The PIP Startup Innovation Award 2020
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Postal Express & Logistics | Innovation & Markets
Startup Edition Vol. 9 | Issue 1 | 2021
The PIP Startup
Innovation
Award 2020
Presentation of the Winner
& Presentation of all Finalists
- Call for Submissions - 2021 PIP Startup
4 Categories / 5 Awards Innovation
4 online pitching events and the finals at
Parcel+Post Expo this October in Vienna
Award
(Check out page 26)
Content
EDITORIAL 3
Bernhard Bukovc
FOREWORD 4
Thierry Golliard, Chair of the Judging Panel & Director Open Innovation and Venturing,
Swiss Post
PIXOANALYTICS 5
Winner of the 2020 PIP Startup Innovation Award
SHIP2MYID 8
HDRONES 9
OPTILYZ 10
PICK8SHIP 11
NITE 13
MISTER POSTMAN 14
DUCKTRAIN 15
LIVINGPACKETS / THE BOX 16
TRADLER 18
DIRECT4.ME 20
KARDINAL 21
BOXC 24
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS 26
PIP Startup Innovation Award 2021
Postal Express & Logistics Newsletter | This newsletter provides original analysis,
information and opinions on current issues. Opinions are the sole responsibility of
the author(s).
the Postal Innovation Platform (PIP) is an open platform and forum which focuses
on innovative postal services and studies the future of the postal industry with a
solution oriented approach. It provides a conference, think tank and research
platform that is unique in the postal world and shall ease the implementation of new
and innovative postal business solutions.
Letters | We do publish letters from readers. Please include a full postal address and
a reference to the article under discussion. The letter will be published along with
the name of the author and country of residence. Send your letter (maximum 450
words) to the email address provided below. Letters may be edited.
Publication director | Dr. Bernhard Bukovc
Publisher | Postal Innovation Platform (PIP)
email:
Website:
Published in France
2
Editorial
Editorial
by Bernhard Bukovc
Last year, for the first time, we could not organize our annual startup competition during our PIP Innovation &
Startup Days at Parcel+Post Expo. This was only one of so many event highlights last year which had to be cancelled.
The preparations had all been done and together with our judges we had selected the finalists for the live pitching
event.
We adapted to this new situation and moved our competition online. One of the main values and advantages of the
competition is the discussion in front of a live audience in the conference room where the startups have the oppor-
tunity to exchange with the judges, all of them with a strong postal and logistics expertise, representing postal or
express companies, consultancies, and industry associations.
We succeeded in creating a very similar environment for the virtual live event where we had a lively and highly inter-
active exchange between the startups and the judges, where the startups could present in front of an even larger
audience due to live streaming of the event via YouTube, and where the judges found an environment and format in
which they could identify the key USPs of each presented solution and make comments, ask questions, or give some
recommendations to the startups.
The judges have chosen PixoAnalytics as the winner because its solution is unique, addresses a global problem in the
postal and logistics market, is simple, but at the same time delivers an undisputable solution to the problem, and
because it has a clear value proposition. PixoAnalytics performed best based on the award criteria of innovation
(“new and innovative idea offering an exciting new product or solution”), value (“unique value proposition”), and
impact (“impact on the industry, the environment and society”).
We want to thank our partners for this PIP Startup Competition: Swiss Post and Parcel+Post Expo
We also thank all startups for sharing their outstanding solutions. Keep on inventing for the postal, parcel and logis-
tics sector!
And finally, we also thank our judges who agreed to spend time with us over the two days and had the difficult task
to choose a winner from several finalists who all have exciting products and solutions.
If you want to (re-)watch the two live sessions go to event webpage where you can find the recorded live streaming:
https://www.postal-innovation.com/StartupCompetition
If you are interested in upcoming events, check out the announcement and call for submissions for our 2021 PIP
Startup Innovation Award at the back of this newsletter.
Finalists for the 2020 PIP Startup Innovation Award:
H-Drones, Ship2MyID, PixoAnalytics, Optilyz, Pick8Ship, NITe, Mister Postman, Ducktrain, Living Packets, Tradler,
Direct4.me, Kardinal, BoxC
Judges for the 2020 PIP Startup Innovation Award:
Thierry Golliard (Swiss Post & Chair of the Judging Panel), Brody Buhler (Accenture), Dominik Götting (DHL), Olivier
Storch (DPD), Marc Sarmiento (Austria Post), Gustavo Damy (UPU), Elmar Toime (E Toime Consulting), Alessandro
Filigenzi (Poste Italiane)
3
Fo r e w o r d
Thierry Golliard
Chair of the Judging Panel
Director Open Innovation & Venturing at Swiss Post
Customers and regulators are increasingly demanding. For instance, they expect greater convenience or
environmentally friendly delivery services. This development challenges companies; after all, they have to
partially or completely realign their business. In areas where it is more difficult to achieve goals by own
forces, partnerships with agile startups could be the decisive approach to ensure the effective develop-
ment of the service portfolio. That is why Swiss Post is proud to support the PIP Startup Innovation Award
and chair its judging panel. This completion provides smooth and direct access to early stage startups,
which, Swiss Post believes, is an ideal complement to our other sourcing deal flows. If a startup identified
in the competition fits our strategic needs, we can then rapidly develop a joint project or invest through
our corporate venturing arm.
With this in mind, I warmly congratulate PixoAnalytics as the winner of the PIP Startup Innovation Award
2020. With its state-of-the-art technology and various validated use cases, we expect its solution to have a
positive impact on operations in many sorting centers in the near future. We are convinced that this
award will empower the entrepreneurs of PixoAnalytics with extra visibility and, more importantly, new
perspectives in the postal sector.
Once again, PIP has proven to be very efficient in enabling a transparent dialogue across industry leaders
and country borders - thanks to a perfect organization and the open mindset of the participants! There-
fore, my final big “thank you” goes to my fellow members of the judging panel, with whom I greatly ap-
preciate the trustful and fruitful exchange. I am looking forward to meeting this amazing group and many
new exciting startups this fall for the PIP Startup Innovation Award 2021 during Post+Parcel Expo. Hope to
see you there!
.
