYOD and COPE device models offers hassle-free scalability

Deployment is easy with smart device applications. Particularly when used with a bring your own device (BYOD) model.

Here employees can use their own smartphone. Or a corporate-owned personally-enabled (COPE) model where a smartphone is provided to an employee but enabled for personal use.

Both models are a cost-effective way to rapidly flex any delivery or logistics workforce to cope with unexpected volume peaks.

Here are just a few employee benefits:

• Faster onboarding: intuitive software deployed on a familiar smart device means additional drivers become operational more quickly. Features like AR provide better guidance for route planning and parcel drop off sequences.
• Instant deployment: new drivers can get up and running by downloading the application straight onto their smart device. With a BYOD policy, this is instantaneous. For COPE, it’s simply a matter of arranging delivery (or pickup) of a smart device.
• More sustainable operations: lower energy and resource consumption by enabling the use of a single device for all tasks and communications (navigation, communications, scanning, and more).

Take advantage of new business opportunities

Companies are looking for solutions that are easy to deploy and scale, while enabling them to take advantage of new business opportunities. It also needs to be future proof.

That’s where Scandit comes in.

In today’s fast-paced world, it’s clear last mile businesses need high-performing technology to meet unpredictable demands now and in the future.

Smartphones equipped with Scandit Smart Data Capture can drive digital transformation throughout your company’s last mile operations.