Project
VPD and Arid Group, two major Belgian last mile logistics providers have joined their operational capacity. The new joint venture faced a challenging target – coordinate and scale two different last mile operational flows – big & bulky together with parcel delivery.
In January 2020, following years of close cooperation, VPD Transports & Logistics and Arid Group, joined forces to provide better customer experience and extended home delivery services to customers in Belgium and Luxembourg.
The new joint venture, with both businesses operating as independent entities, brought together more than 150 employees and 100 vehicles to perform over 1,000 deliveries and pick-ups per day.
Finding a way for better customer experience
Both companies, being experienced players on the delivery market, were traditionally focused on the different segments of the service. While Arid specialised in one-man delivery with smaller vans, VPD’s offer included one or two-man delivery on bigger trucks, often with volumes above parcels that need extra care and services.
Cooperation often brings big benefits to everyone, however, alignment and coordination of internal operations can become a challenge. Arid and VPD wanted to reinforce each other in situations where deliveries in urban areas – where VPD’s trucks wouldn’t be allowed – could be done with Arid’s vans and vice versa. To tackle the challenges of shared logistics operations for both business and end-customers VPD and Arid decided to work with one last mile delivery management platform.
Apart from aligning their business operations and ensuring advanced delivery experience for the end-customer, VPD and Arid wanted to bring their relationship with business customers to a new level, with a world leading DIY shop being their most notable customer.
While working on establishing operations for our joint venture we clearly saw the need for having a single delivery management solution.
At that time VPD was already using a route planning software, however, it couldn’t offer the same features as Urbantz, such as ticketing system, customer notification, and tracking capabilities.
All our metrics actually improved when when we shifted to the Urbantz system.
Steven De Bruyn – CEO, VPD
A single solution to fulfill the needs of retailers and customers
The fact that both companies operate with different types of fleet and delivery processes added complexity to the project and required additional flexibility from the Urbantz platform. Urbantz also had to ensure that the technical setup of the operations would contribute to enhancing both companies’ service to their major client, a world leading DIY shop. The scope of the project had to consider the two different types of delivery processes used by the customer:
A Local Consumer Distribution model, mainly served by Arid:
And a Centralized Consumer Distribution model, operated by VPD:
These requirements determined the key focus areas of the project:
- Optimisation of the fleet management and last mile delivery cost
- Smooth communication with drivers
- Decrease in the number of calls and emails to customer care centers
- End-customer satisfaction
- Track & trace possibility for both dispatcher and recipient
The technical setup included real-time data exchange between several servers and systems, such as Centiro, a logistics management platform utilised by some significant customers.
Improved delivery operations promote the value proposition
Today, the adoption of Urbantz’s last mile delivery management system is helping both VPD and Arid to work seamlessly with their customers. Each company is responsible for a separate distribution flow with an independent setup in their Urbantz platform. Nevertheless, end-customers enjoy an identical enhanced experience with real-time tracking and customer satisfaction modules. At the same time, Urbantz’s intuitive mobile app helped both companies to simplify driver onboarding and subcontractor management.
Together with the improved customer experience and operational acceleration VPD and Arid brought their relationship with their business customers to a new level. The new ticketing system provided by Urbantz enables both carriers to raise tickets and report problems related to missing goods or failed deliveries. The tickets are available within the tool, where the support team can access them in real-time, leading to fast resolutions and a decrease in the exchange of emails and phone calls.
That said, the main outcome of utilising Urbantz delivery management platform is that it leads to a better value proposition and competitive advantage. This helps Arid and VPD to scale their business and attract new customers.
Urbantz is an enabler for us to be able to offer more sustainable deliveries to
our customers. The end-to-end visibility that Urbantz gives us is really a commercial advantage.
Steven De Bruyn – CEO, VPD