4
Dossier
PixoAnalytics
Winner of the 2020 PIP Startup Innovation Award
Interview with Ali Özyigit, CEO of PixoAnalytics
First, let me congratulate you for winning the tionizes the future of logistics with a blank
2020 PIP Startup and Innovation Award. You sheet of paper and fights against frauds suc-
won this industry award among 13 finalists. cessfully.
Our judges have chosen PixoAnalytics be-
How does PixoAnalytics work?
cause, I quote: "your solution is unique, ad-
dresses a global problem in the postal and Each piece of paper, wood, plastic, and other
logistics market, is simple, but at the same materials (basically any inhomogeneous mate-
time delivers an undisputable solution to the rial) has its unique and natural surface struc-
problem, and because it has a clear value ture - what we call fingerprints. Our technolo-
proposition." Could you briefly describe the gy uses these fingerprints for identification of
solution PixoAnalytics is offering? parcels, letters and any other identification
purposes. Just like regular fingerprints, the
Thank you and I am extremely gratified for this
paper structure cannot be reproduced. Our
award. I want to appreciate the members of
biggest differentiation is that we can create a
the judging panel for choosing PixoAnalytics as
unique 128-bit code for billions of pictures of
the startup with the most innovative and game
parcels, or letters without a big storage re-
changing solution for the postal and logistics
quirement. We can identify any parcel or letter
sector.
within seconds in a sorting process.
PixoAnalytics is a Vision Recognition and AI
company for logistics. We are based in Bonn,
Germany, and were founded in 2020 by myself What are the benefits for your customers?
and Baris Cem Sal. The biggest investor in the What is your value proposition?
company currently is DP DHL Group. The main benefits are:
PixoAnalytics makes it possible to identify any 99,9% fake proof: Unlike all other fraud-
item like letters, parcels, medications, fabrics, prevention solutions, PixoIDⓇ cannot be ex-
plastics etc. at any point in time in any location
actly replicated
with its unique surface structure recognition
algorithm. The algorythm can track and trace It doesn’t require any additional identifiers:
any item without requiring any additional no labels, barcodes, QR codes, etc. (which
identifier. It can identify an object in millisec- saves money)
onds among billions of others. Our unique al- Cost-efficient: No process change in the ex-
gorithm can also identify fake and original isting operations. Due to the simple process,
products only looking at material structures by only a camera is needed
a smartphone camera. We have currently 6
patents pending worldwide. Doesn’t store images in the data-base: images
of the surfaces are being converted into alpha-
One of the use-cases, fake stamp identifica- numeric codes, that’s why we do not need big
tion, is currently being implemented in DHL’s storage area and we can compare images in
operations in Germany. PixoAnalytics revolu- seconds.
https://www.pixoanalytics.com/
5
Dossier
Hight reading rate: We have very high reading as eBay, Alibaba and others. Stamps are placed
rate regardless of the printing quality under the prices lower than the official ones,
and often are sold in batches of couple hun-
Environmentally friendly: The only technology
dred pieces at a time.
for identification and tracking of letters with-
out any environmental footprint
Fully automated: fast processing due to our So how do you solve this problem?
unique technology
Using image recognition and machine learning,
our algorithm identifies >99% of fake and re-
used stamps and rejects them from the flow.
One of the problems your solution solves is
We can immediately estimate the volume of
the identification of fake and re-used stamps.
fake and reused stamps to understand how big
How big is the problem of revenue loss
the problem is in an organization.
through fraud or fake stamps?
Our easy plug & play system does not require
After implementing this solution at Deutsche
investment in any equipment, as the algorithm
Post DHL Group, and conducting a comprehen-
uses the images directly from the sorting ma-
sive set of interviews with senior management
chines.
of other postal organizations worldwide, our
research has estimated €500 million of reve- We help our clients to:
nue loss due to fake and re-used stamps glob-
1) estimate the volume of fake and re-used
ally every year. On average postal operators
stamps to understand how big the problem is
lose 0,1% in revenue every year due to fake
in the respective organization;
and re-used stamps.
2) put a system in place to trace and reject the
The USPS stated for foxnews.com:
fraudulent stamps on a regular basis and iden-
“Counterfeit stamps have been identified as a
tify the root cause of the problem for further
steady, recurring risk for the U.S. Postal Ser-
investigation;
vice, which reported a loss of $134.4 M due to
the fake & re-used stamps, and they are one of 3) secure the revenue from illegal attempts
the 10 biggest threats to Postal Service reve- today and for the future.
nue.”
Fraudulent organizations use the latest tech- We already helped DPDHL to do so and are
nologies to create copies almost identical to currently in touch with multiple other postal
the real stamps. It is happening even though operators around the world to help them solve
stamps commonly have multiple security fea- this issue.
tures, such as phosphor bands or cuts within
the stamp body. You can find illustrations, examples, and more
information in our whitepaper on fake & re-
It is also possible to acquire stamps that have used stamps on our website at https://
been in use before and have been washed to www.pixoanalytics.com/stop-stamp-fraud and
be used again. Some charities are selling their you can watch the video about the implemen-
received envelopes in large numbers, to help tation of this solution at DPDHL at https://
boost income, to „stamp collectors“ thus al- www.youtube.com/watch?
lowing used stamps to be sold on. list=TLGGEcPtVCKGFj0xOTAyMjAyMQ&v=cLwd
There are multiple listings with fake and re- EotYRAo&feature=emb_title
used stamps on the large retail platforms, such
6
Dossier
Another use case focuses on label-less returns https://www.youtube.com/watch?
for postal operators & e-commerce shops. v=DxCw56usD7I&feature=emb_title
What is your solution here and what are the
benefits for your customers?
For what other use cases can PixoAnalytics
The approach is the following. First, customers
offer a solution?
receive an alpha-numeric code via the app or
website and write it on the box in a specifically There are several products for which our solu-
dedicated area. In a second step, customers tion can create huge benefits. I can give you a
take a picture of the code, and the system few examples.
saves a representation of the handwriting Our technology allows us to count letters that
(fingerprint), not the image. In a next step, the come in from consolidators.
returned parcel goes through the sorting ma-
chine, and our algorithm, integrated into the We help pharmaceutical companies, cosmetics
cameras of the machine, identifies the code. brands and their customers to make sure the
The entire process is a seamless and easy re- products they are purchasing are original ones,
turn process for the customers. thus preventing revenue loss for the brands
and increasing customer satisfaction.
