For the fourth consecutive year, Parcelly's CEO Sebastian Steinhauser was invited to join a high-profile panel at the 3PL & Supply Chain Summit Europe, this time discussing the 'Future of Urban Logistics 3.0 and the Evolution of the Last Mile' together with Collect+/Yodel, OnTheDot and PostNL.
The 3PL Summit is Europe’s annual meeting of the leading C-level 3PL executives and their supply chain counterparts, who are shaping their fulfilment strategies and discussing first & last-mile innovation and the latest technology advancements. Together with key decision makers from the likes of DHL, Adidas, UPS, JD.com, HP, Sony (to name just a few), we enjoyed a packed agenda full of presentations, panel sessions and strategic networking sessions.
The event moved from Venlo, Netherlands to Düsseldorf, Germany for the first time this year, and over the course of three days focused on digitalisation, the fast-paced growth of technology, customer convenience, building a competitive advantage and collaboration between companies within the logistics market - all topics right up our street!
Parcelly's session took place early afternoon on Day One, where our CEO Sebastian was joined by Rein Simonis, Business Development Leader from Post NL; Taher Khaliq, CTO On the Dot and Matthew Jacques, Partnership Director at Yodel / Collect+. Key topics of the panel discussion included:
- Advantages of a PUDO model: what are commercial and environmental benefits of the pick-up-drop-off network, who are the key players, and how it is evolving in the urban landscape.
- Customer behaviour and preferences: how are customer expectations shaping last mile strategies and how can retailers, suppliers and enablers prepare for continual shifts.
- Building your delivery menu: striking the right balance between options, price and customer needs to retain margins whilst improving the customer experience.
'There is not a single refined solution to achieve a beautiful last-mile customer experience, but instead retailers and carriers should aim to combine a selection of operationally efficient and cost-effective services to fit the customers ever growing needs’, Sebastian highlights when asked on how customer expectations are shaping last mile strategies, explaining further how Parcelly’s strategy will result in a better omnichannel experience for all parties involved, including the final customer. In the light of digitalisation and the market impact of retailers like Amazon or Alibaba, Sebastian added:
‘Retailers have the ever improving opportunity to leverage technologies and to achieve a seamless and personalised customer experience by integrating with best in class suppliers. This also allows retailers and carriers alike to focus on their core proposition, products, services and the customer experience to remain relevant and curate their brand specific USPs. There is no doubt that if retailers don’t act, they risk being the next set of offline businesses to fade in relevance’.
For more details and a video extract of oor live panel, please click HERE or on the image below.
Parcelly CEO & Founder, Sebastian Steinhauser, discussing 'The Future of Urban Logistics 3.0 & The Evolution of the Last Mile'
Below are some of our personal highlights of the day:
MOST CAPTIVATING SPEAKER (obviously not quoting our own...):
Markus Reckling, Managing Director, DHL: ‘We believe there is a second industrial revolution happening. B2B will be shaken up by e-commerce just as B2C has’
MOST INTERESTING PANEL SESSION (excluding Parcelly!):
Panel Discussion: B2B eCommerce – How eCommerce is impacting B2B manufacturing and logistics and how to adapt to the developments
MOST SURPRISING STAT OF THE DAY
Taher Khaliq, CTO of On The Dot: ‘38% of consumers would never shop with a retailer again following a negative delivery experience.'
FAVOURITE QUOTES OF THE DAY:
Jason Duboe SVP, Business Development, Project44: 'Companies have been reluctant to release information, but it’s really that collaboration, working together, that integration, that is needed to have a serious impact on the reduction in waste.’
Markus Reckling, Managing Director, DHL: ‘We want to reduce our C02 emissions by 70% by 2025 to reach our key goal of a becoming carbon neutral company by 2050.’
Leonardo Campelo Marins, Logistics Innovation Lead, BAT: ‘It is easy for us to create value, but how do we capture that value?’
BIGGEST LEARNING OF THE DAY
It was very interesting to see how even the largest market leaders are now pushing for change towards collaboration of companies within the industry. Companies must collaborate and integrate with one another to produce services that are better for consumers whilst having a serious impact on the reduction of waste.
As Lori Chao, Director of International Corporate Affairs at JD.com highlighted: Changing the culture towards collaboration is crucial. Retailers are no longer just retailers. Suppliers are not just suppliers. We provide more services that are not apart of our core strategy’.
Now, can we say that we're surprised by this news? Probably not, as Parcelly has pushed for open collaboration and been integrating with other players of all sizes in the market since our very beginning. And we are proud to have developed a brilliant API technology platform that can not only be integrated in under 3 days, but also provides a broad range of tailored solutions from the first to the last mile. We are extremely pleased to witness the market also shifting in this direction, for it is what is needed to reduce greenhouse emissions and increase operational efficiencies and ultimately customer satisfaction.
For additional conference insights, check our Twitter feed for snippets of the day (#SCSEU18) and eft's exclusive post show summary including all key highlights, take-aways and poll results!
Our CEO & Founder Sebastian and Content Manager Daniel at the event
Parcelly had a fantastic time at the event, discussing logistics, supply chain and e-commerce with key players in the industry. Thank you for hosting us Eye For Transport #3PLEU18, and putting on quite the show! We look forward to future events sharing our thought leadership and tech innovation on stage... #parcellove
