Tips on leveraging technology to drive operational efficiencies during COVID-19: A last-mile Q&A with Mothership’s Dustin Teves
As COVID-19 wreaks havoc on supply chains across the globe, how can retailers utilize technology to better forecast and allocate their resources in a cost-effective manner? We asked this question and more when chatting with Mothership Director of Sales Dustin Teves – and learned how businesses can avoid overspending on last-minute orders that require quick delivery turnarounds.
(Full disclosure: Mothership is a Happy Returns partner that reimagines freight services for modern commerce, with an emphasis on speed and transparency.)
Following are highlights of our conversation:
How do you see the last mile shifting today? How has COVID-19 altered these shifts?
Fast and reliable last-mile freight will become increasingly important as suppliers, sellers, and consumers are forced to find new ways to increase or sustain access to each other. Demand for same-day delivery is greatest in urban settings with the highest populations, so we’re focusing our efforts there. What we are seeing from many of our partners after COVID is smaller order sizes, and due to unforeseen volatility in the market, that is challenging to adapt to. Some businesses are facing higher demand than expected, yet have lower levels of available inventory. To top it all off, this must be handled by a leaner workforce, and is often accompanied by new standards of operation to protect the health and safety of employees and customers.
Companies must quickly adapt to new—and changing—distancing guidelines within production, manufacturing, and packaging facilities. This puts a strain on productivity, visibility, and budget.
The new climate is challenging supply chains large and small across nearly every industry, with some booms in PPE and consumer goods.
Many asset-heavy freight carriers went out of business last year, and the ones that survived are dealing with reduced capacity.
With volatility in demand and capacity unable to accurately adjust in time, businesses end up paying premiums for last-minute orders that require quick delivery turnarounds. And if that business uses a traditional freight process, this further drives up costs in internal operations, in turn lowering overall profit for the businesses.
Mothership solves this challenge for our shippers every day, granting them same-day delivery within several of the biggest consumer markets in the nation, such as Southern California, the Bay Area, New York City, New Jersey, and recently Philadelphia. In addition, providing businesses with a platform increases visibility across numerous departments, allowing organizations to better forecast, plan, stage, and allocate their resources in a more cost-effective manner.
What impacts has COVID-19 had across your customer base?
Customers have shorter lead times, require fewer touch points per-order, and are actively seeking better organization within their supply chains. Their vendors are suffering from the same pain points, creating an unfortunate domino effect that can only be fixed with greater speed, visibility, and flexibility for better operations at scale.
On the less operational side, we’ve seen a lot of businesses retool or shift their operations to remain essential during this time. Many of our apparel partners are moving to producing masks and other protective gear, which shows their ability to move quickly, and our network has been able to accommodate those shifts in their supply chain as well.
In light of this impact, what advice do you have for retailers and businesses who want to adjust to the next normal?
Do more with less. We’ve been operating a resource-bountiful market for a good while, seeing monstrous funding rounds, run-away valuations, and record breaking stock numbers.
Now, as we see the market shift away from brick-and-mortar retail and more towards eCommerce, saving every dollar operationally will count. Partners like Happy Returns help reduce returns costs through aggregation of parcels into larger palletized freight.
45% of product cost is directly related to transportation, so even small improvements there will make a big impact.
It’s simple - add technology that produces significant operational efficiencies. For a design company, this may include collaborative software like Figma, but for a manufacturer or retailer of products that need to be shipped, freight technology provides the additional efficiency that directly improves margins and allows businesses to be resilient enough to scale, even in uncertain times.
45% of product cost is directly related to transportation, so even small improvements there will make a big impact.
How can retailers best prepare for store reopenings?
Foot traffic will return to businesses in phases, so the biggest challenge will be balancing inventory on hand in order to meet demand that can be difficult to predict. Businesses must be nimble when it comes to their supply chain to quickly meet shifts in demand, and potentially support different models completely.
Some retailers may adapt to the rapidly changing landscape by creating in-store experiences with the goal of driving eCommerce purchases...This will reduce the need to fill stores with inventory, cut back on labor costs, and repurpose these locations to attract foot traffic in new and safe ways.
Some retailers may adapt to the rapidly changing landscape by creating in-store experiences with the goal of driving eCommerce purchases. Retail businesses can leverage brick-and-mortar locations to allow customers to safely view and try products, then incentivize an online purchase. This will reduce the need to fill stores with inventory, cut back on labor costs, and repurpose these locations to attract foot traffic in new and safe ways.
We believe a shift towards larger eCommerce sales or curbside-pickup approaches will allow businesses to control the number of physical touch points the product experiences during the POS process, lowering the risk of spreading Covid-19.
What trends and impacts do you think will stick around after the pandemic leaves us?
I hope that businesses continue to act in good faith and work together to help the global community adapt and overcome. I think that businesses will continue to do more with less and adopt an impact-first mentality when it comes to operating. We’ve seen multitudes of businesses take a hit, and we hate to see anyone struggle. We hope to continue creating a product that is focused on the positive impact on businesses small and large, whether that is our independent carrier partners or the hundreds of businesses that have entrusted their supply chain to Mothership.
Tell us a little about Mothership and your role.
Mothership created a cloud-based transportation platform that is focused on servicing final-mile freight, leveraging the single largest connected network of 26-foot box trucks in North America.
Our platform and mobile application drives efficiencies which compound value for both our community of independent carriers and businesses we serve. By automating repetitive shipping tasks, improving visibility across organizations, and optimizing routes for drivers, we are reshaping the freight industry so everyone wins.
Traditionally, managing freight and transportation is manual, siloed, and tedious. Mothership’s process from quote to delivery is 11x faster, meaning less employee hours spent on manual tasks.
Mothership’s network is reliable. Our technology automatically dispatches freight pickups to the nearest carriers, and continually optimizes their routes to guarantee faster, more reliable deliveries at lower rates.
Dispatching nearby jobs with fewer empty miles and promising to pay instantly makes independent carriers more likely to accept jobs, supercharging reliability.
My role as Director of Sales is to create measurable improvements in visibility, sustainability, and growth in order to foster operational excellence for growing businesses. To achieve this, I spend my time working across departments to illuminate customer needs, and following the learning organization methodology, constantly seeking feedback loops to evolve Mothership in tandem with our partners. And sometimes, I get to play golf, now that things are open.
Want to learn how to improve operational efficiency when it comes to returns? Join us on August 11 for our webinar, “How to calculate and reduce your cost of returns.”
Caitlin Roberson
VP of Marketing
Caitlin Roberson is the Vice President of Marketing at Happy Returns. Previously, she served as Director of Enterprise Marketing at Lyft and Partner at top-tier venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. Before that, she started and sold a content marketing agency.
