Supply chain disruption refers to the tragic effect of the pandemic imposing on economies. It seemingly accelerates the adoption of autonomous delivery today.
In this decade, while several IT development solutions joying the online economy, including eCommerce and even international businesses, are seemingly exhaustive, autonomous delivery tends to be the indispensable part. Accordingly, on demand delivery refers to the final step, which defines the ending point of the value chain.
Apart from other business models, delivery is considered a vital ancillary service for the entire industry, operating partly or wholly online. Whereby, eCommerce, retail, restaurants, groceries, food and beverage are seemingly the sectors that benefit the most from the development of on demand delivery.
In this article, we will discuss the upcoming form of the delivery sector that is autonomous delivery. We believe that leveraging autonomous delivery would be inevitable strategies for businesses to survive in post-pandemic time.
Source of autonomous delivery with recent technology
Obviously, the utility of technology innovation should be considered among the relationship with the economic context. Similarly, with the autonomous delivery, the bustle of online purchasing and sharing economy in the digitalization era has pushed up the ecosystem for on demand delivery services.
From 2015 to 2019, Uber got its glory to dominate the transportation sectors with the rapid expansion of rivers. Differentiation from traditional transport businesses, Uber has no full-time contract drivers, that it only provides a platform to connect vendors. In which, Uber can ignore the budget for driver welfare. Besides, it allows Ubers to get large groups of drivers at the same time. With the foundation of previous success, Uber also develop its own on demand food delivery and get enormous triumph in the market, which is UberEats.
In this case, human-based delivery tends to be no longer adequate that modern technology is developed gradually in favor of autonomous delivery.
Unfortunately, the delivery cost tends to be the significant drawback that deters users from showing their loyalty to UberEats. In 2020, massive online transactions placed every second gave rise to the demand for delivery services. It leads to a significant need for the instant delivery concept.
Expressly, we could see the initial form of autonomous food delivery is available in the market, which is an instant food delivery and robot delivery.
The market potential for autonomous delivery
Even if COVID 19 would not come, autonomous delivery will sooner or later dominate the market due to four driving factors:
| The rapid expansion of urbanization | In 2030, there is a predicted that roundly 6 billion of the world population living in cities, which are potential customers of delivery services. |
| The rise of eCommerce | Over 20% of global retails worldwide will belong to eCommerce, in which the entire orders do need the delivery. |
| Diverse product category going online | While in the past, rarely product types were believed to sell online. Today, you can find everything on the eCommerce platform, even with a yacht. |
| IT development | Last-mile technologies are showing their innovation, including drones, droids, or automated fulfillment centers. |
COVID19 drive the interest of autonomous food delivery
The outbreak of COVID19 has formed a new norm, that going out to restaurants might not be a preference. Dinners are currently looking for food delivery. However, the nature of food delivery is that it puts timing into account since customers will never wait for over 2 hours to get their meals. Besides, the term of contactless delivery has arisen as a result of the pandemic. Hence, the modern business context is the driving force of customer engagement for instant and zero contact delivery. It is expectedly transforming the operation of the last-mile logistics sector.
On the other hand, it seems that current regulations are not keeping up the footprint of technology. Hence, the most significant challenge is social acceptance from a short transitional period to adopt the novel concept. From consumers to regulation sectors, they are struggling in dealing with unprecedented incidents. The uncertainties brought them fears and procrastination.
Despite immense challenges, the deployment of autonomous food delivery is inevitable. In the feature, there will be other pandemics that jeopardize public health that the contactless delivery would deter the spreading infection. It is time for software development companies to seriously invest in fully contactless delivery, especially autonomous food delivery.
FedEx robot delivery
Another significant example of autonomous delivery refers to the autonomous delivery robot. In which FedEx seems to be a market leader, offering its powerful FedEx robot delivery. As a giant in the logistic industry, FedEx offers truly zero contact delivery services, collaborating with several providers in the retail sectors. According to the FedEx development team, they are believed in the possibility of developing a cutting-edge autonomous delivery solution. FedEx robot delivery is custom-designed to support last mile or same-day delivery.
