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DA Systems, a market leader in the provision of mission critical sameday courier software, has announced a unique offer to support sameday couriers affected by the collapse of City Link.

It is giving any courier with evidence of previous employment by City Link the opportunity to use Express completely free of charge and start trading as an independent courier business. Express is a new, cloud based software solution designed to run every aspect of a sameday courier operation, from job pricing and scheduling, to delivery route planning, with real-time parcel tracking and proof of delivery notifications to customers.

DA Systems’ offer of free access to Express for ex-City Link workers is worth over £400 and available to any courier presenting evidence of former employment or self-employment with City Link and wishing to establish a micro courier business. In return, they will have the opportunity to use Express completely free, for the first two months.

 

Using ACI Express will allow a courier to have access to a single, centralised and integrated system that has been specially designed to meet the changing needs of the time sensitive courier industry.  As a cloud based solution, no upfront investment is required, the system is web-based and can be accessed by any connected device.

“The advent of courier networks and steady demand for e-commerce fulfillment means there has never been a better time to set up in businesses and take control of their future. Rather than working for a single delivery provider, it might be more prudent to spread the risk and become self-employed. With free access to Express, they have the opportunity to give it a try for two months.” says David Upton, CEO of DA Systems.

Latest estimates suggest the courier market is now worth £7bn annually, which can be well served by entrepreneurial independent couriers.

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The importance of wearables is on the rise but this brings with it new security and privacy risks writes DA Systems David Upton...

A report recently issued by PWC suggested that wearables adoption will mirror the phenomenal rise of tablets in the enterprise. Apparently a fifth of American adults already own a wearable tech device and additional sales could top 130 million units in 2018*. Enterprise vendors are watching these predictions carefully and starting to anticipate their arrival into the workplace with dedicated platforms, such as Salesforce1.

Although many applications being developed are for medical workers and white-collar users, it is not difficult to see why wearables also offer great potential for the same-day delivery industries. They provide a significant opportunity for achieving service improvements through more seamless interaction with customers. Added to this, proof of delivery is more secure and evidence to refute claims of lost or damaged consignments can be captured automatically, potentially without the customer even realising it.  Customer service benefits aside, wearables also support hands-free working, which means productivity and efficiency levels can be further improved on existing rates achieved from using ‘traditional’ mobile devices.

But while the benefits of enterprise wearables are well documented, privacy and security remain the chief apprehensions among consumers. In PWC’s survey, 82 percent of respondents said they feared "wearable technology would invade their privacy" and 86 percent said they thought wearables would make them more vulnerable to security breaches. Privacy and security are serious threats that IT departments need to control carefully if wearables are to make the impact analysts are predicting in the enterprise space.

Below are five key threats to be aware of when considering how wearables might impact a sameday delivery business:

Security:

Top of the list of risks is security, which is as much an issue for the service provider as it is for the end customer. This is because devices like Google Glass are able to record and transmit images of anything in the wearer’s field of vision. Implementing and enforcing a robust security and privacy policy will be essential for an organisation to protect itself adequately from threats and avoid the prospect of litigation. This should be relatively straightforward to implement for most forward thinking organisations and an extension of their existing social media and BYOD policies.

Data theft:

A big part of the attractiveness of wearable devices comes from the ability to process and exchange data in real-time. Herein lies the security risk, because if they are stolen or intercepted, personal data could be compromised. The US National Security Agency highlighted this potential problem at a recent conference. Using enterprise-grade encryption to both protect data from eavesdropping and verify the identity of any connected device would be good first steps to prevent wireless attacks. Features like an automatic wipe will also help and reduce the attractiveness of stolen devices.

One of the other issues with wearables is that it is relatively straightforward for someone to ‘password surf’, seeing a PIN or password on screen and then use the information to hack into the device once it is stolen. It’s not a new problem but one that needs to be overcome if companies want to protect their workers’ digital identities and not risk security breaches due to stolen customer information. Biometric passwords could provide the answer to protecting a user’s identity, by ensuring a device is rendered useless if stolen.

Wearable device management:

Mobile device management is already an essential part of managing the technology used by a mobile workforce and the same will be true of wearables. These will add an additional layer of complexity to what is already a very complicated aspect of IT security management. Already many MDM software vendors are re-naming their applications Enterprise Mobility Management to signify their ability to cope with the greater complexity. Clear policies need to be established and enforced to define expectations around what employees can and can't do using wearable devices, balancing the need for flexibility with confidentiality and privacy requirements.