Concerning the benefits:
We identify passports and other ID documents
We enable a hassle-free return process with 0 and can check their genuineness.
€ spent on printing labels with our technology.
We can track and trace any item without a la-
Our solution helps to generate higher profits bel individually. We can also categorize items
due to improved customer retention: the fric- like parcels or letters according to their attrib-
tion and hassle-free return process will make utes to identify the senders in case of fraud or
the customer experience better and increase any terror attack. We can find similar items in
customer satisfaction and retention. the sorting process within seconds.
It also helps to reduce costs: E-commerce com-
panies and postal providers can save up to 50
cents on every label that will not be printed. Thank you for the interview and again, con-
gratulations for winning the prestigious PIP
It improves operations: The risk of a sorting Startup and Innovation Award!
machine scanning the wrong label or the in-
convenience for customers with matching a
QR code to the right box are fully eliminated. We will also invite PixoAnalytics to our ses-
And it also has a positive impact on the envi- sions at the upcoming Parcel+Post Expo this
ronment: There is no environmental pollution October in Vienna where they will share more
caused by used and wasted labels. It is perfect about use cases, experiences and results of
for sustainability and circular economy pro- their solution which will definitely have a
jects. huge impact on the postal, express and logis-
tics ecosystem.
You can get more information on our landing
page at https://www.pixoanalytics.com/ For more information about PixoAnalytics visit
labelless their website at
You can watch the video about the solution at https://www.pixoanalytics.com/
7
Dossier
Ship2MyID
Direct Mail & Direct Marketing – Post Covid 19
"Samples" are close to $100 B spend world- effective way.
wide. They have been the proven ways to let
Our solution leverages Social Sampling by giv-
customers try the products before buying
ing the consumers the ability to receive and
them. Several industries, especially cosmetics
refer samples to their social connec-
& F&B brands have tried sampling for several
tions without needing the recipient's address-
years. However, since Covid 19, the store sam-
es or their personal information ; all without
pling has come to a grinding halt.
stepping a feet outside home.
Some of the top Challenges for the Brands:
Benefits
1. Reaching out to the right demography, user
• The solution is 100% GDPRS compliant and
by user, is very expensive.
the consumer has control over what sam-
2. Almost 60% of the samples are lost or sent ples they receive and their complete priva-
to wrong person due to change of address- cy.
es.
• Brands are excited as they can have a life-
3. One of the highest conversion channel – time relationship with the consumer and
“Direct-Sampling in stores” is completely can offer attractive and personalized offers
wiped out. for encouraging the consumers to buy the
product.
At the same time consumers are always nerv-
ous about their privacy as brands collect a lot For a leading brand, we had demonstrated
of private consumer information and their ad- more than 20 X higher conversion within the
dresses in exchange for free samples. same budget.
Our patented
Direct Mar-
keting & Mail-
ing platform
allows brands
and e-
commerce
companies to
target, identi-
fy, convert and
manage sam-
ple distribu-
tion or other
offers in a very
simple and
http://www.ship2myid.com/
8
Dossier
Hdrones
French drone pioneer
Hdrones was founded in 2016. Hdrones offers with mail box a precision to the centimeter
inbound and outbound logistic solutions based ROBUSTNES
on autonomous drones delivery; we provide : • Carbon UAV body
CAPACITIES
• A platform to run, supervise, control and • Flying speed: 72km/ hour maximum speed
collect data, for autonomous delivery ser- • Maximum flying height: 1500 meters
vice
• An autonomous drone integrating an auto- This is how we will operate:
pilot. First we proceed an audit assessing the fol-
• A tablet to administer the drone lowing inputs:
(management missions, real-time video • Identification of delivery areas: city, kilome-
feedback...) ters, restricted areas and/or no-fly zones.
• A self-contained delivery box in synchroni- • Selection of the maximum package weight
zation with the drone for the deposition of to be delivered and maximum volume
the automatic parcel. • Coding of storage bins and delivery areas
The Benefits
• 100% ecological
• Maintain an uninterrupted operation 24
hours a day, 7 days a week
• Automated delivery
• Improving profitability from delivery up to 7
times cheaper with a drone
• Optimization, the fastest delivery is through
air
• Customer Experience, new and innovative
Our strength:
Our drones are called HOME – here some AUTONOMY
specifications: Several lines of research:
• Optimization and long duration flights
Technical Specifications SAFETY • Propeller octo copter and hexa copter
• Checking the safety devices before take-off • Robotic station, smart mailbox for secure
• Emergency landing of the UAV in case of delivery (Partner Valqari)
problem detected
• Flight controller for delimiting the working Hdrones provides a totally autonomous solu-
and flight area delivery tion, from the point of take-off to the delivery
RELIABILITY AND EFFICIENCY of the package.
• Real-time HD camera
• Delivery accuracy 60 cm without mailbox,
https://www.h-drones.com/
9
Dossier
Optilyz
Interview with Martin Twellmeyer
Co-founder & Managing Director at optilyz
About today’s challenges in the area of direct are better targeted and highly personalized. By
mail and optilyz’ solution to automate and integrating directly into Marketing Automation
hyper-personalize direct mail Systems, optilyz is connecting to the necessary
data and enabling cross-channel-marketing.
Martin, could you briefly describe ‘optilyz’? This way, optilyz is securing the future rele-
vance of the channel in the marketing mix of
optilyz is Europe’s leading direct mail automa- companies.
tion software. Our tool not only offers a
straightforward way to print and send letters, How does your solution work?
postcards, and self-mailers in just a few clicks
but also enables you to run direct mail just like optilyz is a Software as a Service platform,
an online channel. Europe’s most innovative which can be directly integrated into existing
companies and some of its biggest chains use systems adding direct mail to the marketing
optilyz to integrate direct mail into their cross- mix. Customers can automate the send out of
channel marketing as well as automate and mailings or book single campaigns within a few
better personalize their campaigns. optilyz can clicks within the platform. optilyz is validating
be activated in almost all leading marketing the data and then taking care of print and
clouds and CDPs in just a few clicks (e.g. in the postage through its European print and postal
Salesforce Marketing Cloud, in Emarsys) network.
