Is your final mile planning strategy lacking innovation?

As e-commerce demands continue to grow, the logistics sector remains at a higher constant throughout the whole year. With large peaks around the Christmas period and Black Friday upping year-on-year volumes, how can the logistics sector keep up?

An area under the spotlight for companies and a fundamental aspect of any successful e-commerce solution is the final mile delivery. Ensuring a high level of customer service and flexibility, along with cost control, takes a large element of strategic planning.
By the time final mile stage is reached, a lot of hard work has been done – companies cannot afford to throw all this hard work away by failing to complete the final mile successfully. The entire supply chain is planned strategically, the final mile solution is the point at which all this hard work comes to fruition in reaching the end user. It’s vitally important that end-to-end planning doesn’t stop once the delivery has been handed over to the final mile courier. In fact, this is one of the most crucial points in the process. A reoccurring trend across the logistics industry is ensuring your courier or outsourced provider is truly living the company values. They are the face of the business.

Top skills for final mile planning

Key skills and experience that your business needs during the early planning stages.
Accuracy 
Accuracy is crucial when planning for the final mile delivery. Getting to the correct location and storing the delivery in the correct place, which to add, has more customer flexibility than ever before, is crucial to ensuring that your customer has a satisfactory experience with your business. Secondly, it is important for route planning to ensure that products are delivered strategically, in a way that provides the most sensible, economical and cost-effective route.
Analytical thinking
Having an analytical mindset and approach to logistics is always an advantage, and it’s especially useful in the final mile delivery process. Being sure that your business covers fuel costs, labour and load capacity, and areas for delivery proficiently, is crucial. This skill enables professionals to problem-solve on the job, foresee challenges earlier, and react to make the necessary changes needed to run a smoother operation.
Customer first mindset
The customer experience is everything, especially with the power of the internet and a variety of customer review platforms readily available. A poor customer experience will likely result in a loss of revenue from returns, complaints, word of mouth, or lack of repeat business. Having a customer first mindset to ensure that every touch point on your final mile journey is perfectly executed, is vitally important. From handling ‘could not deliver’ parcels through to offering flexible and tailored delivery options, including regular updates on their product location and estimated delivery times. 
While these skills are fundamental to the smooth running of the final mile, the growing pressure on the sector means that the individuals also need to be highly adaptable. Innovative thinking can be the driver behind a successful final mile.

The importance of innovation in final mile planning

Innovation is crucial in all businesses, as it enables people to formulate new ideas and to think differently about their role and the processes within the business. Specifically, in the logistics sector, we have already seen innovative ideas do remarkable things. For example, delivery station lockers, drone deliveries, delivery apps, and even keys that allow couriers to unlock customer front doors for safer parcel delivery and customer convenience. 
It is important to consider what innovation has already done for the sector when considering the future of logistics. If innovation remains at the forefront, then the possibilities for professionals are truly endless.

Assessing a candidate’s innovation skills

To push innovation in your business, sometimes you need to hire great new talent to get the process started and to inspire your current team. In an interview, it can be difficult to see whether or not someone is innovative. 
Here are some things you can try in your interview process to test how innovative an individual is.
  1. Brainstorming and problem-solving exercises on a relevant topic.
  2. Ask candidates to bring an example of when they have been innovative in previous roles, and how this has impacted an organisation or piece of work they have done.
  3. Look at their past experience; gathering a good understanding of their previous companies operations can help you to see the types of working environments they have come from.
A tool that many companies are benefiting from directly through PageGroup is our Hinterview platform. Hinterview enables clients to formulate a list of core questions asked by our consultants to potential candidates. Recorded on market-leading video technology across a wide range of topics, it provides an insight into candidate’s personalities, cultural fit, and assesses skills including innovation. 

An innovative culture in final mile planning

An innovative culture in a business doesn’t happen overnight. If you are looking to change how your business operates then you need to grow the innovative culture throughout your teams and encourage this way of thinking. Operating a ‘no idea is a bad idea’ way of thinking will encourage your staff to be open with their new ideas and you will find that they grow in confidence as a result. Carrying out team and department exercises that are aimed at continuous improvement will give everyone the opportunity to improve their skill set and to adopt that ever-important never stop learning attitude.
If you are interested in recruiting for innovation in your business, get in touch with one of our specialist recruitment consultants today. We can help you to identify the professionals you need to drive your business forward.
Matthew Simpson
Manager, East Midlands 
Michael Page and Page Personnel Logistics
T: +44 115 934 8683
M: 07810 181786