Plan, procure, execute, & track transportation for every shipment across your supply chain & logistics operations
A SaaS solution to help grow your business by achieving 100% perfect order execution at high volumes
Increase vehicle capacity utilization and customer promise adherence
Grow your business with omnichannel presence and automated pickups
Consolidate shipments for hub to hub movement across land and air
Real-time customer communications and collect accurate PODs
Orchestrate logistics operations with multiple 3rd party carriers
Achieve cost effective, scalable, sustainable, and customer centric deliveries
Orchestrate all your cross-border logistics operations with ease
Improve address accuracy, ensure first-attempt delivery success, reduce costs and boost customer experience
Gain end-to-end shipment visibility, get proactive alerts, and send customers live tracking links
Grow business in a dynamic world and manage operations across First, Middle & Last mile
Delight customers by seamlessly managing store and online orders across own fleet and 3rd party
Reduce freight costs & get end to end visibility across shipments
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E-commerce businesses are one of the key economic growth drivers in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. While many sectors, such as retail, manufacturing, and financial services, witnessed a dip due to COVID restrictions, the CEP industry saw an increase in demand.
The global CEP market is valued at a staggering 375.5 billion euros, with Saudi Arabia being one of the key areas for expansion. Therefore, courier companies in Saudi Arabia are making strategic investments in automation to streamline their logistics process and deliver faster at lower costs.
The CEP market in Saudi stands at USD 970 million and is forecasted to grow at a CAGR of more than 6.5% during 2020-2025. Saudi Arabia is a major market for CEP providers worldwide, thanks to a strategic geographic location, a young working population, greater internet connectivity, and rapidly improving infrastructure.
The country has become a sought-after business ground, with international giants like Amazon making strategic investments. As a destination for both national and international shipments, courier companies in Saudi Arabia are making rapid investments in technology to effortlessly align their business goals with the evolving market trends and demands.
In the next sections, we explore the emerging customer trends, challenges faced by a courier company in Saudi Arabia, and how smart logistics automation can overcome them.
The onset of the pandemic and the subsequent rise of eCommerce significantly changed the way people purchase goods and services. Three out of five Saudi consumers shop online at least once every three months and spend an average of SAR 4000 annually.
Similarly, a quarter of shoppers are below the age of 30 and shop online at least once every two weeks.
This indicates that the courier and parcel delivery sector in KSA is set for growth, and any courier company in Saudi Arabia looking to tap into this opportunity needs to target the right audience as well.
The demographic profile of KSA is rapidly changing, and by 2030, the nation is estimated to have 12.5 million residents over the age of 50. Healthcare services and pharmaceutical industries are heavily dependent on robust logistical networks to ensure uninterrupted supply chain flow.
The increased demand for super-fast deliveries of vaccines during the pandemic was a clear indicator of this phenomenon.
As the demand surges in healthcare, online medicine purchase and home deliveries of routine and emergency basic medical supplies are also expected to increase.
This opens a completely new avenue, but any courier company in Saudi Arabia that is looking forward to tapping into this opportunity needs to strategize, keeping the smart and optimized transportation and delivery needs in mind. Some examples include – cold chain logistics, 10-minute medicine deliveries, etc.
Festive seasons are one of the best indicators of changing customer sentiment and behavior. The rise in demand could generate more significant sales, with shoppers looking to compensate for the lost time.
Around 48% of consumers in Saudi Arabia intend to shop online during the next large-scale shopping or sales event. Logistics management platforms with AI-ML capabilities enable businesses to intelligently forecast customer expectations and ensure optimal inventory management.
Further, any courier company in Saudi Arabia with smart end-to-end delivery orchestration and management automation would not only be able to scale up and down as the need arises, but it would also be able to take strategic decisions in a data-driven manner.
The modern-day consumer looks at multiple factors while purchasing a product- wellness, ethics, and its impact on the environment.
People now place more value on the quality of products, experience, and time, with the topic of sustainability taking center stage. 72% of customers make purchases from companies with sustainable supply-chain models.
Hence, apart from offering excellent delivery and transportation services, companies are now required to commit to ESG initiatives and contribute to the saving and nurturing of the environment and community.
Next, we explore the various logistical challenges faced by a courier company in Saudi Arabia.
The booming e-commerce sector and increasing trade in Saudi Arabia have put the logistics infrastructure under considerable pressure. The CEP market is grappling with improvements, especially in the optimization, digitization, and sustainability front.
While the traditional business models with legacy systems continue to face the brunt of not embracing automation, companies that have incorporated some or a higher level of automation in their business models are faring better.
However, when it comes to the movement of goods, the entire CEP segment is rife with multiple challenges, some of which are discussed below.
One of the most common challenges in Saudi Arabia, and for most parts of the Middle East, is the lack of a clear postal code and address in many areas.
Since there is no formal delivery address, it becomes difficult to find the customer’s exact location. As a result, there are high chances of long transit times and return rates with drivers failing to deliver at the destination.
While the CEP sector is witnessing growing consumer demands, the industry is plagued with inefficient training and lacks expert personnel at critical touchpoints. Although foreign employees come with years of skilled training, they are difficult to employ for extended periods due to visa issues.
In contrast, local workers need to be adequately trained for skill development and ease of technological adoption.
Trucking, which forms an integral part of road transportation, is also riddled with inexperienced drivers and poor maintenance. While companies have plenty of assets in the form of drivers and vehicles, they lack professional management and maintenance skills, which adds to rising costs.
As a leading economic player in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia serves as a key trading point. Being the only country with a coast to the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, the nation becomes an ideal hub for trade and transportation.