Direct mail is a very important business area What are the benefits for your customers?
for posts. What are some of the challenges
which you address? Customers can run direct mail like any other
online channel based on the direct mail perfor-
Direct mail as a channel is under threat. Large mance knowledge optilyz has established.
volume mailings and catalogues are declining They just take care of creative and messaging
in volume and face a questionable future as as well as measuring and optimizing the per-
they lack personalization and individualization. formance of individual mailings. optilyz is tak-
optilyz enables companies to significantly in- ing care of all the operational work.
crease
the per-
formance
of the
direct
mail
channel
by send-
ing small-
er batch-
es, which
10 https://optilyz.com/Dossier
Pick8Ship
Interview with Josef Haid
Founder & CEO at Pick8Ship
Josef Haid shares his views on some current Good news is things are moving: In Groceries
fulfilment and delivery challenges: faster ser- Supermarkets are testing micro fulfillment,
vices and deliveries, more flexible and con- new grocery delivery players emerged (e.g.,
venient delivery options and more sustainable Picnic, Go-puff, Gorillas) and food delivery
solutions, while still being profitable. companies entered and are scaling new mod-
els (e.g., Delivery Hero, Doordash), and Ama-
eCommerce is booming, driven today also by zon is integrating its “fresh” and “pantry”
the pandemic. Are today's business models, offering into its fast-growing prime fulfillment
when we are thinking about fulfillment or network.
packaging, still viable?
Fashion and Beauty and to an extent Electron-
With the pandemic we are experiencing a fast ics are restructuring their store networks and
forward of e-commerce by 3-5 years. Howev- business models. Inditex (owner of Zara, Ber-
er, retailers and service providers are strug- shka, Massimo Dutti and others) recently an-
gling building up a faster, more “micro” and nounced the closure of smaller stores and ma-
more efficient urban fulfillment and last mile jor online investments establishing larger
delivery. It’s not only a question of volumes stores as “urban fashion platforms”. Likely we
but also of new business models. So far only will see much more of this in the coming
“bits and pieces” of required technologies are months and years.
available and sustainability issues remain unre-
Finally, postal, parcel and logistics service pro-
solved.
viders are experimenting with smaller, more
flexible sorting and delivery solutions, howev-
er, struggling with doing so on small footprints
Why do we need to re-think packaging and
and automation of smaller volumes.
fulfilment? Is it pressure from customers,
pressure through high costs of current models
or waste reduction?
How can Pick8Ship help? Could you briefly
It’s pretty much a perfect storm with pressure describe the main features of your solu-
from all sides. Most challenging probably is to tion?
become faster, cope with more flexible and
We are happy to see developments moving
convenient delivery options and becoming
right into our sweet spot: flexibly scalable, au-
more sustainable while still making money.
tomated mobile fulfillment and last mile deliv-
To be faster requires getting closer to custom- ery solutions – our vision is to build the logis-
ers, to be more efficient getting rid of the han- tics backbone for the circular economy.
dling intensive manual fulfillment, sorting and
Pick8ship developed a new, highly efficient,
delivery processes, getting more sustainable
flexibly scalable and sustainable logistics sys-
leaving the “one-way-street to the dump” be-
tem – “the container moment for parcel logis-
hind in favor for a more circular model.
tics” (Jochen Krisch, Exciting Commerce).
11Dossier
Multi-use Smartboxes flexibly stored in Trol- small micro sorting unit with 60m2 and up to
leys, each with exactly defined position, can be 500 shipments per hour and adding space,
taken out any time without re-loading the Trolleys and Robots to increase capacity to
whole Trolley. over 5’000/hour. Also, fulfillment, returns han-
dling, replenishment or pick-up services can be
Picking done directly to the shipping box in the
flexibly integrated, leveraging capacities in
Trolley (picking for larger volumes semi-
downtimes.
automated) and Sorting direct from Trolley to
Trolley (for larger volumes automated)
Sustainable: Pick8ship allows to reduce pack-
Last mile delivery direct with the Trolley on aging (multi-use Smartboxes), delivery traffic
cargo bikes, trailers or delivery vans. Returns (pre-sorting at source, smart trolley-milk-runs),
and new shipments integrated with delivery new flexible delivery options (Pick8ship recep-
run, 24/7 Parcel Shop with Pick8ship Recep- tion) and offering new circular services (re-fill,
tion concept. re-use, rentals, re-sell, re-cycle).
Use cases in multiple sectors like in Retail
What are the benefits for your customers? (Groceries, Fashion, Sport Shoes, Beauty &
Health, Office Supplies) City logistics and B2B
Pick8ship is universal, highly efficient, flexibly
Replenishment (Retail Stores, Hospitals &
scalable, can work without transport packag-
Care, Restaurants, Large Office buildings, In-
ing as well as with existing packaging and can
dustrial production).
complement existing systems.
Pick8ship is a unique opportunity for parcel
Multi-functional: Pick8ship modules consisting
and logistics service providers supporting
of Smartboxes, Trolleys and Handling Robots
online and offline retail in mastering the urban
can be seamlessly deployed across the logistics
fulfilment and delivery challenge.
value chain. From receive and storage to pick-
ing and sorting as well as for pick-up and deliv-
ery. Pick8ship allows for a flexible configura- Fulfil-
tion, during the day, the season and different ment/
order volume patterns. Overall allowing for a
much more efficient use of space and capaci-
ties.
Highly efficient, reducing handling and space
required and allowing to reduce costs and in- Sorting
vestments by 30 to 50% and packaging waste &
by up to 95%.
Delivery
Flexibly scalable: It is possible to start with a & Pick-
© Pick8ship Technology AG, Patents pending
https://www.pick8ship.com/home-en/
12Dossier
NITe
Interview with Adolfo Santoro
CEO of NITe
How artificial intelligence can enhance the nationally patented, helps customers to im-
quality of machine-reading of written mes- prove the efficiency of its postal dispatching
sages and addresses process by reducing the percentage of postal
documents manually processed and by
Could you tell us about NITe and your solu- enabling the automatic processing of the
tion? images rejected from other current existing
solutions.
