Day: 19 August 2020

Japan’s leading carrier, Yamato Holdings Co., has partnered with UK-based international ecommerce solutions provider, Doddle, to create a proprietary nationwide PUDO network, underpinned by Doddle’s software platform. The deal cements Doddle’s reputation as a partner of choice for the world’s leading postal services and carriers, coming on the back of the company’s long term partnership with Australia Post to power their Collect & Return network, and the growth of Doddle’s business in the USA as an authorised solutions partner to USPS.

The partnership represents one of the first times Yamato – which has a 42% share of the parcel market in Japan – has worked with an international software business to support its transformation plan ‘Yamato NEXT 100’ – a commitment by the carrier to co-develop sustainably focused future delivery solutions that are both efficient and customer centric. Japan is the world’s fourth biggest ecommerce market and one of the fastest growing ecommerce markets globally, with 75% of the population regular ecommerce users. Yamato currently ships 1.8 billion parcels annually, but with ecommerce demand in the country continuing to grow and with home delivery at 99% share, the need to provide more delivery options to consumers that are flexible, convenient and sustainable has become a strategic priority.

The partnership will enable Yamato to lead the way in sustainable fulfilment while delivering on its ‘all for the customer’ promise. Thanks to Doddle’s flexible, partner agnostic platform, customers will be able to choose to collect their parcels from some of the 240,000 Yamato partner shop network nationwide, with new partner locations expected to include some of the biggest retailers in Japan. Yutaka Nagao, President, Yamato Holdings Co., Ltd. said: “Yamato Group has been seeking proactive partnerships with startups in Japan and abroad possessing innovative technologies and business models for transforming logistics and supply chains. The collaboration with Doddle, a U.K. startup, is one of the most important such moves, and we are elated to announce this initiative with the company. We believe that utilization of Doddle’s cutting-edge digital technology in the last-mile business of e-commerce will enable us to offer a completely new collection experience to Japanese customers in the future. We will aim to establish an e-commerce ecosystem that provides the best value to all who engage in e-commerce by accelerating digital transformation (DX) through further cooperation between the two companies going forward.”

Doddle’s end-to-end tech solution will enable customers to track the progress of their orders at every point of the journey from basket to collection and will enable Yamato Holding’s 33 million Kuroneko privilege club members to carry out in-flight diverts from home to a collection point or from one collection point to another, to offer the ultimate in customer convenience.

In March 2020, the first parcel left the modernized logistics site in Sonnefeld, Germany, after the scheduled completion of extensive migration and expansion measures. The BAUR Group had invested about 20 million euros to expand the logistics processing of the Otto Group in Upper Franconia. Since then, parcels have been sent from Sonnefeld to OTTO and BAUR Group customers, including the UNITO brand, in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. By the end of the year, over 500 employees will have shipped about 25 million items – mainly textiles, shoes and jewelry. This amounts to about 10 million shipped parcels and bags.

With Sonnefeld, the services division of the BAUR Group expanded its logistics activities for the Otto Group in order to be able to handle increasing processing requirements within the Group. The traditional location in Altenkunstadt reached its capacity limits after the products of the rapidly expanding fashion retailer ABOUT YOU were successfully delivered throughout Europe from there. The go-live of Sonnefeld has another advantage: Altenkunstadt now has room for further growth in the services sector.

In Sonnefeld, Baur relies on a powerful and flexible warehouse management system from the logistics software specialist inconso, part of the Business Area Körber Supply Chain. The solution is based on inconsoWMS, which has already stood the test of time in Altenkunstadt and is optimized for Baur processes. In some cases, processes had to be tailored and changed. In detail: With 260,000 locations in the picking area and 305,000 locations in reserve storage, the system architecture is largely based on the highly optimized processes in Altenkunstadt. Order data is continuously transmitted to the WMS; orders are planned in waves using a highly flexible order control system. One part of the system architecture is a sorter that supports automated order processing. The new location in the shipping area was designed for efficient and user-friendly processes via Put-to-Light.

The Software as a Service (SaaS) enabled marketplace for container freight makes transporters more accessible and shipping processes more automated and fully transparent. Importing and exporting companies are looking to work more digitally. Swedish tech company Adnavem is on a mission to disrupt the transport and logistics industry and has recently closed $4m in new funding. Two new investors are joining the existing shareholders: Runa Capital and Spintop Ventures.

“We feel tremendous confidence in our new, and existing investors. Together they bring a mix of what we need to achieve our vision, to become the world’s most desired and transparent marketplace for global container shipping. The new investors bring entrepreneurship, global business networks, experience in digital business models and a willingness to challenge old standards with new technology,” says Andreas Wramsmyr, founder and CEO of Adnavem.

“We strongly believe in Adnavem and see high potential in automating such massive and old-school industry such as logistics. Adnavem’s team is first to manage and build enough sophisticated automation to completely eliminate the intermediaries and enable full and seamless self-service for the customer. We’re confident that Adnavem will become a universal platform for international freight and can set new industry standards,” commented Dmitry Chikhachev, General Partner at Runa Capital.

“Adnavem has a unique proposition to disrupt container freight logistics and provide high value not only to their customers but also to the other value-adding participants in the container logistics supply chain. The business model is highly-scalable, making it possible to grow the company in a number of dimensions going forward making it a highly interesting investment,” added Sami Niemi, Partner at Spintop Ventures.

Adnavem has its base in Gothenburg and is currently operating in three countries: China, Singapore and Sweden. The plan is to continue to scale the offering and to expand to new markets.
“New technology and digitized data give us possibilities that were not available a few years back. Today we can take control of the full transportation chain in a whole new way. We can work directly with the logistics suppliers removing intermediates which is what transport buyers in the new digital world demand,” says Mattias Sundström, Co-founder and CTO of Adnavem. “We challenge parts of the freight forwarders work; we do believe that there is room for different types of operators in the massive logistics market. Companies with stable transportation chains demanding efficiency and digital working methods – they come to us.”