Postal operators and parcel carriers are operating in an increasingly competitive environment, managing unpredictable volumes and growing complexity, while meeting escalating customer demands for flexibility, choice and speed – all while keeping costs under control. Getting the middle mile right is crucial for success in this market, playing not only a key role in delivering optimisation across the entire end-to-end journey but underpinning objectives in reducing carbon emissions, saving on costs, and offering value-added services.
Achieving this requires planning across the entire network—utilizing digital tools to integrate processes, eliminate silos, and drive collaboration. The result: networks that can dynamically adjust to demand, provide real-time visibility, deliver new services, and meet sustainability targets. This roundtable brings together logistics leaders working in middle mile, networks, distribution, customer, sustainability, transformation, and digital to share challenges, explore solutions, and identify practical next steps.
Key topics covered will include:
- Competing in a fast-moving landscape: where customer expectations are changing and how post and parcel operators can respond
- Delivering on the promise of technology: creating effective strategies to harness the capacity for innovation across the entire network
- Building a next generation offering: unlocking the unrealised potential of the middle mile to underpin greater flexibility, choice, and sustainability
Welcome and participant introductions
Discussion:
- The state of play: what are the current challenges in middle mile and in which areas can improvements be implemented?
- The changing customer landscape: how are demands for speed, choice and flexibility reshaping middle mile requirements? What new challenges and opportunities does this create?
- Optimising the end-to-end network: where should operators be focusing to eliminate silos and drive greater integration across first, middle, and last mile processes?
- Who owns the middle mile optimization problem: operations, IT, customer experience, or all three? How does ownership affect outcomes?
- Creating greater visibility and tracking: which technology investments promise the most for operational efficiency and customer experience?
- Beyond efficiency: where can middle mile optimization unlock new revenue streams and value-added services, not just cost savings?
- Future-proofing operations: what should operators be doing now to build adaptive, responsive middle mile networks for the next five years?
Closing remarks
(75 minutes)
Speakers:
Bob Black
VP, Industry Strategies
Blue Yonder
Request an invitation
This roundtable is designed for senior figures from carriers, postal operators, 3PLs and retailers.
Fill in this short form if you meet the above criteria and would like to participate in the discussion on 29 April. All invitation requests will be vetted and approved (or declined) by the organiser.
About Blue Yonder
Blue Yonder is the world leader in digital supply chain transformation. Global retailers, manufacturers and logistics providers leverage Blue Yonder to optimize their supply chains from planning through fulfillment, delivery and returns. Blue Yonder’s AI-embedded, interoperable supply chain solutions are connected end-to-end via a unified platform and data cloud, enabling businesses to collaborate in real time across functions, which supports more agile decision-making, improved customer satisfaction, profitable growth, and more resilient, sustainable supply chains.