Natural Intelligent Technologies s.r.l. (N.I.Te.)
was born in 2012 as a spin-off company of the What are the main benefits for your custo-
University of mers? What
Salerno, in the is your value
South of Italy, proposition
and now it is for the pos-
an innovative tal and logis-
SME working in tics sector?
the ICT sector The main
of Artificial benefits for
Intelligence the custo-
and Pattern Recognition. NITe builds reading mers are high value customization of our solu-
machines with Artificial Intelligence. tion, state-of-the-art recognition accuracy of
Why is it so important to be able to read and the technology, reduced training and setup of
process a handwritten text, such as ad- our AI solution. The value proposition for the
dresses? postal and logistics sector is the capacity to
improve the efficiency of the dispatching of
The automatic postal dispatching process, i.e.
handwritten addresses process by reducing
the capacity to automatically read and elabo-
the effort of humans in terms of time and cost.
rate handwritten addresses, is very important
for postal market operators because it allows
to solve different of their challenges, such as
missing data, data inconsistency and data pri-
vacy related to postal dispatching.
What makes your solution unique and distin-
guishes you from your competitors?
Our handwriting recognition technology, inter-
http://www.nitesrl.com/
13Dossier
Mister Postman
Interview with Patrick Giesen
CEO of Mister Postman
Why it is important to not only provide a solu- Let's look at the costs. Doesn't your solution
tion for the last mile, but rather for the last make the overall delivery costs more expen-
few “meters” sive?
Actually, we don't see ourselves as part of the
usual supply chain, but rather as a follow-up
The last mile is a big challenge for all delivery solution for the parcel service providers. It is
companies. Mister Postman offers a solution an additional service for which the end custo-
for the very last "meters". Can you briefly des- mer has to pay, because we save them consi-
cribe your solution? derable effort.
Our customers can use our What are the benefits for your
platform to order the delivery customers?
of their parcels from parcel
The main benefits for the parcel
stores or packing stations to
recipients or parcel senders are
the main door or to have their
that they determine the date
returns and franked parcels
when we pick up or deliver the
picked up there. Since Novem-
parcels. Our delivery times are Mo.
ber, we have also been offe-
-So. from 06.00-22.00 o'clock and
ring a courier service for B2B/
the customer determines the desi-
C2C and stationary retail with
red date. The advantage of the
optional returns.
courier service is that we can deli-
Why should someone use Mis- ver the parcel to the recipient
ter Postman? after only 6 hours. Retail is there-
fore faster than online trading.
Mister Postman essentially
offers customers one advan- What is your offer to delivery
tage, which is time. Both when companies?
picking up or dropping off par-
Due to the growing online trade, it
cels in the parcel store, an
will be difficult to deliver parcels
enormous amount of time is
on time to the end customer in the
needed. We give this time to
future. Many cities are also
our customers through the
working on concepts for an emis-
service.
sion-free inner city. Direct delivery
Why is there a market need? to parcel stores or packing stations by delivery
companies would be more economical for
In 2019, almost 340 million parcels were not
these companies and more ecological for the
delivered and 330 million orders were re-
cities.
turned in Germany. Added to this are the
franked parcels and courier services. So the
market demand is there.
https://mister-postman.net/
14Dossier
Ducktrain
Urban Transportation. Reimagined
Imagine living in a city where the streets are
not filled by bulky delivery trucks polluting Ducktrain is an automated, electric light
the air, but small and smart vehicles in a row. vehicle system for sustainable and very effi-
cient urban and industrial last mile logistics
Cities are confronted with massive congestion with a step by-step go-to-road strategy: from
of the road infrastructure. The core cause is partially automated follow-me to automated
that our cities were not built for today’s logis- driving. Ducktrain will disrupt how urban and
tics demand. industrial logistic is done: With small, auto-
mated vehicles. Ducktrain is an innovative
Today, last-mile logistic is done with conven- vehicle system complementary to cargo bikes
tional delivery vans which start in the very which can play an important role for the broad
morning with a day of load. Those vans are rollout of bike and LEV based urban logistic.
consuming a huge share
of urban infrastructure
and at the destination
they have difficulties fin-
ding parking spots. This
leads to long walking dis-
tances, bad human work
ergonomics and non-value
-adding process time.
Whereas the first part of
the logistics chain is highly
automated and very effi-
cient (automated ware-
houses, automated sorting centers), the
urban last mile logistics is still highly manual
and full of interruptions (time loss due to
congestion, searching a parking lot, vehicle
exit, unloading, walking, vehicle entry) and
very costly (more than 50% of total delivery
cost).
Additionally, most cities already restrict delive-
ry vans city access which is a driver for logistics
companies to think about and test bike- and
light-electric-vehicle (LEV)-based urban delive-
ry. But cargo bikes are limited in their payload
which leads to inefficient processes (e.g. mul-
tiple re-loading per day necessary). https://ducktrain.io/
15Dossier
LivingPackets
Interview with Niklas Leck
Business Development at THE BOX / LivingPackets
Enabling Circular Economy with re-useable Beside environmental considerations, what
and smart packaging solutions are other value propositions of The Box and
which market needs does your product ad-
You have developed "The Box". What exactly dress?
is it?
First and foremost, we address e-commerce,
THE BOX is an intelligent packaging solution but ultimately THE BOX can be used to trans-
that can be reused hundreds of times before it port anything that fits inside. There are many
gets refurbished to be used hundreds of more advantages that it gives to the sender and reci-
times. Thanks to THE BOX there is no need for pient: Higher security (loss, theft and broken
any cardboard or filling material anymore. You goods are avoided), ease-of-use both for the e-
can think of it as a little computer or smart- commerce in the warehouse and for the end
phone—in a box: A display, a GPS tracker, an consumer when he receives THE BOX, as well
internet connection and multiple sensors as cost savings and efficiency gains through
among other things are built-in to create a ful- automation and technical integrations. The
ly secure, transparent and sustainable delivery display and the speaker of THE BOX can also
experience. be used to make the customer experience
even more personal.
