Omni-channel fulfillment: As in the wizarding world of Harry Potter!

Dheeraj Shah & Tejal Kothari

As technology becomes advanced and all pervasive, customers, today, expect retail organizations to be none less than the wizards.

However, the expectations of instantaneous fulfillment with no additional cost are driving tremendous amount of pressure on omni-channel supply chain.

Of course, the way digital technologies are augmenting supply chain today does seem no less than a slew of magical interventions that are helping flow the products through a complex supply chain network from farm-to-fork, instantaneously, at the speed of thought.

And when it comes to magic, what best comes to mind than Harry Potter? So, let us take you into the real magical world of omni-channel fulfillment, where the supply chain wizards will leverage wand like, spell like and mythical objects like interventions to fulfill customers’ most difficult expectation of instant gratification.

Lumos!

Welcome all to the magical world of Harry Potter.

Think of it and it shall appear! Ollivanders wands of today!

In a world that is shifting to become truly omni-channel, the focus it to constantly follow the anytime, anywhere customer and fulfill their demands, while customers of today are free to imagine their products being delivered at their doorstep by a flying object and retailers will fulfill their wishes.

How to use your wand - Take a step back, breathe and make a list of things you want. Waive your wand in a circular motion and aim at the door. Well of course the doorbell would ring. This is the next generation fulfillment reality. Retailers are experimenting to bring these thoughts to reality with next gen fulfillment trends such as Drones, Driverless vehicles, Flying cars, delivery robot and 3D printing and many more.

Amazon’s anticipatory shipping patent suggests monitoring customer behavior and applying an algorithm over this data to predict what they will buy next. Products are thus shipped in advance to regional / local warehouses before a customer has even placed an order. The race to finish is also now race to start.

On-demand deliveries are harnessing the power of crowd and flexible courier services to augment fleet capacities and shorten lead times.

Remember the marauder’s map Harry constantly referred to? How about having that for real! Retailers would love to have a copy of this map for their consumers, where they can track and trace their orders real time.

Ministry of Disruptive Technologies

While all the above sound fascinating, in reality, they would need to be appropriately adapted in the retail supply chain landscape for business results aligned to their individual benefit potential. The ministry of disruptive technologies deals with setting forth how disruptive technologies should be adapted in your supply chain network. It mandates focused efforts by all players in the supply chain to adopt these evolving changes in technology.

- Load & Route Optimizations for drones, AGVs and flying cars within TMS.
- Building on key fulfillment metrics like fleet utilization, fleet capacity management, and so on.
- Evolved third-party service models offering drones/robots/driverless trucks as a service.
- Reverse logistics to pose new opportunities in terms of dead miles reduction, utilization and cost per mile optimization.
- Dynamic onboarding of individual drivers/delivery partners in a crowd shipping world and operationalizing the whole contract and payment system in an Uber like mode.
- Ranging decisions and inventory management for new nodes like aerial warehouses.
- Packaging material and equipment availability at a node to cater to all types of delivery modes.

To be a wizard par excellence, it is important to get your spells right. Hermione grasped the levitation charm “Wingardium Laviosa” (that is, to make something fly) faster than others. Similarly, retailers who can execute their spells faster and make their supply chains adapt to these disruptive technologies will be successful in the magical battle of omni-channel fulfillment.

continues.....

Next:Dueling with the unknown

Dheeraj Shah & Tejal Kothari

Dueling with the Unknown

In the Potter world, a duel is always interesting with wizards leveraging magical means during a combat. Omni-channel fulfillment is also posed to duel with unknowns that would surface with advent of all the disruptive digital technologies and fulfillment enablers as discussed above.

Wide-scale adoption and competition would force retailers to fly numerous drones in the sky, causing drone traffic. In absence of uniform drone regulations, the drones do have an impeccable sense and avoid obstacle system in place, but their safe coexistence with aircrafts and helicopters is still an unknown being dueled with. The limited battery life of drones can restrict deliveries in a defined radius of fulfillment centers.

The driverless future tows with itself a plethora of in-transit, tech and social considerations. First is the safety of vehicle and surrounding environment. Second, the current infrastructure needs to be upped to support these vehicles. Self-fueling stations and smart roads will pave the way for efficient truck platooning.

Delivery robots that will eventually crowd the city sidewalks will have to ensure safe navigation around vehicles and pedestrians. The ability to react to humans and emergency sirens will determine the deployment scale of these robots. Dedicated robot lanes (like European bicycle lanes) and parking lots will also see the light of the day. Another aspect under consideration should be the theft and damage of the robots.

Today’s savvy customers are heavily influenced by both the delivery and return options offered on the plate. Returning to a fulfillment center that was not the origin of the route, making multiple stops in a journey along with a device’s technical limitations are a few challenges retailers will have to consider while rejigging their return policies. Also, the return mode would need to address selection of right option, that is, drone, delivery robot, and so on, which would either be summoned by the customer or intelligently determined by the retailer.

Peeping into Crystal Ball

Professor Trelawney’s divination class anyone?

Crystal gazing, is a difficult and subtle practice that relies on an individual’s capability to perceive future clearly. To become future ready, it is essential to recognize which trends have a game-changing potential and which are just a hype.Upcoming trends that will contour the future of logistics:

Hyperloop Delivery
Hyperloop, a brainchild of Elon Musk promises to move goods at almost airline speeds and at far lesser costs. This transformational technology has the potential to shape future of inter-nodal freight.

Tunnel Delivery
In a recent patent acquired by Amazon, a subterranean tunnel system would whisk away parcels and containers from a “hub” through conveyor belts and rails to their destinations bypassing ever increasing congestion on roads. Again in most metros across world, we would see Tunnel Delivery Stations like tube stations… “Please do mind the gap!!!”

Flying Warehouse
In an initiative to further expedite drone deliveries, Amazon now plans to make warehouses fly as brooms! An “Airborne Fulfillment Centre” can be utilized to fulfill potential high demands in a particular area, possibly due to an ongoing event (for example, Super Bowl, a Coldplay concert or any other gathering)

Conclusion
We have made an attempt to chronicle the various “mythical” objects, capture their growth and how they will eventually become part of an everyday “normal” life.

The deathly hallows, all of which lie with the customer are:

- Wand like expectations of delivery
- Like a magical stone promising customer loyalty, a reward for retailers delivering superlative last mile experience
- The invisibility cloak, the will to track their products from their farm–to-fork journey

The key challenge for retailers today is to find that fine balance between providing the best possible service using the most innovative trends and technologies, within the organization and externally to communicate with the customer and the costs to deliver that promise.

There is no better way to look at this next generation fulfillment than from the wizarding world. Retailers will need to deal with their complex backend operations, while still keeping the front end simple for their customers.

Disclaimer: All opinions expressed in this article are individual opinions of the writers.

About the Authors:
Dheeraj Shah is Head, Retail Supply Chain Practice, with a large consulting organization.
Tejal Kothari is a functional consultant with Retail Supply Chain Practice, with a large consulting organization.