{"id":32948,"date":"2019-08-16T08:31:51","date_gmt":"2019-08-16T07:31:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/?p=32948"},"modified":"2019-08-19T07:55:24","modified_gmt":"2019-08-19T06:55:24","slug":"hermes-trailblazes-europes-logistics-scene","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/2019\/08\/16\/hermes-trailblazes-europes-logistics-scene\/","title":{"rendered":"Hermes trailblazes Europe\u2019s logistics scene"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We exist in an era which demands timely services and allows very little room for mistakes when it comes to technology. Hermes\u2019 CIO, Chris Ashworth, explains the steps that take place behind the scenes when delivering a seamless customer experience. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hermes is one of the UK’s leading consumer delivery specialists and works with leading retailers. The parcel company provides a range of flexible and affordable delivery options to home, work, neighbours, safe place or ParcelShop that are convenient for the consumer and comply with people\u2019s on-the-go approach to daily life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chris Ashworth provides an insight into how Hermes\u2019 delivery process is so successful and how it continues to innovate and develop its service to achieve absolute customer satisfaction.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

An overview of the role<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My role has changed over the years. I was appointed CIO\nthree years ago which involved upgrading and digitally transforming a legacy\ninfrastructure. My role evolved quite quickly because in order to do that, I\nhad to invoke a strategic change, so the kind of change management function\nfell under a traditional CIO role. We\u2019ve been rolling out that three-year\nstrategy which is now coming to an end. This is helping to digitise the\nbusiness as we\u2019re taking it into the cloud, breaking down the legacy\ninfrastructure. We now have a more customer-focused approach into our internal\nsystems. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As technology has evolved, so has my role. My remit now\nincludes strategic developments, product developments and even marketing. The\nCIO\u2019s office drives the strategy and product innovation of our business. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The main challenges of Ashworth\u2019s role<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peak time demand was the initial biggest challenge I was\nfaced with. Typically within the industry, volumes double particularly around Black\nFriday and Christmas. So, you can take your busiest day in summer and double\nit. We will deliver 2.4 million parcels on our busiest day this year through\nour hubs but as the volume doubles, the challenge is much harder because the\nvolume comes to us a lot later. This is down to the fact that clients struggle\nto get it out of their warehouses on time due to their orders doubling, roads\nare more treacherous, days are darker, parcels need to get to the hub earlier\nbecause there\u2019s an increased amount on the road. You\u2019re therefore looking at a\n10x scaling problem with regards to system. This is something that\u2019s unique to\nmy role and industry, and something myself and my peers struggle with each\nyear.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other challenge is that everything completed within the industry has to be done at real value. Most people take delivery as a given. A lot of people don\u2019t pay for delivery, but they expect it to be perfect. Understandably, it\u2019s one of those emotive services – you order something and you expect it to arrive. The fact it might have to travel for miles and go through numerous pairs of hands and do all of that in a 12-hour period isn\u2019t really considered by the end customer and we have to provide them with a seamless journey every single time. All of these things must be carried out in a way that gives the customer absolute reassurance and control around the parcel without adding unnecessary additional costs. Those are the real challenges around the industry currently.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The current state of the technology landscape in Europe<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My view is that it\u2019s a mixed bag. When considering my\nindustry in particular, I think the UK is at the forefront of the drive of\nshopping through the Internet and as such, I think we\nprobably lead the way with Europe in regard to service offerings, customer\nconfiguration, assurance control, customer experience, that kind of thing. We\ndon\u2019t always get it right, but I think we are the trailblazers. When you look across Europe, a lot of our competitors are\ncatching up but they\u2019re not quite where we are. I think this is because\nour market is a lot more mature and that much more demanding. It\u2019s all very\nrelative across Europe; we take ideas from all over the show \u2013 some come from\nthe continent, some comes from the states, some come from the UK. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Utilising technology to enhance the customer experience<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We do this in various ways. The first is that we try and\nkeep the customer assured – we try and provide tracking in real time. We try\nand simplify our tracking events, so we take the jargon away as it is\nunnecessary to explain every leg of the journey but being really clear is\nessential. Then we start to introduce more of the expectation, so time slots\nare being introduced now and when parcels are delivered, we use a safe place\nmodel. This means that we\u2019ll provide a photograph of the safe place and we\u2019ll also\nprovide a geolocation to prove that we were there, reassuring the customer. If\nit\u2019s a sign-for parcel, we\u2019ll provide a signature which all takes place in real\ntime. If a customer isn\u2019t going to be home, it introduces another level of\nanxiety for them, so now we introduce control. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Late last year, we brought in diversions which allow the customer to choose their safe place or their preferred neighbour to leave their parcel with if they aren\u2019t home. Soon, we’ll be expanding those diversions beyond the home so you can divert to ParcelShop or to an alternative address \u2013 we can even hold the parcel for you. Depending on how far that parcel is through our network, we can provide you with extra options. So, if the parcel is still at our hub, it can reach anywhere in the country and we can therefore allow you to divert to your chosen address. We\u2019re simply trying to introduce as many controls as we can to give the customer ultimate choice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019ll also be launching a new product called Hermes Play\nwhich starts to introduce real personalisation to someone sending a parcel as a\ngift. It personalises a label by introducing Augmented Reality onto the label,\nso customers can record a video and upload it into the cloud and then we pass\nthat video along the parcel journey and let the recipient know it\u2019s there for\nthem. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re even allowing people to choose their safe place \u2013 we\nhave another product called MyPlace which will be launching soon. It allows\npeople to choose their safe place, drop a pin in the map, put a photo of that\nsafe place in the app, choose their preferred neighbour to leave the parcel\nwith, and the offering ultimately provides customisation around safe places. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Changes companies\/CIOs should be making to improve the current technology threats across the region<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You don\u2019t know what\u2019s coming, so we are trying to make our\ninfrastructure as cost-effective and as agile as possible. It\u2019s not rocket science, but the digitisation of a business\nis absolutely fundamental. We\u2019ve always got to keep our cost margin low\nand so moving onto a more modern infrastructure helps. Cloud computing compared\nto traditional computing is so much more cost-effective, particularly when you\nstart to think about scaling and non-production environments. I think we\u2019ve\nmanaged to decrease around 50% of our hosting costs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, I think getting onto modern technology, keeping your\ncost base low but also retaining that agility. There\u2019s a lot that\u2019s changing\nand markets are getting more and more competitive \u2013 if somebody comes out with\nsomething that\u2019s a bit of a game-changer, you\u2019ve got to catch up. You\u2019ve got to constantly keep innovating so having an agile\ninfrastructure gives you that flexibility to compete. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A final component is to get your data sorted. I think data\u2019s\na real differentiator, whether it\u2019s about managing yourself better and more\nefficiently with exceptional-based reporting and ultimately, moving on to\ndata-driven decisions and even using AI and decision engines to drive you\nforward. Data is massive for operational efficiencies and also for monetising\nand adding value-added services. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Advice to CIOs <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

From a personal perspective, I try to find a project and company that resonates with me. Everyone is different and everyone\u2019s value increases if you find the right company, culture and project. So, I would always advise to know your strengths, know what you\u2019re good at, what you aren\u2019t good at and look for a project and company that fits your this. If you do that, you can only enjoy the journey, have fun and add some value and that\u2019s all I try and do now in my career. So far, I\u2019m really enjoying it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We exist in an era which demands timely services and allows very little room for mistakes when it comes to technology. Hermes\u2019 CIO, Chris Ashworth, explains the steps that take place behind the scenes when delivering a seamless customer experience. Hermes is one of the UK’s leading consumer delivery specialists and works with leading retailers. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":32950,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[205,51,4,29,93,427,23,24],"tags":[13167,6284,11081,642,13166],"class_list":["post-32948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-case-studies","category-case-study-newsletter","category-cloud","category-software","category-top-stories","category-trade-logistics","category-united-kingdom","category-used","tag-chris-ashworth","tag-cio","tag-hermes","tag-logistics","tag-parcelshop"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32948"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32948\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33003,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32948\/revisions\/33003"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}