Customers are increasingly aware of how
packaging contributes to overall waste. How do you see the future of Circular Econo-
However, they are used to cardboard boxes my in the postal and logistics industry?
and can easily depose of them. Are they ready
With THE BOX we are not only aiming to
to accept new packaging solutions?
switch from one-way packaging to reusable
We think of THE BOX as much more than pack- packaging, but also want to enable that one-
aging. For us, it can be the enabler of a fully way logistics becomes circular logistics.
circular economy. That’s why customers can Through the many possibilities to reuse it, we
reuse THE BOX for all kinds of purposes: You hope that THE BOX never travels empty. And if
can return a delivery with the push of a somebody doesn’t directly want to reuse THE
button, you can reuse them for your private BOX it will always go to the next potential user
shipments, you can donate or resell old goods around the corner or to the corner shop. The
via our partners to give these goods a second allocation relies on supply and demand. Every-
life. These are just a few options. Overall, we body who contributes to the circulation can be
aim to make the delivery experience as easy as financially rewarded for it – be it for cleaning,
possible: That is why we are also working with repairing, transporting, or providing it to so-
logistics partners who can pick up your ship- mebody else. As soon as the adoption of tools
ment at your home, or you can bring it back to like THE BOX goes up through better usability
a partner shop and get a reward. and more opportunities (which current solu-
tions lack), a fully circular economy might final-
ly be possible!
16Dossier
What are the main challenges you see for a but if it comes with additional hassle or more
broad deployment of The Box, or re-usable cost for the end customer, it won’t be
materials in general? adopted. We are therefore building apps and
partnerships to make it as convenient as pos-
Currently, sustainable alternatives are either
sible and created a pricing model that aims to
not sufficiently easy-to-use or simply too ex-
allow everyone to use THE BOX.
pensive. This is why we made THE BOX smart:
Its features and built-in tech make it extremely
convenient to use and solve many problems
that both e-commerce companies and end
customers currently have. And we think it’s
important that all of this comes at no additio-
nal cost compared to cardboard and the re-
lated processes for the sender. So the sender
only pays per use and for the specific set of
services that are needed. Reusability is nice -
https://livingpackets.com/
17Dossier
Tradler
Interview with Jasper Deprez
CEO at Tradler
The challenges of employee engagement and that they are trying, however as it is not their
motivation in postal and logistics companies core business. We usually see great initiatives
and how Tradler can boost real time recogni- failing due to the lack of personalization and
tion and employee engagement skill of execution. To give you an example: We
had a company who handed out 4 Christmas
Large organizations, such as postal and logis- gifts, one per week leading up to Christmas,
tics companies, care a lot about customers or which sounds amazing. However, because of
technology. What about the employees? Do the manual work to set this up they ordered
they get enough attention? for everyone the exact same 4 gifts. You can-
not please everyone with the same thing, and
Today, globally, employee engagement is as quite soon this completely backfired. Their
low as 20%. This is the same across industries, team members started to complain on social
countries, and types of employment. To illus- media that they should not have bought use-
trate this when you have 10 people in the less things, that they should have better do-
team and your organisation is symbolised as a nated this to a NGO, that the gifts are mea-
“carriage” there are 2 people who are pulling ningless, etc.. The result is that the project lea-
the carriage, roughly 5-6 sitting on the carriage der of this initiative now thinks 2 things. A.)
and 2-3 are literally pulling the carriage in the Let’s not do things too out of the unusual as it
opposite direction. Postal organizations are backfires (Fear of change). B.) We are not able
not alone with this problem, but they are no to make a massive impact in engagement
exception either. If they could just move 1-2 (learned helplessness). So, I think the question
persons from sitting on the carriage to pulling here is more: do companies know what they
it - return on investments in technology, pro- need to do to keep their staff? And the answer
cesses and innovation would be hugely accele- is most of times yes, they have a general idea.
rated. However, they lack the knowledge of how to
In many delivery companies there is a high implement it.
turnover of staff. Are doing delivery compa-
nies enough to keep their staff? I have seen some of the results of Tradler and
It is very hard. People do repetitive jobs, the you have proven to increase employee enga-
work pressure is huge, span of control of ma- gement, can you describe your solution brie-
nagers is large, and then you have moments fly?
like this year where suddenly the work doubles Well, first of all, I believe that engagement as a
or triples. When speaking with some of these metric is very hard to measure due to the sub-
companies, I have the feeling that they gave jectivity of the matter, there are definitely
up on this. I feel like they qualified turnover as ways to measure engagement, for example
an “unsolvable problem”. And in most compa- using Gallup’s Q12 questions. However, at
nies it is not only the turnover that hurts, it is Tradler we tend to measure the tangible im-
the effect of this turnover with open areas, pact or effect of engagement. Elements such
interim solutions etc. So going back to your as productivity, quality of service, employee
question, are delivery companies doing churn and absenteeism.
enough to keep their staff? I want to believe
18Dossier
To positively impact these metrics, we do 3 Sandd B.V.(Aquired by PostNL), a mail organi-
things: zation in the Netherlands with roughly 20.000
FTE.
1) We connect performance real time to reco-
gnition. This means that employees get points The problem was that every year they needed
every time they achieve a performance. This to rehire 7000 FTE because of voluntarily leave
can be automatic based on KPIs/milestones or and spent enormous budgets on covering
can come from managers/colleagues in a form “open areas” due to people leaving or sick-
of appreciation (virtual high-five). Points can ness.
be changed to gifts of their choice. Why this is
We produced some impressive results:
important is because this way team members
find themselves more and more connected to We reduced employee churn by 39%
work - as they receive recognition when they Tradler users were 15% more productive then
create value (which is considered important none-Tradler users. Productivity in Sandd was
for the company or for their colleagues) measured by the amount of areas covered by
2) We allow managers to provide recognition 1 person. In other words, they needed 15%
and scale in an automated, yet personalised fewer interim solutions.
way. This way managers can provide attention Usage of internal tools was celebrated in
to the right employee at the right time. Tradler and usage went up by 5.2%
3) We bring it all together by providing insights So how did we do it? There were moments of
either through automated reports or poll sur- frustration with the delivery staff, one of these
veys and through our data driven consultative frustrations got labeled: “The rainy days”. It is
approach. This way companies can make im- not rocket science to say that it is harder to
provements using data insights and analytics deliver in the rain. Now I worked as a mailman
as their organizations teams evolve. for a week, we interviewed multiple people
and we came to realize that it is not the rain
itself that makes it hard, it is the fact that the
What impact can your solution have in an or-
mail gets wet and starts sticking to each other,
ganization, such as a postal or logistics com-
because of that people need more time to do
pany?
