Why are Fleet Tracking and Route Optimization important for Food Delivery Companies in Southeast Asia?

The food delivery market in Southeast Asia is estimated to grow up to US$8 billion by 2025 from US$2 billion IN 2018. – Google and Temasek (Singapore’s state investment arm)

The surge in demand for food delivery has expanded the reach of delivery services. In Southeast Asian countries, the working population is increasingly ordering food without leaving their desks. 

This has heavily impacted the restaurants with dine-in-businesses. Restaurants are handling food deliveries with their in-house team or are outsourcing them to independent contractors or delivery couriers. Another popular model catching up in the region is ‘cloud kitchen’, where they operate from a central kitchen location with no retail and deliver food to customers’ doorsteps. 

While there is a lot of activity and the overall market is set for massive growth, there are many last-mile logistics challenges that the food delivery companies need to solve. 

What are the challenges faced by food delivery companies in the last-mile?

Managing delays from restaurants 

A restaurant is the starting point of the food delivery business, and when there is a delay from the restaurant, delivery agents have to cope with it and still manage to do deliveries on time. 

Volatile consumer base

The food delivery market has one of the most volatile consumer bases in the on-demand industry and retaining customers is a challenge. Faster delivery or better discounts encourage consumers to place orders with food delivery companies. 

Effectively managing delivery logistics

The biggest challenge in food delivery is making delivery decisions. But there is very little or no data to enable effective decision making.

Why should food delivery companies use Fleet Route Optimization Software?

Making on-time deliveries when food is hot 

The cardinal rule of food delivery is—do not deliver cold food. Delayed deliveries make customers unhappy. 

Planning an efficient route is critical for food delivery businesses. 

Fleet optimization and dynamic route planning software plan the most efficient routes from the possible scenarios. It considers various factors like traffic, road maintenance, and so on to arrive at the most optimized route. 

Check Out: The Definitive Guide to Route Optimization

Reduce the amount spent on fuel

The trickiest challenge for food delivery companies is to manage fuel expenses. 

Fleet tracking and route planning solutions come in handy as they provide analytics and reports that can help logistics managers evaluate actual fuel expenditure in a particular route. They also assist in identifying drivers who drive more miles in a route than they should.

Assigning efficient delivery routes to drivers 

With orders flooding in every hour, it is crucial to assign deliveries quickly. 

Fleet tracking and optimization software helps import addresses and prepare an optimal delivery schedule for the entire fleet. They assist logistics managers to efficiently allocate delivery schedules based on driver skill sets and address proximity. 

Real-time fleet tracking 

Food delivery depends on the efficiency of drivers. Logistics managers need to track the driver’s performance in real-time so as to give feedback, if necessary. 

Fleet tracking and route planning solutions help in tracking driver work time, scheduled breaks, waiting time for delivery, and unnecessary idling.

Easily manage unplanned schedule changes 

With orders flooding in, unscheduled changes in deliveries are inevitable. Customers may change the delivery address, time, or increase the number of orders. Manually re-optimizing the schedule is impossible because you have to make on-time deliveries to many other customers. 

Fleet tracking and route planning software automatically add the change to the delivery schedule. They quickly update the optimal route for delivery and prepare a new delivery schedule in real-time. 

Build transparency through accurate order tracking 

Today, consumers demand a sense of self-control over the deliveries. Thanks to technology, they can already monitor their delivery status anytime and anywhere. But beyond this, they require some form of communication that connects them with delivery agents. 

Fleet optimization and route planning enable customers to see the Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA) and plan accordingly. Today, many food delivery companies provide options to make additional notes. Customers can ask delivery agents not to ring the bell or even place the order in a box. 

Bottomline:

The COVID-19 pandemic has created a lot of demand for contactless food deliveries in Southeast Asia. But a lot depends on how food delivery companies adopt route planning and fleet optimization solutions so as to effortlessly handle these deliveries. 

Locus’ delivery routing software can help food delivery companies assign optimal routes to their riders. It auto-updates the optimal route even if there are last-minute changes. 

Locus Fleet Tracking Software enables food delivery companies to make decisions based on driver behavior and performance. It also allows one to make real-time communication with consumers on the status of their orders.

Check how locus streamlined last-mile logistics for services companies Watch Now: