RouteQ, a provider of cloud-based, AI-driven solutions for route planning, announced its participation at Seamless Middle East 2022, the regional eCommerce industry’s trade event, which takes place at Dubai World Trade Center on May 31 and June 1.
The participation will closely follow RouteQ’s February announcement of the opening of its Dubai operations in preparation for expansion across the Middle East — a move taken to plug the critical gaps in the region’s delivery-fleet operations.
“Seamless 2022 is the ideal venue to broach the many issues facing delivery-focused businesses across the region,” said Vladimir Nesterov, General Manager for RouteQ in the Middle East.
“At a time when many supply chains have been broken or modified, the pressure is on retailers, e-grocers, and logistics companies to improve metrics around last mile delivery — the most expensive part of the delivery process. Last-mile delivery can account for as much as 25% of an order’s total cost. But unlike the first mile, it can be significantly optimized with help from technology.”
Last-mile delivery logistics can be very fragile when not organized thoroughly. Factors like wrong addresses, traffic congestion, lack of parking, and poor communication with the courier can easily have a negative effect on the delivery process.
RouteQ manages more than 300 such parameters with special tags describing the conditions for vehicle routing, such as the presence of equipment in the vehicle for a particular parcel, as well as complex work and rest schedules for couriers. These special tags also overlay with the most precise traffic forecast to further increase efficiency.
These attributes have allowed the company to establish a track record for improving per-unit economics — with help from RouteQ, 20% more orders can be delivered with the same size fleet (or even a smaller fleet), and up to 98% of the deliveries will arrive on time. The company’s support for sustainable delivery-fleet management has made it a draw for logistics operations around the world, with RouteQ customers now including Coca-Cola HBC, Unilever, istegelsin and IKEA.
“RouteQ’s success lies in our focus on technology excellence,” Nesterov explained. “Our founding team honed their talents at giants like DHL and Maersk. They quickly came to see the potential of AI to forecast traffic congestion for urban deliveries at a time when home-based shopping was on the rise. Today we have teams working in six countries.”
At Seamless Middle East 2022, RouteQ will demo its solutions from its last-mile optimization SaaS platform. Its automatic route-planning system uses historical traffic data and precise arrival-time predictions to optimize routes for customers, accounting for conditions such as freight dimensions, transport capacity, acceptable delivery-time margins, and the need for driver rest periods.
On Day One of Seamless Middle East 2022, RouteQ will host a panel on the rise of hybrid-delivery models, used by companies to combine outsourced and in-house delivery capacity to effectively meet transportation and human resource demands.
The session will cover issues such as how to choose between in-house, outsourced, and hybrid models and the quandary of in-house versus outsourced fleets about maintaining a balance with delivery-management technologies. Discussions will also touch upon which metrics can be used to flag flaws in delivery models. Speakers at the session will include C-level executives from across the retail, e-commerce, and logistics segments including Dharmin Ved, CEO of 6th Street and Vladimir Nesterov, GM for Middle East at RouteQ.
“Seamless is the ideal platform for discussing a range of issues affecting the e-commerce arena, and at RouteQ, we believe we have an integral role to play in supporting organizations as they overcome these challenges. We are here to show how any business can keep the promises it makes to its customers, and deliver on time, every time,” concluded Nesterov.