Courier companies in Saudi Arabia need to fill the rising gap in a growing market with services like insulated bags for quick deliveries, temperature-controlled carriers, containers, etc. In fact, the increasing demand for QSRs in the country has put pressure on businesses to invest in cold storage capabilities, which comes as a challenge because of the ambient temperatures and climatic zones.
Despite rapid innovation, companies struggle to avail optimization, cost reduction, dynamic routing, intuitive asset management, etc., from a single interface. Hence, keeping pace with the rising volume surge can be challenging for a courier company in Saudi Arabia that continues to follow traditional logistics practices.
Businesses often witness a sudden rise in demand during rush hours and sales, and courier companies in Saudi Arabia need to understand the fluctuating demands with predictive tools. In the absence of smart automation, inventory management becomes a hassle, especially during rush hours, and takes a toll on productivity.
Numerous courier companies in Saudi Arabia find it challenging to streamline the increased workload due to the rising popularity of eCommerce. As businesses continue to grow, they need to cover wider geographical regions.
Moreover, at times, finding the exact delivery location becomes challenging. In the absence of geo-coding, riders tend to waste valuable time finding the right location, which delays the other deliveries.
The logistics industry in Saudi Arabia is a mix of regional and international players. With over 1600 enterprises operating in the country, the top ones contribute only 12-15% of the total market revenue.
The conventional CEP players rely on a strong brand name, tech capabilities, and established pricing policy to dominate the market. Moreover, they have the necessary capital to expand their services at short notice.
In contrast, small and mid-sized enterprises bank on superior customer service and differentiated value propositions to stay afloat in a competitive landscape.
Digital transformation in logistics and transportation management is essential for businesses to stay relevant in a hyper-competitive market. In 2021, the revenue from eCommerce in Saudi Arabia stood at USD 10.1 billion, and it is predicted to continue its growth at a CAGR of 18.95%.
Companies will need to invest in automation to meet the growing CEP demands for enhanced efficiency, optimization, and productivity.
Here are some core benefits smart logistics automation offers for the CEP landscape in the KSA.
With thousands of orders on the move across multiple transportation mediums, tracking the shipments becomes crucial for enterprises. Hence, they need to have real-time 360-degree visibility of the goods movement at all times.
A courier management system that offers granular visibility into the courier movements and automated alerts for key milestone events enable all the stakeholders involved to seamlessly check the order status, wherever they are. Intelligent platforms such as Shipsy’s courier management solution have dynamic routing features as well as geo-fencing capabilities that help businesses attain better operational control, flexibility, and transparency for all processes.
Every step of the logistics supply chain has to be operated in a time-sensitive manner to ensure a disruption-free movement of orders. Also, unforeseen circumstances, like transport delays, detention, and demurrage charges, can significantly bloat the total cost of operations.
A logistics management solution helps them make better and more strategic business decisions via advanced data analytics. Further, they automate operations and offer real-time visibility via a single digital platform.
In the age of rapid digitization, data is an invaluable asset. By investing in the right automation tools, businesses can analyze data and understand pain points, order patterns, areas for growth, and much more.
93% of shippers believe data analytics drive informed decision-making. By converting insights into actionable results, courier companies in Saudi can address logistics inefficiencies and maintain operational standards.
Smart end-to-end logistics management and orchestration platforms like Shipsy also offer a highly intuitive and simple way to query real-time data and visualize it in the form of smart charts and reports. Thus, any courier company in Saudi Arabia can find out how to beat SLA breaches because of delays or poor operational control.
Traditional logistics management systems are prone to missteps and failure in today’s rapidly evolving CEP sector. Changes in the order volume, customer delivery preferences, etc., are difficult to keep track of and fulfill in a manual setup.
An intelligent logistics management solution makes it much easier to operate in a flexible and scalable manner. Be it a seasonal rise in order volumes or allocating orders based on factors like size, geography, etc., businesses can ensure the uninterrupted flow of the supply chain.
Moreover, cloud tech allows faster data integration, information availability, smart upscaling and downscaling as per business demands, and much more.
For logistics operations to succeed, multiple stakeholders need to function in perfect synchronization. Enterprises must adapt their business models to maximize the business potential of their operations. Additionally, with increased competition, logistics providers are increasingly looking to optimize the time and costs involved.
Adopting a digitized logistics management system can automate redundant yet important back-office operations like preparing invoices and bills of lading, etc. This frees up the finite in-house human resources to focus on more pressing matters.
Next, we discuss the key considerations a courier company in Saudi Arabia should have before investing in any smart logistics automation software.
While the business needs of every courier company stakeholder or operator are different based on the operations and services they offer, we discuss some of the must-have features in a courier management system.
Some of the must-have features and functionalities of a courier management system are:
Every successful platform implementation is a result of the right choices:
Shipsy is one such reliable partner that offers the right technology and the right plan in the form of AI/ML-powered custom SaaS courier management platform. The platform comes with all the above-mentioned must-have features and also offers a number of advanced functionalities, such as shorter onboarding times and a minimal learning curve.
Our CEP orchestration platform is an end-to-end and highly precise system stemming from cutting-edge AI/ML algorithms and advanced data analytics that come with two highly optimized custom offerings – Routing Playground and Shipsy BI.
While Shipsy BI allows our customers to query or make sense of their data in a code-free manner for drawing business intelligence and smart data visualizations, the Routing Playground helps businesses plan the best routes on the basis of hundreds of custom optimization rules.
Thus, we help customers make the most of their resources, assets, and time by automating and optimizing every single process thread involved in a CEP order movement.
Shipsy’s smart courier management system helps:
For more information, please explore Shipsy’s CEP solution or get in touch with our experts for a customized demo today!
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