The brands that take steps to adapt, evolve, and master the last mile stand the best chance to win customer loyalty, market share, and the future of eCommerce.
On this episode of Deliver: The Last-Mile Performance Podcast, hosts Bringg CEO Guy Bloch and Sales Engineering Lead Raquel Zanoni, sit with Expert Associate Partner at McKinsey Ali Kamil to unpack how last-mile delivery has shifted from a back-office cost center to a boardroom-level strategic priority.
Ali brings a rare combination of perspectives to the table. He was part of the founding team at Wise Systems, a dispatch and AI-driven routing automation platform spun out of MIT. He now helps global carriers, shippers, and retailers modernize operations through technology adoption and process redesign at McKinsey & Company.
Watch the full interview to learn:
- How rising consumer expectations are reshaping what operational excellence looks like
- Why the delivery promise has become the heart of modern commerce
- What a practical path to last-mile transformation actually looks like
The full transcript is also available below and subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or Youtube get the latest episodes.
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Why the last mile?
Guy Bloch: Ali, it's so good to have you here. We've been working together for so many years. We had so many conversations over the years. Together, we looked at how the last mile evolved from what it used to be 10 years ago to what it is today, which is cutting edge in so many ways. And I'm so happy that you are joining this podcast. This is our first episode and we thought, who could be the best person? You did your years as part of the founding team with Wise Systems and solved big problems in terms of last-mile optimizations. But then, with McKinsey for all those years now, where you work with so many clients, and the biggest clients, and everyone looks at the last mile differently and you’re so deep into it.
So my first question to kick it off. Why? So many years, more than 10 years in your career, and it's all devoted to the last mile. What pulled you in? Why the last mile?
Ali Kamil: First of all, thank you for having me. It's always a pleasure. This is a fun part of the work. Other parts are fun, too, but interacting and exploring and having a very intellectual and deep discussion on a topic we both both love and enjoy. To answer your question, I think that's the reason why I have spent almost over a decade in this space, because last mile is one component of the logistics supply chain. However, it is the most complex. It is seen as a cost center. And the complexity drives that. We run towards complexity as people who are focusing on solving the hardest problems. It is one of the hardest problems in logistics.
That's where we see the value of the work that we do. And I think I see that in you as well and the team that we have worked with. We have worked for the past year and a half as well. So yeah, I think that's what keeps me engaged because there are so many elements of not just the last mile, but the orchestration that's required, the complexity that drives it; that each use case, you can spend a lifetime in that. So I feel that is what keeps me coming back. It is a complex problem. It is why we are here where we are solving that for our customers. And when we see that, they see the potential and the benefit that they drive from it. I think that's where that's the aha moment that we all strive for.
Guy Bloch: It's fun moments, right? Those aha moments. I think those are the best moments in any engagement with a customer where they see the value realization just unfolding in front of their eyes. And obviously for you, it's important. I think everyone can see that the last mile for Ali at McKinsey is super important.
From cost center to boardroom priority
Guy Bloch: I wonder, when you go out there and we meet so many different clients and some of them are more into it and engage and they have a strategy, some are less. Do you feel like people see it as important as you see it? Like when you sit with CEOs, you sit with CFOs with the chief of supply chain of large retailers looking at that problem, do you see a different perspective of how they look at that versus how you look at that?
Ali Kamil: I think what has changed in the past, over the years that I've seen, I think there is a change in perception, right? So initially when we started, when I started with Wise and before that, even the conversations were, it was seen as a cost center that, okay, I need to provide this service for our customers, but it's a cost center and I don't see much benefit. That thinking has evolved. That thinking has changed.
And that's where our clients and the leaders that we interact with, and you as well, as we interact with our clients, that's where the view of it as a call center has evolved to seeing that this is a service, this is an impact that can drive greater revenue growth going forward. I think that is the switch that happened.
And it's easy to say that COVID had an impact, but I do think it is the COVID was one of the major impact drivers for us because we were all at home and we wanted to get deliveries quickly, rapidly. And companies who are best prepared for that really thrive during that space. And I think that's where, and companies that didn't have it had to react and provide the service very, very quickly. So that's where I feel that that has had an impact where that mindset has changed, that we need to provide this capability. This [good, fast delivery] is the customer's expectation. And we need to meet that bar, otherwise customers are going to go somewhere else, to some other retailer or online e-commerce.
Guy Bloch: I'm totally with you. I'm actually also following as we're following the different earnings calls and earnings investor calls that retailers are doing out with their investors and the analysts. You're hearing that now coming back again and again in literally investor calls and earnings reports where our retailers, CEOs actually talk about the last mile in the conversations with the investors, actually highlighting our last mile as a strategic growth driver for them. Everyone now talks about the last mile. In so many ways I feel like the last mile has moved over the years from the basement to just the boardroom. Now it’s got a place at the road boardroom and all the executives are paying attention to that. At what point you felt that change? When did you feel like it's actually changing within your clients?
Ali Kamil: It's, in the latter half of the past 10 years. I would say the last three to four years that mentality has changed where it's become a boardroom topic that we need to provide this capability. Because I think after the COVID incidents, there was a lot of research, work that was done into this, like how have customers expectations changed? And one of the things that I shared earlier with you as well is that, and it's something that's very personal as well, that the research found that about 80% of the people, if they have one bad delivery experience from a retailer, they're likely not to go back to that retailer again and look at alternatives.