the same work. Data showed us that if so-
We influence a couple of things in postal orga- meone started their new job delivering mail
nizations, including on the one hand attrition and it rained in the first 2 weeks the chances
and absenteeism, and on the other productivi- were 70% that this person was going to quit
ty and quality. Why? Because team members their job in the first 3 months. And this makes
get much more connected to what they do and sense, if you are new to the job you naturally
they see the value of their work as they get need more time, combine this with rain and
recognised. They demonstrate much more you have the feeling that you will never finish.
often the desired KPI and their productivity
So what we introduced was a way to ack-
goes up. Also, they are more willing to take
nowledge the fact that this was a challenging
extra work, for example they are 2X more li-
day. When people started to work in Sandd
kely to cover open areas than people in similar
they received points for the first day they deli-
jobs not using Tradler.
vered the mail in the rain. If they had 5 rainy
We work together with the organization to days they got a milestone of the ‘rainmaster’.
identify behaviours or metrics that can be im-
To summarize my example: By making relevant
proved, and from there we tailor the platform
real time recognitions we were able to drive
to the organizational needs and goals.
certain behaviours on an individual level wi-
thin an organization of 20.000 FTE.
Can you also share some insights from a use be possible!
case and tell us what the benefits for your Read the testimonial from Richard Borsboom CFO of
customers are? Sandd B.V.
19 https://tradler.co/Dossier
Direct4.me
Interview with
Eduard Bockai, CEO Direct4.me
Delivery success is a key parameter in CEP with fixed opening hours. If you have coffee at
logistics, from the perspective of costs, but home, you will not make an extra effort to go
also from the perspective of customer experi- to a cafe every time you need coffee.
ence. What is Direct4.me's solution?
Looking from a CEP point of view a binary de-
Delivering at home is probably the most con-
livery success metric is obsolete. It is a compo-
venient way for customers to receive their
site KPI on a two-dimensional scale of cost vs.
parcels. But it comes with a cost. How open
customer satisfaction. The scenario with the
are customers to invest in a Home Supply Sta-
highest consumer satisfaction is where parcels
tion?
materialize at home like teleported. Consum-
ers are not involved. Delivery scenarios involv- For $10 per month, you get concierge service
ing interruption and demanding participation, and a parcel receiver that is always at your
cognitive capacity, physical effort and time home tracking, sending, receiving, and syncing
from consumers have no future. parcels with all couriers autonomously, with-
out interrupting you. Doing this work yourself
You can't be customer centric and make your
will take 30 minutes per parcel; so if you are
customers drive somewhere to pick up their
ordering 2 parcels per month and making
package at the same time. First time, every
more than minimum wage our solution makes
time with no consumer participation is what
financial sense. Plus, you're saving money on
we call delivery success.
gas.
There are several solutions when it comes to
What is your cooperation model and business
driving first attempt delivery success rates,
proposition to postal and CEP companies?
including PUDO and locker systems? Why
should your solution pre- This is a unique moment in time where CEP
vail over the others? companies can invest in ecom-
merce real estate that helps them
A modern home has wa-
improve margins today and se-
ter, energy, communica-
cure a competitive advantage for
tion, and product utility.
tomorrow. Developing a parcel
Product utility lets your
locker network covering home
home receive and send
and out of home locations gets
parcels 24/7. This is what
CEP incremental revenue from
connects your home to
brands, retailers, customers, and
the global supply chain.
other couriers. The cooperation
Public locker systems are
model is simple, it uses our tech-
like public water foun-
nology, and it reports double digit
tains, you will never walk
returns to your shareholders.
to a public water fountain
once you have water at
home. PUDO is like a cafe
https://www.direct4.me/en-us/
20Dossier
Kardinal
Interview with
Jonathan Bouaziz, CEO Kardinal
“In practice, a tour that has been calculated This does not work. Indeed, in practice a tour
before the drivers leave on the road is no that has been calculated before the drivers
longer 'valid' only a few minutes after depar- leave on the road is no longer "valid" only a
ture.” few minutes after departure. Traffic jams,
client delays, vehicle break down are just a few
examples of what can happen on the road. If
Route optimization is a huge opportunity to the route optimization solution is not able to
increase efficiency and cut costs. Can you recompute tours in real time, it leaves the dri-
briefly describe Kardinal's solution? ver with the task to manage all these unex-
Kardinal is a deep-tech SaaS solution that helps pected events alone. The consequences on the
postal operators and logistics players to opti- performance and quality of service are quickly
mally plan and execute their tours. The solu- felt.
tion, based on proprietary algorithms and in- Kardinal’s solution is natively built to be
depth machine learning, aims to combine “Always On”, in other words: the optimization
cutting-edge technology with human intelli- does not stop with the departure of drivers on
gence for peak optimization. the road. If our customer's fleet of vehicles is
Its real-time running allows operational staff to equipped with a mobile application, Kardinal
adapt to unpredictable environments, ma- can stay in contact with the vehicle and conti-
nages unforeseen events in real time and nue to optimize routes while they are in pro-
offers its customers the ability to optimize gress.
their resources, increase their productivity Thus, we can update the ETAs (Estimated Time
while improving their quality of service. of Arrival) at each point according to the traffic
in real time and our solution offers "better rou-
ting solutions" according to changes in traffic
Traffic jams, client delays, vehicle break down conditions or new unexpected events.
are a few examples of what makes route op-
timization in real life a mess. How can you
concretely address those issues? How can you ensure that real time events are
The classic operation of a route optimization considered and the right measures triggered
solution is as follows: in your system?
• collection of the delivery data to be carried To ensure real time events are considered by
out our system we use real-time traffic data from
our partner Here technologies, and we take
• computation of tours by an algorithm into account every event coming from the field
• the computation stops when a good thanks to driver’s mobile app.
enough, potentially optimal, solution is
found As our optimization never stops, it checks in
real time the impacts on tours and proposes
• departure of drivers on the road
better alternatives when they exist.
21Dossier
In the example below, the real-time traffic da- routes, regardless of the activity concerned
ta used by Kardinal indicates to its algorithm a (our algorithms are proprietary and result
traffic jam that was not expected. By recalcula- from 4 years of R&D in mathematics, so we
ting the ETAs at each point, our solution identi- have full control over their configuration).
fies that a time slot will not be respected: it
• We take into account predictive traffic
then proposes to the driver a change in the
upstream of the optimization calculations (this
order of deliveries that will still allow him to
is generally not the case in solutions on the
respect the commitments made to his custo-
market), which allows us to provide very realis-
mers.
tic route optimization solutions
that can truly be implemented by
teams in the field.