The viability of BYOD

Including wearables into a BYOD policy adds a whole new dimension to the level of device management required

extending a BYOD policy to include these devices is actually commercially viable.  From experience, managing the complexity created by having a multitude of different devices in use within an organisation will be a serious future challenge and one the IT department needs to prepare for to manage the potential resourcing implications and inevitable disruption created. Including wearables into a BYOD policy adds a whole new dimension to the level of device management required and presents a huge step change away from having a standard, company issue wearable in circulation and involves developing an understanding of, for example, support requirements for each device, plus an awareness of the individual operating platforms.

 

Employee privacy

Since wearables are able to continuously monitor employee behaviours and track their activity levels and whereabouts at all times, this creates an obvious employee privacy issue. Clearly, there are pros and cons to this issue. On the one hand, being able to monitor productivity levels is useful for KPI management and not too far removed from what companies are already using - for example; tracking on mobiles to monitor delivery drop speeds of individual drivers. Employees are accustomed to this practice and the data is only ever used internally.

More contentious is the ability to collect data, which other organisations can use. For instance, health insurance providers trying to understand how healthy an employee’s behaviour is when setting the cost of monthly premiums. In the case of the sameday delivery market, monitoring at this level could be regarded as an invasion of privacy as it’s not relevant in the context of the industry.

The best way forward:

Given current adoption rates, wearables will inevitably make a big impact on the way delivery companies work. Experts are already giving their arrival a new moniker and coining the issue ‘BYOD 2.0’. Even more so than with the original BYOD, it will be essential to have clear usage policies in place and an excellent understanding of responsibilities and expectations at both the employee and customer level.

Provided this is in place and appropriate restrictions relating to security, privacy and the types of devices that can be supported are implemented, there is no reason why delivery service providers cannot benefit from the improved productivity and efficiency that wearables can bring into a business. Our advice is to proceed with caution.

DA Systems' David Upton looks at how we must try to change the perception of technology costs from an expense to be justified to a necessary investment when approaching the board...

Recent research undertaken to understand attitudes towards investing in technology highlighted a generic problem within the transport and logistics industry. Companies all appreciate the benefits mobile technology can bring, yet they are not succeeding in securing the necessary investment required from business leadership. Why? Because technological investment is seen as an expense to be justified rather than an investment in reducing costs and generating more profits.

It was a problem for 80% of survey respondents, 88% of whom said that they wanted to introduce new mobile technology, but faced budget restrictions.

This suggests a further underlying issue because it means that they are not developing a compelling enough business case to address the return on investments to be expected. If they were, the funds would be flowing more freely. Most business cases centre on increasing revenue.

Obviously there is a revenue element to consider, but the primary advantage of mobile technology is that it increases the likelihood of a parcel being delivered first time around – which minimises some of the largest costs associated with business operations. This article explains how to develop a business case for technological investment and prioritises the benefits.

In the case of investing in mobile technology to provide customers with an estimated time of delivery to reduce the cost of failed deliveries, building a compelling business case should be relatively straightforward. The overall impetus should be cost reduction, with a focal point of preventing the cost of a missed first time delivery. This is estimated in the region of £23 per drop and causes a very significant erosion to profit margins when it isn’t achieved.

On average, 15% of deliveries fail on the first attempt because the customer was not aware of the delivery time, which could be managed by adopting mobile technology. Even absorbing the inefficiencies of a slightly empty delivery van because orders that have been pre-loaded get cancelled, is better than the cost of a missed delivery.

 

Optimising a delivery round to take the most economical route means saving on fuel, mileage time and being able to do more drops per vehicle. In turn this means a reduction in the number of drivers and vehicles, which again saves money. So taking all these factors into consideration, the emphasis in a business case should be on technology, which is self-financing, with payback achieved within the first year of investment at the latest.

Taking DPD as a good example of how costs can be reduced and revenues increased as a result of technological improvements, they have grown sales by over £100 million as a result of implementing ETA messaging. Of course enhancing customer interaction is an important factor, but the real benefit is derived from getting deliveries right first time and reducing the cost base.

If 15% of operational costs can be saved by getting deliveries right first time, achieving better optimisation of delivery routes and requiring fewer journeys means fewer drivers are required. And courier productivity levels can be further increased by using route optimisation software, which in turn can reduce the number of miles to be driven by 10%.

