Uber’s success in disrupting transportation has led to enormous VC funding of “Uber-for-X” businesses where smartphones are used to connect customers with nearby workers on demand. A number of startups have entered the same-day / same-hour delivery market with the intent of fundamentally transforming how we shop and eat.
Read MoreLast mile delivery is going to change significantly over the next few decades. A sea-change is upon the Logistics industry and as is often the case when an industry is about to be turned upside-down, there are a number of converging factors, both societal and technological, that are accelerating the pace of change.
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The Sydney Morning Herald reported today that Amazon is looking for warehouse space in Sydney's west. Reminds me of a great quote from Richard Goyder, Wesfarmer Managing Director, when speaking of the threat Amazon poses to Australia retailers:
"Amazon will eat all our breakfasts, lunches and dinners"
I couldn't agree more; retailers in Australia should be worried, very worried. According to a recent survey, more than 50% of U.S. online shoppers begin their product searches on Amazon.com which is really bad news for U.S. retailers. I would expect the same results here.
Read MoreBloomberg Businessweek recently released a report by Devin Leonard, entitled “Will Amazon Kill FedEx?”. Fred Smith, CEO FedEx from the report:
Concerns about industry disruption continue to be fueled by fantastical -- and I chose this word carefully -- articles and reports,” Smith said on a conference call with analysts and investors. “In all likelihood, the primary deliverers of e-commerce shipments for the foreseeable future will be UPS, the U.S. Postal Service and FedEx.
Reading these words, my mind can't help but track back to to this statement by Research in Motion Co-CEO Jim Balsillie in 2007 following the release of the first iPhone:
Read MoreLast week Uber announced that they would begin testing self-driving cars in Pittsburgh and that they had acquired Otto, a 90-person start-up that focuses on technology for self-driving trucks. Otto develops sensors and radars that can be quickly outfitted onto existing trucks. Otto’s goal (for now) is for the truck to be fully autonomous on the highways while the driver rests, and the driver takes over for exits and driving in cities. The technology is pretty compelling as...
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Walmart acquired jet.com, an aggressive eCommerce player founded in 2014 to take on Amazon, for $3.3 bn. Walmart is a distant second to Amazon in online sales in the US - $14 billion compared to $63 billion for Amazon. More troubling, however, has been Walmart's declining year over year eCommerce sales growth. With eCommerce, Walmart has adapted an Omni-channel fulfillment strategy which makes sense on paper - 90% of Americans live within 15 miles of a Walmart store so the stores can serve as eCommerce fulfillment centers for the last mile delivery...
Read Moreravel time by warehouse pickers typically accounts for 50-60% of the total order fulfillment costs and considering that Amazon ships upwards of 5 billion items per year , optimizing the order fulfillment process has an enormous impact on Amazon’s bottom line. In 2012, Amazon acquired Kiva for $775 million and rolled out robots in their distribution centers in 2014...
Read MoreSpoiler alert, it's Amazon there are no markups, and the service is free to Amazon Prime members. May the force be with Amazon's competitors.
Evan Hoopfer, writing for the Dallas Business Journal:
“Amazon is expanding its produce delivery services in Dallas...The service is part of Amazon’s “Prime Now,” which delivers goods in hours.”
What do you do when faced with a vastly stronger competitor? You team up. This seems like a no-brainer especially for small to mid-size retailers. The breadth and depth of knowledge required to master e-commerce is staggering and not many retailers have the resources, technology, or logistics infrastructure to compete.
Techgistics provides analysis on emerging technologies and startups in logistics and supply chain, focusing specifically on Blockchain, eCommerce, and last mile delivery problems.
Over the last ten years, online shopping has experienced slow and steady growth from a relatively small group of consumers who frequently shopped online. As a percent of total retail sales, online shopping has increased about 1% per year to 16% of total retail sales in 2019. It’s been a clear trend that was widely expected to continue sustained, albeit somewhat slow growth.
Fast forward to 2020, and to see how Covid-19 is reshaping purchasing habits…
The fact that supply chains and logistics companies already have a vast amount of data and processes that could be turned into actionable insights rather quickly, just means that there is potential for AI to take supply chains on a journey from very good to perfect.
Artificial intelligence techniques allow for vast amounts of data to be analyzed, categorized, and then turned into actionable insights with reduced or no human input. As an example,
I entered the 2017 DHL innovation challenge which was a contest to apply the principles of the sharing economy to logistics. There were more than 60 entries and the winner of this year’s challenge was Parcelly, a UK startup that provides on-demand collection points to resolve the problems associated with failed deliveries.
Below is the full written proposal and the video I submitted for the challenge. My idea was called Flexi-Deliv, a crowdsourced final mile hub and delivery platform that aims to create a hassle-free delivery experience for online shoppers through a sharing community of local businesses, neighbors, and couriers.
I've dug into Amazon's patent filings over the last five years and mined the patent titles for keywords related to inventory and logistics. Patents range from the mundane like optimization of packaging sizes or allocating regional inventory to reduce out-of-stock costs to the more technologically advanced like autonomous vehicles, mobile ground-based fulfillment centers, and drones. At the far end of the spectrum are topics that appear to be more the realm of sci-fi fantasy like underwater warehouses, airborne warehouses, and beehive-like warehouses, but hey, who knows.
Several recent studies have suggested that nearly half of all jobs are susceptible to automation in the next 20 years. Robots and artificial intelligence are poised to displace jobs in various industries, and the logistics industry is highly vulnerable to job loss. Recently notable tech leaders have made statements in regards to how to deal with automation displacing jobs. Bill Gates has argued for a robot tax to recapture money that displaced workers would have paid as income tax. Elon Musk advocates for a universal basic income...
Everyone knows that Amazon dominates the U.S. eCommerce retail market, but exactly how well are they doing? According to data from Slice Intelligence, which scanned more than 1 million digital shopping receipts, Amazon accounted for 46 percent of all online spending in the U.S. in the final weeks leading up to Christmas. Overall, Amazon took 39% of all online spending from Thanksgiving to Christmas.
Making predictions in technology, even just one year out, are generally an exercise in futility, so this really isn't a forecast for 2017, but more a list of trends that I am interested in and keeping my eye on. Technology is rarely released according to plan and surprises can come from many directions. However, it makes sense to keep tabs on what’s coming and it's also great fun to think about what’s coming next. Here's what I will be looking out for in 2017:
Uber’s success in disrupting transportation has led to enormous VC funding of “Uber-for-X” businesses where smartphones are used to connect customers with nearby workers on demand. A number of startups have entered the same-day / same-hour delivery market with the intent of fundamentally transforming how we shop and eat.
Last mile delivery is going to change significantly over the next few decades. A sea-change is upon the Logistics industry and as is often the case when an industry is about to be turned upside-down, there are a number of converging factors, both societal and technological, that are accelerating the pace of change.
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Future-proofing your warehouse operation is essential in a world where e-commerce is booming and customer expectations are sky-high. A multi-agent orchestration platform can be a powerful tool in this regard, enabling you to connect and coordinate different agents and systems in real-time to optimize workflow and maximize efficiency. But what are the key features you should be looking for in such a platform? In this post, we'll explore the critical capabilities that can help you unlock the full potential of a multi-agent orchestration platform and stay ahead of the curve in the competitive world of warehouse operations