• Finally, our solution collects da-
ta from the field and uses it to
improve future optimizations
through Machine Learning, allo-
wing a continuous improvement
of our customers' operations.
Can you share some insights, ba-
sed on current use cases, into
what the potential for optimiza-
Another example: A pick-up finally has to be tion with Kardinal could be?
done earlier than planned but it doesn't fit in
Recently we optimized the fleet of a parcel
the tour of the driver who was supposed to do
delivery player. The chosen agency is located
it. The planner changes the new pick-up sche-
near Nantes (France). The customer had asked
dule in real time and the algorithm proposes a
us to respect a particular constraint which was
new solution which consists in sending ano-
to ensure a minimum turnover per tour for its
ther driver to carry out this mission instead of
providers.
the first one :
The gains we obtained are :
• Better fill rate : the truck fill
rate increased from 60 to 71%
after optimization.
• Fewer kilometers travelled per
stop : the optimization allowed to
go from 3.35 to 3.17 km per stop.
• Better productivity : The op-
timization allowed to pass from
36.34 to 41.23 orders / vehicle.
• All delivery time slots have
What differentiates your solution from other been respected versus 83% previously
solutions in the market? • No more unprofitable tour for providers
The Kardinal solution differs from competing (15% did not reach the minimum turnover
solutions thanks to its real-time operation (as previously)
described in the previous questions) but it also • Opex cost reduction : the average daily
has other very interesting advantages: operating costs went from €16,890 to
€14,600 with optimization (-14%)
• It is very flexible and can take into account
all business constraints in the optimization of 22Dossier
Dynamic route optimization is a possible So at Kardinal, we thought that if the effort to
answer to traffic changes and uncertainties. operationally implement global optimization at
But for a true optimization of the parcel deli- the tour level is huge, it may be much easier to
very process, you need to act at a global level, do it at the sector level. Hence our unique stra-
considering all the vehicles at once. However, tegic sectorization approach. Without diving
adapting the parcel sorting and dispatch pro- too much into technical details, the main idea
cess in real time comes at a huge cost. Is is to work on historical data with a combina-
there anything that can be done at this tion of Machine Learning and Optimization
higher, organizational level ? techniques to build, from scratch, both a co-
herent sectorization of an area coupled with
Indeed, with thousands of parcels to sort, your
the right sizing of a fleet. Our algorithm
main concern as a practitioner is to fill your
chooses the optimal fleet mix in terms of
trucks as soon as possible so they can depart
vehicles (it can mix heavy trucks with small
on time. You don't have time to reoptimize
electric three-wheelers) and assign a geogra-
everything in the last moments: your only
phically consistent sector to them (with res-
room of manoeuvre is to make a few last-
pect to roads, rivers, and operational or regu-
minute rebalancing. Therefore, the field's prac-
latory constraints like traffic bans for certain
tice is to rely on pre-defined sectors that are
types of vehicles for example).
designed in a way that one sector can be
served by one vehicle. With this organization, This approach is unique as it relies on mathe-
as every parcel has an address, therefore it has matics that did not exist 3 years ago, and it has
an associated sector and parcels can be sorted been successfully experimented with a French
accordingly without having to wait for the full big player in parcel delivery with a currently
knowledge of all parcels to deliver. With such estimated 10% to 15% reduction in the num-
an organization, global route optimization is ber of tours. We estimated with them that sec-
often seen as only applicable to the mere se- torization helped gain, in 2 months, 87% of the
quencing of tours, preventing the company to potential cost reduction route optimization
benefit from the huge cost reductions of op- would have brought (in theory only, after a 2
timization at scale. On the other hand, it is years long project).
worth mentioning that there is very few ratio-
nal basis for building such sectors. Most often,
they are based on things like postal codes that
do not necessarily reflect the true activity dis-
tribution. To sum things up: parcels cannot be
sorted without a sectorization so route op-
timization is limited, but sectorization itself is a https://kardinal.ai/
very difficult optimization problem to solve as
well!
23Dossier
BoxC
Interview with
Michael Bakula, CEO BoxC
eCommerce and in particular cross-border can your solution help to increase customer
commerce has been growing rapidly, in parti- experience?
cular lately through the pandemic. However,
BoxC makes international shipping as simple as
it is very often not seamless or frictionless.
shipping a local package with savings that have
What are the challenges?
traditionally only been available to few. The
Indeed, international shipping can be compli- linehaul is direct to the destination country
cated. Accessing the core infrastructure of an using commercial customs clearance and injec-
international shipping network where the real tion into the last mile carrier network. The
savings can be found can be daunting. And shipment will be viewed and treated as a do-
impossible except for those with scale and the mestic shipment after clearing customs, which
resources to match. In addition, traditional means a local shipping label and a local return
postal international shipping has limitations address, as well as with taxes and duties pre-
that don't meet the demands of current e- paid. This way the recipient will get a complete
commerce trends. local experience.
The key to a local experience for the recipient
is prepaid taxes and duties. To make the expe-
What solution does BoxC offer to the postal rience for the shipper seamless and frictionless
and logistics industry to help overcome those is to calculate the taxes and duties at the same
challenges? time shipping charges are being calculated.
BoxC is a technology company that provides In addition, complete and visible tracking has
access to an open international e-commerce become expected by recipients and shippers.
shipping platform that opens trade lanes to 50 Just as important as full tracking, good ad-
countries and growing. All pay as you go. Un- dresses ensure reliable transit times. And in
like traditional infrastructure, international e-
the cases of undeliverable shipments a local
commerce shipping is available without the return address allows for quick re-shipment
burdens of capacity planning, carrier contracts, with corrected addresses.
partner integration and fragmented commer-
cial customs clearance including
tax and duty calculation. Additio-
nally, included is artificial intelli-
gence for data enhancement of
descriptions and HS codes, prohi-
bited and restricted item scree-
ning and denied party screening.
Customer experience is key in
eCommerce and delivery. How
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