For a large delivery company with a £16 million fuel bill, this creates the potential to save up to £1.6 million on fuel costs. Given their profit margin is roughly 10%, this creates a net increase to the total bottom line of 10%, a huge bonus.

To quote another delivery company example, after it implemented route optimisation, fleet mileage was cut by 17% and overall fleet size was reduced by 7%. This is the type of rationale that needs to be used in a business case for technological investment, going beyond customer and branding benefits to deliver hard cost savings and potential for greater profits.

So far we have outlined just a few of the solid cost saving justifications to be included in a business case for investing in new technology and there are many more, ranging from improved communication with call centre staff and traffic management options, to reduced fuel consumption.

When developing a business case, delivery companies need to be clear about the tangible benefits and turn the way they approach investing in technology around. Think of it as less of ‘an expenditure to be justified’ and more as a way to make greater profits with immediate payback.

Results of a recent survey by DA Systems into attitudes towards technology amongst firms within the UK transport and logistics industries highlighted that whilst the majority believed in the importance of technology to create a superior service offering, getting access to the financial and operational backing required to make the necessary investments still remains an issue for many companies...

88% of companies participating in the research agreed that technology was an essential source of competitive differentiation, yet over 50% of respondents revealed that they have yet to introduce real-time track and trace capabilities, although it was high on their wish lists of process improvements. This ‘relaxed’ attitude towards implementing new technology was further highlighted by the finding that 58% of delivery fleets are not using mobile data services to enhance driver information and provide real-time job monitoring capabilities. Budgetary constraints may be a key factor behind the lack of technological investment, because 80% of respondents cited budget restrictions as the main barrier.

According to DA Systems, these findings highlight that companies are failing to make the connection between the introduction of technology and an ability to generate additional revenue to offset the initial investment costs. This can be achieved through operational savings from paperless working and by improving service levels to ultimately become a delivery partner of choice amongst consumers.

“The research showed up some surprising results, for instance, companies understand the role technology needs to play but have some way to go to making the investments required. And clearly, although there is a perception that ePOD (electronic proof of delivery) is a mature market, many within the industry remain reliant on paper based proof of delivery processes, which cannot be good for profit levels,” says David Upton, Managing Director of DA Systems.

Returning to the survey findings, although business confidence is improving, costs remain a concern and this was reflected in the improvements respondents cited they would like to make to delivery processes. 88% said reducing driven mileage and fuel consumption was a priority, followed by improving driver behaviour monitoring (47%) and reducing the total number of hours worked by implementing efficiency improvements (also 47%).

Demonstrating the business impact of controversial BYOD (bring your own device) IT policies within the transport sector, 53% of companies who were using POD solutions (proof of delivery) said they were considering the possibility of allowing their drivers to use smartphones instead of traditional rugged devices.

E-commerce has undoubtedly had a big impact on the UK’s transportation sector and this trend continues. Nearly 1/3 of the companies surveyed (28%) believed that the free click and collect services offered by retailers were ‘a possible threat to a courier’s delivery business from e-commerce orders’. This finding can be further verified by the recent launches of new sameday or special Sunday deliveries by major delivery firms working with e-commerce companies, again demonstrating the need to continue improving service levels to compete with increased consumer expectations for faster deliveries and the growing popularity of click and collect.

When given a wish list of improvements they would like to make to their own service offering, ensuring the highest level of customer satisfaction was clearly an ongoing business priority. Almost three quarters (70%) of the survey respondents said they would like to offer an estimated delivery ETA messaging capability and have the ability to send an email or text to recipients alerting them to expect their delivery at a particular time of day. A further 41% said they would like to allow recipients to change the delivery drop location for convenience.

And yet whilst these service improvements may be high on the business improvement agenda, continuing budget restrictions and a perception amongst budget holders that this type of technology is potentially being seen as a ‘nice to have’ by some, could result in a gap forming between the smaller independent transport providers and larger operators with greater resources to invest in new technology.

“It is clear from the findings that delivery firms have not understood the potential to reduce costs and generate additional profits as a result of investing in technology and working more efficiently. Being constrained by budgets is a short-sighted view because the business case for an investment in proof of delivery software, or a messaging system that notifies consumers with an ETA for their parcel deliveries, will deliver an immediate return,” concludes David Upton.

