Moving from a Transactional to a Collaborative Supply Chain in the Middle East

As the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) nations recover from the series of disruptions over the past couple of years—the Covid-19 pandemic, the Ukraine war, inflationary pressure, and the potential for rising food prices—a reinvention of logistics and supply chain operations is needed. Supply chain leaders are looking forward to a period of growth and building a smart, agile, resilient, and sustainable logistics ecosystem for the future.

With this vision in mind, leaders from Locus made their way to MENA SCMLOG 5.0, a Supply Chain Practice Leader’s Summit that was set up to address challenges such as last-mile connectivity and moving from a transactional to a collaborative supply chain in Dusit Thani Hotel, Dubai.

Next generation logistics planning

Exhibiting as a Silver Sponsor, Team Locus was led by our Senior Vice President and P&L Leader, Malay Shah, who presented the MENA SCMLog 5.0 with ‘Turning Last-Mile Exceptions into Exceptional Experiences.’ Shah addressed the growing discontentment among shoppers and the rapidly shifting buying habits.

According to a study, 54% of customers would avoid using a brand again if they have a single bad experience. At the same time, 53% of customers are more likely to buy if offered flexible shipping options when making a purchase.

Here lies the problem as well as the solution: Quick, timely and consistent fulfillment of orders in an e-commerce model are essential to customer satisfaction. For this to happen, brands in the Middle East must move with the times and adopt the latest technology to optimize their operations.

More and more customers are placing a greater value on consistency and agility over delivery speed. “Locus can help you schedule deliveries precisely, boost brand recall with friction-free cancellations, and seamlessly manage last minute reschedules to earn you repeat customers with high first-attempt deliveries”, Shah said.

He also emphasized on the importance of ensuring a positive customer experience during returns and exchanges. Feedback from customers lets brands know of and solve specific customer pain points, which elevates their experience while helps businesses to earn their loyalty. Reducing shipment return time is also a big priority for customer experience as it ends up requiring extra routes, and resources dedicated specifically to returns and exchanges.

Acing the last mile in the Middle East

In the Middle East, one of our biggest success stories is with Shyft, where we’ve brought about 7x growth in successful deliveries in the last 12 months by scaling their fulfillment operations. We’ve also helped MaxAb ramp up last mile operations via automated dispatch resulting in optimal costs, effective fleet utilization, and higher SLA adherence. B2B distributor Bazaar has also scaled their operations beating last-mile routing challenges across multiple business constraints and geographies. With Locus, Bazaar was able to achieve maximum resource utilization and reduced fleet costs.

The Locus logistics platform has helped save $200 million in transit costs and achieve a 99.5% SLA adherence ratio across the 650 million+ deliveries. Our real-world ready dispatch management platform transforms your logistics operations into growth centers through advanced route optimization. Our driver companion app available for iOS and Android devices also equips your drivers for excellence with easy-to-follow task lists and turn-by-turn navigation. 

Want to boost efficiency, resilience, and consistency in your last mile? Book a demo with us!