Takeaways and Insights from Post+Parcel Expo 2021

| Post, Parcel & Express

Takeaways and Insights from Post+Parcel Expo 2021

On October 12th, Vienna’s Reed Messe Wien Exhibition and Congress Center opened its doors to people from across the post, parcel & express (PPE) industry for the long-awaited in-person Post+Parcel Expo 2021.

Scandit was excited to engage with post and parcel industry stakeholders who had gathered to explore new technology solutions that could help address the unprecedented growth in e-commerce and last mile delivery challenges.

Scandit hosted a stand with their latest computer vision technology demos, while in-house PPE expert Ulrich Hieber delivered a keynote address entitled ‘The Last Mile Balancing Act’, in which he explored how the right technology approach can help alleviate the conflicting challenges faced by last mile delivery companies.

In this blog, we reflect on a successful three-day expo and share some of Scandit’s main take-aways and insights from the event including our latest research findings.

Scandit's Keynote at Post+Parcel Expo 2021

Balancing demand for quick yet cheaper deliveries

‘The Last Mile Balancing Act’ is a sentiment that epitomizes the core challenge facing last mile delivery businesses, as they grapple to find the right balance between customer experience, service levels and cost.

In his talk on the Post+Parcel Expo stage, Ulrich Hieber expanded on why last mile delivery has become a paradox of increasing customer expectations (faster, flexible on time delivery) yet at lower cost and even for free.

With increased demand, rising customer expectations and pressure on the bottom line, Ulrich explained why things need to change in the last mile in order to deliver more for less. Technology holds the key to fruitful change and mastering the paradox.

One device that does it all will drive change

Giving drivers smartphones with scanning-enabled delivery apps allows them to do all delivery tasks with just one device (routing, communications, scanning, taking photos, and signatures).

Ulrich outlines why with smartphone scanning, there’s no need to have dedicated devices anymore. Switching to smartphones reduces hardware costs and the total cost of operation by up to two-thirds. And, by allowing drivers to use their own device through a BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) model, scaling operations and onboarding gig workers, to meet peak demands is much faster.

Scandit turns any smart device with a camera into a high-performance data capture and visualization tool which enables PPE businesses to make operational processes more efficient without losing focus on customer experience.

As Ulrich shows with a single scan, drivers can capture multiple barcodes and search & find parcels easily within depots and vans. An augmented reality (AR) overlay delivers important information to a driver’s screen like changes to delivery timings or location, enabling the driver to deliver a better customer service. And by adding ID scanning, drivers can ensure age and identity verification making proof of delivery more secure.

Watch the full P+P Expo webinar on demand here.

Scandit latest technology in action at Post+Parcel Expo

The event was also a great opportunity to demonstrate ways in which smartphone scanning can help last mile drivers and their customers. On the stand, demos of Scandit’s latest technology showed how to boost driver efficiency and customer satisfaction:

Loading the Van: A smartphone enabled with Scandit MatrixScan AR, allows drivers to scan multiple boxes in one go. Information is delivered in real-time on their device screen to verify they have loaded the correct parcels, and in which order they should be delivered.

Search & Find: Drivers can easily identify a single parcel in their vans also using the powerful MatrixScan AR. Real-time data is fed back to the device screen. This could be customer details, real-time delivery information or the next items due for delivery.

Age-Verified Delivery: Scandit’s ID capture solution ensures a sensitive or age-restricted delivery is authorised by the right person. It verifies that the recipient is eligible to receive the parcel by enabling their smartphone to scan an ID document.

Join Scandit’s Director of Solutions Consulting Ben Hempel as he gives a tour of the stand and shows these three use cases in action:

Sharing what’s on the horizon for the last mile

With increased e-commerce demand set to stay, delivery volumes are only likely to grow.

Against this backdrop, the Post+Parcel Expo was the ideal time to share Scandit’s latest PPE insights and how deploying scanning-enabled smartphones is a smart way to mitigate the last mile delivery challenges:

Is Your Last Mile Technology Fit for Purpose?’: In this Scandit research report, post and parcel business leaders share their biggest challenges (last mile inefficiencies, cost reduction and scaling operations), technology choices and how they are performing.

Dive into the full research report

Driving Differentiation in Last Mile Delivery’: This C-suite ebook explores the megatrends shaping logistics and how transformative mobile technologies, like mobile computer vision can give PPE businesses the competitive advantage.

Read the ebook

Today, more than 3.5 million last mile drivers are using Scandit technology in their daily operations. That equates to more than 5 billion parcels delivered each year with the assistance of smartphone scanning.

If you’d like to know more about how Scandit could help you fast-track your last mile operations, while enhancing customer service, get in touch with us.