 

DA Systems outline 6 very good reasons why you should make sure your customer is focussing on delivering service excellence through the doorstep experience you give to your customers in this excellent infographic.

 

DA Systems, a leading UK provider of mobile data and transport management solutions for the transport, retail, healthcare and field service sectors, is pleased to report that its existing customer, Speed Couriers, has successfully grown its medical courier division by 45% and secured an important new business contract with an NHS Trust. These achievements have been attributed to the important contribution DA Systems’ Advanced Courier Interface (ACI) technology has made in enabling Speed Couriers to provide a highly efficient and reliable service, with 100% traceability of medical consignments at all times.

An ACI user for over a decade, Speed Couriers is the North West’s largest independent courier firm and seen demand for its medical courier services double in the past 5 years. Most recently the company secured a contract with a major North West NHS Trust to provide on-going transportation services to connect NHS hospitals within the region, which will help the Trust save costs and become more efficient.

Designed by DA Systems specifically for the courier industry, ACI has played a vital role in enabling Speed Couriers to grow its medical courier division and offer a secure, time critical service to the NHS Trust and other clients. The solution provides real-time track and trace functionality plus the ability to automatically email electronic signature capture to provide proof of delivery for every consignment.

On behalf of the NHS Trust, Speed Couriers provides an on-going outsourced transport service, which includes the provision of 4 vans on a permanent basis, responsibility for sample collection from local area GPs and a continuous shuttle service between the hospital sites. In addition to transporting medical consignments, Speed Couriers also provide a secure transportation service for the Trust’s specialist monitoring equipment. This benefits the Trust by giving it greater flexibility over how to allocate financial resources. Rather than automatically having to purchase multiple units of test equipment, it can be transported to the different sites as needed by patients, leaving more resources available for other requirements.

Using ACI, Speed Courier’s medical customers have the ability to communicate via a real-time portal to pre-book transport services and pinpoint the whereabouts of test equipment and other medical consignments in real-time. Services can be operated in a ‘self-service’ manner, enabling the customer to have full access to the job booking system and schedule pick-ups and drop offs directly, improving speed and efficiency.

“Our contract with the NHS Trust illustrates perfectly how the ACI technology has supported the on-going growth of Speed’s medical business by allowing us to be completely accountable for the service we provide and giving the customer full visibility online of every consignment,” says James Hadley, Commercial Director at Speed Couriers. “A major benefit of ACI is its ability to consolidate data from multiple sources into a single source of information for customers and the control room to act upon quickly.”

“Technology is important for any courier but is especially critical for the medical sector because of the time sensitive nature of their work,” says David Upton, Managing Director of DA Systems. “We are delighted that ACI has enabled Speed Couriers to expand its business so effectively and we wish them continued success for the future.”

 

 

Setting out the aim to make your company more environmentally friendly is not only healthy for the planet but also very healthy for a logistics and transportation business as well

Reducing your fuel costs for example obviously makes great financial sense and it also has the benefit of helping to differentiate you from other field based companies in what are becoming increasingly competitive markets across the board. For example, image conscious high street retailers are much more likely to partner with an e-commerce deliver partner that shares their (often very public) environmental values, and in fact this is a trend that is mirrored by consumer behaviour also.

According to a recent Eurobarometer survey 55% of consumers said they take time to understand the environmental impact of the products they buy. Further to that over three quarters of consumers said they would pay a premium for greener goods. It is natural that this powerful sentiment would flow through the supply chain and impact on a retailer’s choice of transportation provider for their ecommerce offerings.

Whilst environmental issues have been a large part of the conversation for many years, it is only in today’s world with the advancement of tablets, smart phones, white boards, the cloud, including facilities such as dropbox and skydrive, which are all able to communicate openly with each other, that a truly sustainable approach can now be grasped.

Adopting transport technology and with innovations in the mobile world, greener credentials are more attainable than ever; with the ability of SatNav, job scheduling, signature capture working on new devices with NFC and RFID capabilities encased in a more consumerist look and feel than previous rugged enterprise products means greater user adoption, think Honeywell Dolphin Black to Motorola TC55.

So moving towards greener working i is now an obvious progression for the transport and logistics industry to take under serious consideration.

