Locus Delivers Till Last Mile, Solves Logistics Challenges for Nestle, Tata, Unilever
Last-mile delivery is one of the most challenging supply chain problems since it accounts for more than 50% of all shipping cost. Mostly, it’s a host of external factors such as rising fuel costs, imprecise addresses, increasing urban congestion, and the high costs of returns and re-deliveries that add to this challenge. “To keep up with the surge in e-commerce orders and rising pressure to deliver at scale, enterprises worldwide, and in India, are struggling to manage their last-mile logistics operations efficiently,” Nishith Rastogi, Founder and CEO of Locus, told Analytics India Magazine. Locus, which Rastogi co-founded in 2015, is leveraging modern day technologies to solve the problem of last-mile delivery in India. “Locus was founded to empower enterprises to convert their last mile from a cost centre to a revenue generator by making every delivery more efficient than the last, empowering workers to do more, bring sustainability to operations, uncover deep inefficiencies and power delivery experiences,” Rastogi said. Further, in this exclusive interaction, Nishith Rastogi discusses in detail the use of AI/ML in last-mile delivery, about the e-commerce and logistics sector and whether the concept of BOPIS will work in India. AIM: What does Locus do? Nishith: Locus is a leading-edge logistics software technology company dedicated to transforming last-mile logistics. Our real-world-ready dispatch management platform empowers businesses to transform their last-mile logistics fulfilment into a growth centre through advanced optimisation algorithms and intuitive workflow automation. We push the boundaries of defining excellence in an enterprise’s last-mile logistics activities by enabling efficiencies at scale, empowering workforces to do more, providing end-to-end visibility, uncovering deep inefficiencies, improving and automating decision-making, and fostering sustainable growth. Simply put, our platform enables businesses to make every delivery more efficient than the last, which results in fewer miles travelled and more deliveries completed in a day. As a result, the platform also equips workforces for excellence and enables companies to scale with lower emissions while simultaneously encouraging sustainable growth. The platform is being implemented and used by more than 200+ clients across 30+ countries globally to power more than 650 million deliveries. We are proud to count Unilever, Nestle, Bukalapak, the Tata Group, and BlueDart as some of our most valued customers. We have powered over 650 million deliveries to date, and our technology has helped save USD 200 million in transit costs, offsetting 70 million kilograms in CO2 emissions while maintaining a 99.5% SLA adherence ratio. AIM: How are technologies like IoT/Big Data analytics/AI/ML/Cloud Computing impacting today’s innovation in the Logistic Industry? Nishith: Technology is playing an instrumental role in digitalising the logistics sector, especially the last-mile fulfilment processes. With the right technology solutions, businesses can scale up their operations, uncover underlying inefficiencies in real time and do much more to uncover new growth opportunities. For instance, technology can help empower everyone—from the Chief Supply Chain Officer to warehouse managers and drivers to make more deliveries at the right time, at the right cost, and with the right experience. Furthermore, it can also help reduce carbon emissions from vehicles significantly, further empowering the sector to achieve its sustainability goals. Our Dispatch Management Platform leverages IoT, AI, ML, and Big Data Analytics technologies, enabling businesses to optimise their last-mile logistics operations. IoT serves as a foundation for various features provided by our Dispatch Management Platform, such as Route Planning, Carrier Management, tracking and tracing of drivers, and more. Through IoT, relevant real-time data and updates from drivers are added to the platform and vice versa, which helps deliver business efficiency. GPS tracking is also a key aspect that helps understand the vehicle’s movement and generates alerts if it deviates from the planned route to the destination. It is a key component in enabling automated notifications to prevent the breach of service-level agreements. AI plays a crucial role in creating optimal routes, whereas Big Data Analytics helps unearth deep inefficiencies in last-mile fulfilment processes. Cloud computing provides the necessary computing power and the bandwidth to help enterprises across the globe attain last-mile excellence and scale up when demands arise. AIM: How are you specifically leveraging AI/ML to improve last-mile delivery in India? Nishith: At Locus, we leverage the most advanced AI, ML, and data analytics systems architectured by our data scientists to create our product suite. To elaborate a bit further, as Locus powers increasingly complex supply chains, dispatchers rely on Locus’ AI to compute billions of combinations to quickly seek out the ideal sequence by which every order can be fulfilled with the least resources spent. Furthermore, our machine learning algorithm continually observes these decisions made by the AI. It evaluates how they play out in the real world, improving each on-ground execution, and continuously improving performance. AIM: Will the concept of BOPIS work in India? Nishith: The concept of Buy Online and Pick Up In-Store (BOPIS) gained global prominence recently, particularly during the pandemic years. The BOPIS fulfilment model was primarily conceptualised to bridge the gap between the traditional and the modern retail. However, given the rise in quick commerce and omnichannel retailing, BOPIS has become a win-win fulfilment model for retailers and consumers. For retailers, BOPIS can save last-mile shipping costs, attain more in-store traffic and sales and better insights on the availability of products in real-time whereas, for consumers, it delivers a hassle-free ecommerce experience that helps them navigate the shipping costs. Interestingly, not just BOPIS but also BORIS (Buy Online and Return In-Store) has been picking up steam in India recently. Some of the high-street retail brands in India successfully operate through this fulfilment approach, indicating an untapped potential for such omnichannel retail concepts. Through our technology and proprietary algorithms fueled by AI, data analytics, and more, retailers can fill the gaps in BOPIS retail distribution and better optimise last-mile processes. Retailers can unlock the power of data to find patterns in customer shopping carts, seasonal trends, and market dynamics to offer more personalised BOPIS shopping offers. Furthermore, analysing and identifying customer shopping behaviours can help retailers predict demands and store the right amounts of stock to deliver a delightful customer experience. Similarly, through our time-slot management system, retailers can allot specific pick-up times to customers—avoiding unnecessary queues and allowing store managers to plan to package daily orders efficiently. All of this makes the whole pick-up process more transparent and reliable.
Dispatchers rely on Locus’ AI to compute billions of combinations to quickly seek out the ideal sequence by which every order can be fulfilled with the least resources spent.
Dispatchers rely on Locus' AI to compute billions of combinations to quickly seek out the ideal sequence by which every order can be fulfilled with the least resources spent.
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I have a keen interest in creative writing and artificial intelligence. As a journalist, I deep dive into the world of technology and analyse how it’s restructuring business models and reshaping society.