Presently there are many last logistic firms doing last mile delivery from DHL, DTDC, Aramex, Delhivery, Blue Dart etc. Each of them is competing and developing their own APPs for digitization of processes.
Let’s understand what a Last Mile Delivery APP should have
Every customer wants the complete tracking of his Consignment. And in case of last mile delivery, it becomes more important for not just tracking but also who has received it, when was it received, location of delivery/geo coordinates, Proof of delivery and so on.
Understand the customer:
Yes, we need to understand the customer before designing any product.
Who are going to use this APP? what their level of tech savviness ? Do they have email ids for authentication? Are they on payroll or contract ...
Designing a Last Mile Delivery APP has it’s own challenges. Here the consumer is a Field Executive i.e. biker and it’s wrong to assume that they are tech savvy to understand the complex flows of APP. These field executives might not be having an email id for authentication. So, the APP should be simple enough. Biker should be able to login and can see only task relevant to them and perform the task.
Sometimes, we are almost forget to focus on other equally important part of this development. How to manage, monitor, incentivise all the bikers. Yes, one need to focus equally on Dashboard for managers. I will explain this in more details in later part...
Understanding the Business model:
It’s fatal to assume single size fits all in case of last Mile Delivery APP. What works for DHL might not work for Firstflight and what works wonder for Delhivery might not work for DTDC.
So, one needs to understand the business process first. Do the organization has own field executives to manage the last mile delivery or the last mile delivery is being managed by franchisee’s bikers and you manage only franchisee or you work in more complex environment where you manage both own delivery executives and Franchisee
Understand the volume per biker:
Are the field executives delivering 10 shipments per biker per day or 100 shipments per biker per day. This is a key step before designing the complete life cycle of a shipment in the delivery APP.
E.g. If you are delivering only 10 shipments in a day and that too are costly items then for you capturing receivers contact details is a necessary step. But if you are delivering 100 shipments all of parcel type then capturing receivers contact number might not be mandatory and will only increase the TAT to update the delivery of the shipment.
Similarly, is the recipient's signature on the mobile required or not ?
So, what all information of the recipient needs to be captured in the APP requires a concisous call. It can significantly affect the delivery updation performance of biker and might even discourage the biker from using the APP
Understand the Hardware requirement( BYOD or COD )
Some organizations wants to have tighter control on field executives and might be willing to invest on hardware cost. In this case you have all the control on the mobile and hence the Delivery APP can also work as MDM solution and prevent the field executive to use the handset for his personal useage. But again, organization has to bear the hardware cost.
Similarly, some of the organizations prefer to go for BYOD (Buy your own device). In this model a biker use his own handset for delivery updation using the APP. Organization can incentivise the biker accordingly. Furthermore, to have a tighter control on the device and APP one can go for IMEI and user Id control.
It’s a close call between BYOD and COD, while COD entails huge cost to organization but it gives tighter control on the hardware. Even the scanning is faster as some of the rugged hand held devices come with inbuilt infrared ray scanner which is quite fast. But again the key question is do we really need all these features? Do we really need a tighter control on handset ? Why a dedicated bar code scanner is required is the phone camera not sufficient ? What the volume per device per day we are targetting? What’s the TAT of enabling a biker with BYOD?
Understand the customer
Understand the needs of Dashboard Managers
In developing the Delivery APP what we foreget is the Manager of these bikers. The objective should be to make their life easier.
System should throw alerts for fake updation by biker, bulk updation by biker, biker not following the right track, biker idle for x hours and so on.
Furthermore, biker’s petrol reimbursement should be caluclated by the system and one should try to automate this reimbursement process. System should capture the KMs covered by the biker and display all the Key KPIs.
I have worked and identified KPIs for bikers, for franchisee, for regions/Hubs and will share in future articles
Pitfalls:
Keeps the no. of click on the APP minimum
Try to keep the entire process from selection of AWB no. to final submit just a 3 or 4 click process
E.g. select the AWB No.( generally by scanning bar code)
Don’t forget the dashboard managers.
System should generate alerts based on defined logic