According to data from FedEx vendors, roundly 60% of merchants’ customers only need roundly three miles of delivery. Subsequently, those orders can be definitely done by a robot due to its short journey. In this case, FedEx has introduced its services, called SameDay robot delivery. It is suitable for local delivery, helping companies adapting to rapid changes in the delivery demand. FedEx SameDay robot is expected to speed up the innovation in the logistic ecosystem, where the customer could benefit from the safety and timely delivery.
Feature of autonomous delivery companies
The growing investment in autonomous delivery promises a new era for driverless delivery services, which is believed to be lucrative and profitable. The high requirement of capital and technology refers to the natural market barriers to entrants. That means there will be limited players in the game, sharing a big cake.
Before discussing three significant trends in autonomous delivery, we have to mention the challenge for those having a plan to joy the autonomous delivery market. It is the technology constraint that induces potential risks for companies that are currently in the R&D process. In fact, autonomous delivery involves several parties. Accordingly, apart from the challenge of developing autonomous delivery devices, the business also needs to focus on optimizing delivery platforms and delivery systems. Those software solutions would steal extreme money from autonomous delivery companies in both development and maintenance.
Robot pizza delivery
In fact, Robot delivery would be applied for several products, not limited to pizza. We mention here a standard service, which has already been available in the market. In 2020, there are several pizza brands leveraging robots in pizza delivery. Take Domino pizza as an example it partnered with Nuro, a startup based in Silicon Valley, offering self-driving vehicles. At this time, Domino and Nuro came to a decision of autonomous delivery robot services for pizza.
Obviously, for pursuing this plan, it needs an ecosystem from the regulation sectors. America is seemingly the most supportive country for the robotic delivery system for testing the novel autonomous delivery system.
But why pizza? In fact, Nuro has started with robot grocery delivery due to the advantages of packaging and stability in the delivery process. Similarly, pizza tends to be the favorite food in the United State, with vast numbers of orders daily. Besides, you can find several pizza stores across the streets. It means autonomous delivery systems having many options to optimize the journey to robots. Moreover, pizza also one of the checked cooked food, which is easy to transport, without the risk of damage during shipping. After America, robot pizza delivery would be expectedly applied to other countries in this decade.
Autonomous drone delivery
The idea of autonomous drone delivery started from the challenges of terrain in delivery. In the area of intricate architecture, it seemed impossible for the autonomous delivery robot. Hence, Drone delivery would be a meaningful solution, coming with super-fast delivery. It could be applied in every location.
However, autonomous drone delivery also consists of limitations, which are restrictions in delivering heavy products and costs of delivery. Amazon had currently leveraged air drone delivery fleet to Prime accounts. This company promises the accuracy and safety of its services, especially in lockdown periods. Unfortunately, not all customers show their satisfaction since they need to pay a high rate for this service.
In the next five years, autonomous vehicles are expected to become common in urban lifestyle. On the other hand, Canada has been leveraging drone delivery for years for carrying medical supply and vitals supply to those living indigenously in the Nort. With food delivery, it is not only an advantage for using drones, but we can look forward to the advancement in the future of autonomous drone delivery.
Autonomous delivery systems for contactless delivery
Autonomous delivery has never been limited to drones and robots, which cover various autonomous devices, including side-walk vehicles, trucks, and vans. Once the autonomous delivery getting mature, the ecosystem development needs to catch up with the advancement. Accordingly, apart from focusing on separated sectors, building a combined autonomous delivery system tends to be the predominant mission.
Currently, it is no comprehensive system for contactless delivery that could connect and manage all autonomous vehicles in a single platform. The centralized delivery system would be the future strategy of autonomous delivery companies, ensuring smooth operation across parties while optimizing the market resource.
Final words: in the next ten years, you will see the edge of autonomous delivery that companies, which fail to adopt it might be lagging behind. With experiences of a software outsourcing company interacting with enormous knowledge of delivery software solutions, we hope this article will provide you with vital information regarding this lucrative area.
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