As well as improving productivity and cost savings, using an electronic proof of delivery system, mobile field service management or a real-time job scheduling and route optimisation system for instance, has been shown to deliver a significant improvement when reducing physical costs i.e. of consumables and labour costs. It also has a significant impact on reducing CO² emissions and the carbon footprint of logistics operators.

The following results demonstrate the savings achieved by a medium sized logistics company, “XYZ Courier Services Ltd” using actual data.

“XYZ” operates a cloud based technology system to manage its fleet of 2,000 full time drivers. Before introducing mobile data to its fleet of drivers, the company had to provide each driver with a 15 page printed manifest showing their daily workload and schedule.

Over the course of a year, this amounted to 7,800,000 individual pages, or 15,600 reams of paper. The cost of purchasing paper equates to £55,000, print toner costs amounted to £110,000, which means that over a three year period the company spent half a million just on paper and toner alone.

Although financial savings are a factor in the decision to adopt mobile data that improves greener credentials, there are also carbon costs to appreciate, due to the energy and environmental impact of the printing process. Taking into account the amount of paper produced over a three year period for the paper manifests equated to 648 tonnes of CO² emissions, which has now been saved.

The transportation of raw materials and finished products are a significant source of carbon emissions in the supply chain. For some companies, logistics can be the primary component of supply chain carbon emissions. The Department of Transport found road transport accounts for 21.7 percent of the UK’s carbon emissions; of that, 19.8 percent is attributable to heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) and 15.2 percent to vans. The government is aiming to position the UK at the global forefront of ultra-low emission vehicle (ULEV) development, manufacture and use, and has a vision for ‘almost every car and van’ to be zero-emission by 2050. Furthermore, by implementing effective route optimisation that ensures the most optimal route is taken by a driver will result in less driven miles and fuel reduction.

What this analysis highlights is that for a mid-sized logistics or delivery company, introducing mobile data technology such as ePOD to the drivers has had a significant impact not just by reducing costs, but also by improving the company’s overall carbon footprint. And these cost savings are relevant to smaller and larger organisations alike.

Not only will changing to transportation and logistics partners with greener credentials help meet a company’s corporate social responsibility and environmental policies, by utilising transport technology allows a company to get a clearer picture of deliveries, scheduling, managing peak times; reviewing carbon emissions, driver behaviour - in readable, legible reports based on date and time driven events. This means more power through real-time knowledge transference, without having to sift through volumes of paperwork.

A business can never entirely eliminate its environmental impact, but that should not be a reason to not take advantage of the technology available to reduce it. Especially when having a green approach to your transport fleet helps to achieve positive environmental and financial goals.

 

 

DA Systems, a UK provider of mobile data and transport management solutions for the transport, retail, healthcare and field service sectors, is pleased to announce that north-west courier company City Connect Couriers, (CCC) has purchased its sameday courier software, ACI (Advanced Courier Interface).

As competition within the sameday courier market increases, CCC differentiates itself from competitors by providing a superb customer service to local businesses, which now includes end-to-end, real-time traceability of all consignments through to delivery.

By implementing ACI, the solution will oversee every single stage of the process of delivering a package, from the moment it is booked and marked for despatch, to its arrival at the front door of a recipient. In addition, the solution is set to improve productivity levels amongst controllers and drivers by 30 per cent, which will result in significant operational benefits for CCC. The solution is due to go live on 1 November 2013.

Once the delivery is in operation and a vehicle has left the depot, ACI allows controllers and drivers to access real-time information regarding the progress made, with an updated estimated time of arrival. This can be passed onto CCC’s customers in some cases, helping to keep them fully up-to-date with the delivery process. Another key feature of interest to CCC was electronic proof of delivery (ePOD), which is used to record the exact time and location of all completed drops. Finally, the ability to track vehicles will provide CCC with complete visibility of their fleet and drivers at all times.

Paula Hancock, Director at CCC says: “ACI is one of the most advanced technology solutions for couriers and in a short space of time we will gain a lot of benefits from our investment in it. Advantages we are looking to achieve include maintaining better control over deliveries, enhancing customer service, improving response times and reducing errors from processes.”

David Upton, Managing Director at DA Systems added: “With ACI, delivery specialists are able to build a competitive advantage thanks to the software’s ability to calculate the best routes for drivers to take and allocate certain drops to particular vans. Combined, all of this makes the process as smooth as possible and allows each driver to maximise the number of deliveries made per shift.”