Is your fulfilment businesses struggling to meet these major requirements?

Trying to make wide reaching improvements to business operations can feel like an onerous task. As with many projects, a good place to start is by breaking a situation down into smaller components, isolating any challenges and problems you find, then looking for common causes and threads that might bind everything together.

If you face challenges, whether internal or external ones, that might be addressed by adopting new technology or new processes, you need to beware the trap of applying a veneer of solution. A great interface will go a long way to helping you work with your systems, but if any underlying problems are left untreated you will be stuck with them and their consequences.

Let’s consider a few scenarios that you may already be involved in, and if you’re not there’s every chance you’ve been involved in discussions about them.

Would you struggle to meet the demands of click and collect?

One of the big hits of the retail delivery world in recent years, click and collect has been credited with saving Christmas, thanks to the way it takes pressure off home delivery.

Ask yourself…

Are you going to be called upon to collect from the same DC, or DCS, and drop items into stores? Or maybe from different DCs, if stock-for-stores is handled differently.

Will your current system be able to process orders for the same client, regarding stock in held in different DCs?

Will you be able to process that order seamlessly, and also handle different destination data - maybe direct to store, maybe into the retailer’s own delivery network, maybe into a third party such as Collect+ or Doddle.

Signs that you’re suffering from this major issue

If you’ve been looking after a client’s fixed needs, you’d better be ready to mix things up a little, because differentiated services are becoming increasingly important. If your current system can’t cope, you can’t afford the time or the cost or the increased risk of manual errors, of having to laboriously pull information from one system and have it typed into another.

That’s not agile or flexible and you won’t be able to cope.

Would you struggle to meet… increasing customer expectations

One of the other main points of customer expectation in 2016 is better communications. While some carriers are regularly flamed on social media by unhappy customers, other - most notably DPD routinely get praised for alerting customers to the time of the delivery.

Consider...

There are two broad approaches to route management - doing it all centrally and giving drivers a fixed itinerary, or letting drivers overrule the pre-set route if they need to. The latter is where DPD scores well for being able to give 30 minute ETA windows, and the ability to attempt a second delivery later that same route… avoiding a return to depot.

Signs that you’re suffering from this major issue

Maybe that’s more than you need right now. But if the system you use is rigid and inflexible at a time when that’s the polar opposite of what customers are demanding from retailers’ delivery networks, you’re sitting on a time bomb.

Would you struggle to meet… need for speed?

As well as increased convenience, there is - of course - the ever-present pursuit of speed.

Whether it’s Argos FastTrack, AmazonPrime, Shutl, or the encroaching Uber-isation of delivery, the fact is a growing army of customers have started to become accustomed to receiving their online purchases on the day they ordered them.

Remember

Unlike standard next-day services, same-day deliveries (which may involve a premium charge being levied) start every day with a fresh, blank sheet of paper, waiting for the orders to materialise. If that isn’t scary enough, you’ll also need to have a data feed that can cope with near real-time transfers of information, process the relevant data, and make a sensible assessment of which of your operators is going to make the drop.

If your Plan B has always been to print things off and do the add-ons by hand, in a same-day and same-hour world you are going to be left in the dust.

Signs that you’re suffering from this major issue

Look at the kinds of delivery service customers are most likely to pay a premium for, and the ones that will garner retailer loyalty. That’s the future you need to hitch your wagon to. There is already lots of competition in that arena, but the drawbridge hasn’t been pulled up yet. But what it means is that you have to be proactive and start talking to your retailers about their strategic aims for delivery, and making sure your business is properly equipped to help them achieve their aims.

Change is the only constant

The pace of change in the fulfilment industry today is fast, but it is only ever going to get faster. As we’ve seen ever increasing customer expectations, the need for ever more immediate delivery options are putting increased pressure on fulfilment businesses.

In order to ride out these challenges and survive those in the fulfilment industry must look at their IT systems, consider whether they are up to scratch and, if not, avoid the temptation to create patches and, instead, invest in a fully integrated system. Systems that are up to the challenges that the modern world of fulfilment poses.

• Look at your ability to support a click and collect service.
• Consider your ability to support a variety of delivery options.
• Assess wether your current IT systems are up to scratch, and avoid ‘quick fixes’.

See what lies ahead for the fulfilment industry and how you can ensure the success of your business. Download the first of our two part guide, Fulfilment in the UK, Challenges, Solutions and Future Proofing.