The Ultimate Logistics Automation Guide for a Courier Company in India

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The Ultimate Logistics Automation Guide for a Courier Company in India

The Indian courier, express, and parcel (CEP) industry is projected to grow at a CAGR of more than 10.5% from 2022 to 2027. The rise in the e-commerce industry, higher internet penetration, technological advances, competitive landscape, and changing consumer shopping preferences are the major drivers of the CEP sector growth.

While the industry is evolving, there are many courier companies in India that are still following traditional courier management practices and facing challenges like increasing manual intervention, poor usage of resources, delayed deliveries, high delivery costs and more. 

Logistics automation goes a long way in addressing the above concerns. It empowers businesses to achieve better operational efficiencies, boost on-time deliveries, enhance customer experience, and minimize overall logistics costs.

Why are courier companies in India implementing logistics automation?

Here are eleven reasons why courier companies are investing in logistics automation:

1. To Meet Evolving Consumer Demands

Consumers’ shopping habits and delivery expectations have now changed. Apart from fast and free delivery, they want flexible delivery times and multiple delivery options (click and collect, curbside delivery, home delivery, etc.).

Implementing an advanced courier management solution automates order allocation, route optimization, and other processes to make a courier company in India deliver orders within the given time window. The solution also offers unified dashboards to manage and monitor deliveries being done through various modes.

2. To Reduce Overall Logistics Costs

An intelligent courier management platform empowers courier companies in India to reduce investments in manual processes by automating tasks that require manual intervention, fuel costs with intelligent route optimization and better resource utilization, and incidental charges with shipment tracking. By making deliveries within a particular time window, the solution also increases the chances of first-attempt delivery and, ultimately, returns.

logistics software for courier companies

3. To Minimize Manual Intervention

Performing logistics operations, such as order allocation, route planning, order tracking, etc., manually requires significant time and costs. Smart courier management solutions automate these processes to reduce time, effort, and costs. For example, it automates route optimization by considering multiple constraints, which will take a considerable amount of time when done manually. Similarly, it automates allocating orders to the suitable vehicle and driver for optimal resource utilization.

4. To Track Multiple Shipments In Real-time

Tracking shipments in real time provides complete visibility and control over the entire journey of the shipment. A courier management solution empowers stakeholders to have that control and know the exact status of their shipment. If the shipment gets delayed, they can also check the reason for the late delivery along with the new ETA.

5. To Enhance Customer Experience

Smart courier management solutions boost on-time deliveries, automate returns management, collect customer feedback, offer real-time shipment tracking, and are packed with other top-notch features that help to improve customer experience. After implementing the solution, courier companies in India can have insights such as the number of failed deliveries, number of canceled orders, and more to identify pain points and plan better strategies.

6. To Improve Communication and Collaboration

The implementation of a courier management system allows courier companies to communicate and collaborate with multiple stakeholders from a single dashboard. The system automatically sends delivery alerts and carrier milestone alerts to stakeholders through WhatsApp, Email, or SMS. Courier service providers can seamlessly communicate with stakeholders as well as their internal teams.

7. To Ensure Logistics Sustainability

Factors such as increasing parcel volumes, shrinking parcel sizes, increasing empty miles and distance traveled, and rising demands for same-day/next-day deliveries contribute to increasing CO2 emissions. According to the IEA 2020 report, the road transportation industry is the third largest contributor to CO2 emissions in India. Logistics automation facilitates intelligent route planning and optimization, dynamic order batching, and territory optimization to reduce carbon footprints.  

8. To Automate Returns Management

Offering seamless returns is essential to improve the overall delivery experience. Courier management solutions automate the returns management to speed up pickups and design the best route to bring the order back to the distribution hub. To minimize the costs of returns or prevent using additional resources, it also accommodates return pickups with already planned deliveries.

9. To Manage Multiple Delivery Partners

To expand geographical reach and scale operations, courier companies partner with other logistics service providers. Courier management solutions provide a unified dashboard to manage all delivery partners under one roof. Moreover, they can also communicate and collaborate with all their clients.

10. To Manage NDR Efficiently

Smart courier management platforms consolidate multiple NDR reasons and enable courier companies to find out causes for undelivered consignments. They can also figure out NDRs that are frequently cited in a specific city or geography, at an origin hub, and more.

11. For Delivery Authentication and Validation

Advanced courier management solutions enable courier companies to arrest fake delivery attempts by validating the non-delivery reason at the consumer end. As soon as a driver marks delivery status “undelivered”, the software triggers an automated call/SMS to validate the same.

Top Courier Companies In India

Blue Dart Express

Covering more than 55000 locations in the country and 220+ countries worldwide, Blue Dart is a well-known courier company in India. It offers a wide spectrum of distribution services, including air express, freight forwarding, customs clearance, transportation, and supply chain solutions.

DTDC

DTDC (Desk to Desk Cargo and Courier) is a reputed courier company in India, covering over 12000 pin codes and handling over 12 million shipments every month. It has over 430 operating facilities in India and offers reliable courier services (domestic, international, premium express, and priority services), international freight management, and various other supply chain solutions.

Gati Ltd.

Gati is among the top courier companies in India that offers courier services, warehousing and supply chain solutions, air freight, and surface and  express logistics services. The company currently caters to more than 19000 pin codes within the country.

DHL

DHL is another popular courier company in India with a well-connected network of distribution hubs covering more than 26000 pin codes in the country and 220+ countries across the globe. The company offers reliable domestic and international services under different divisions named DHL Express, DHL Global Forwarding, DHL Freight, DHL Supply Chain, and DHL eCommerce solutions.

FedEx

FedEx is a renowned courier company in India that offers optimum shipping solutions under its flagship services, FedEx Ground, FedEx Freight, and FedEx Express. It can seamlessly handle and transport a wide range of products, including hazardous materials, heavyweight items, fragile items, and high-value products.

Shipsy: AI-powered Courier Management Platform For Seamless Courier and Parcel Management 

Shipsy offers a custom SaaS-based courier management solution powered by top-notch technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning. The intelligent courier management platform automates first mile, middle mile, and last mile operations to speed up the parcel delivery process and minimize dependency on human resources.

The platform offers a unified dashboard to empower courier companies in India to communicate and collaborate with multiple logistics providers to expand their reach and scale operations. With features like intelligent route optimization, advanced geocoding, data analytics, and more, the courier management platform improves profitability, enhances customer experience, offers end-to-end courier visibility, and reduces the costs of moving goods from one location to another. It ensures:

  • 45% reduction in customer onboarding time
  • 23% reduction in last-mile delivery cost
  • 12% reduction in mid-mile costs
  • 28% reduction in customer complaints
  • 18% increase in delivery net promoter score

To know more about Shipsy’s CEP solution, visit our website or contact our experts here.

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