The market is super competitive. And that's where I think this research, along with many others, have reinforced the importance of why the last mile is one of the critical components. It’s a critical growth driver, it’s not just a cost center. You see this as it is complex. It is expensive, but you need this to provide this to retain the customers to provide this the service that they come to expect over the years.
The delivery promise is the heart of eCommerce
Guy Bloch: So what you're saying is that the last mile is not the end, it’s the means to an end. The real end here is the promise. You make a promise to a customer. The customer trusts you. He selects that and now he's in the waiting mode. The big question is, will you knock on the door at the time that you promised him or would you do it before or after, or maybe you would not do it at all. So what you're saying is that that promise became the heart of commerce.
Ali Kamil: 100%. And we know of the retailers who have built, who have weaponized this model, who have essentially, and we know talk about the big retailers like Amazon, have provided that two-day, three-day, or same-day service. It is an expectation. It has become an expectation for customers to have that level of service and that promise. Once you have a company that's setting a bar, everyone else has to meet that or at least strive towards it. So 100%, I think it's the promise that we have all as customers come to expect. And retailers who can keep that [promise] is where we keep going back to.
Guy Bloch: It's pretty amazing to listen to that and then for you and I think all of us here, that's the thing that we experience day in, day out in the work we do with customers. The promise became the heart of the C-suite. Yes, everyone else is coming in to help, as I mean to an end, and stand up the most efficient and top performing last mile operations, but at the end of the day, it's all about that promise.
And because the promise is actually how customers value that promise. Because if the customer doesn't value that, then why would you even do it? But because they give it so much value and so much attention, that's why it became the center for the last mile.
Common last-mile misconceptions
Guy Bloch: When you engage with customers as they are coming into the world of the last mile, understanding they need to do something different, what are the misconceptions that you hear and you feel like you want to stop and actually start with re-educating on how customers value the promise?
Ali Kamil: I think that is the key. We talked earlier in this conversation that the mindset has changed, that [delivery] is not seen as a cost center. Now it's a growth driver. It's a topic that's in the boardroom. The change into how we execute it is what's still evolving. I feel that we are not there yet. Customers are seeing that, okay, we need this, but they still feel that it is highly complex and it is highly challenging. And, to be honest, that's where our expertise comes in handy, where we help our clients in helping identify what are the steps that are necessary to provide that promise and to keep that promise for your customers. So I think that thinking of, “How do we execute on this vision of providing reliable two-, three-, or same-day service? And can we keep that in a low cost effective manner?” Because there is the iron triangle of service, price, and quality. And do we have to compromise on any of it?
And that's where the thinking is still evolving. I feel that the customers are still seeing that and asking, “Okay, how do I actually go about it to execute this? Do I need the resources of an Amazon to do this? Or do I need to have my own internal fleet on all this?” But these are hard questions. That's where we engage with them on a daily basis.
Guy Bloch: So in a way you're saying, Ali, that the misconceptions is in the way they even engage the promise and how to, on one end ,want to make those promises as a competitive differentiators for their customers, but at the same time, be able to stand against those promises and deliver. Otherwise it erodes their brand and reputation, et cetera. So in so many ways, the misconceptions are first of all, delivery is important. It moved from the basement to the boardroom. It's no longer a cost center. You guys need to have a strategy pointed at that and lead it from top down, which means it's an ELT conversation. So that's the first one.
The second one, what I'm hearing from you, is don't try to do it alone on your own, right? Try to connect. You don't need to build an empire of assets and every asset needs to be yours. In a way, it's a digitized world. So how do you take advantage of the ecosystem and bring all those pieces that can allow you to orchestrate the most efficient or the most exceptional customer experience in the most efficient way?
Ali Kamil: Exactly. That it is an intimidating undertaking that we have done the hard part or at least that realization that, okay, this is a boardroom topic. It's an important topic that we need to pursue and provide this level of capability.
Guy Bloch: That's table stakes. If you don't do that, you will just get engaged by the board and you'll get questions at that meeting that you will not be able to address, especially when you talk about e-commerce and how competitive it is. But sorry, keep on going.
Ali Kamil: That's exactly where the conversation is there. Now, how do we actually go from an idea to execution? That's where I feel you don't have to do it on your own. If you're a retailer, if you're an e-commerce platform, there are capabilities out there that you can partner with, and it's important to understand the process. Like what would it take for us to provide a reliable promise to our customers and keep it? What are the resource requirements? And that's where I think you have to go around methodically. And we see this with our clients as well and your customers where they have thought about it. Maybe they start in a small focused area. And we love to dive into how you actually can go about it as well. But typically what we see is that it's important to partner, to think about what it would take to meet that promise and meet that delivery. And then what are the steps you need to take to reach that level.
Tech-enabled last-mile strategies
Raquel Zanoni: Ali, you mentioned there's a shift in perception of the last mile being a cost center. Now it's more of a differentiator. And we've talked a lot about consumer expectations, specifically around predictability, accuracy. I mean, I personally know that if I don't get something exactly when I think I'm going to get it, I probably won't order from that brand again. Drawing on that thread of execution you mentioned, are there retailers or brands today that you think, and you don't have to name any, that you think are executing this particularly well and how are they doing it from a technology perspective? What do you think's behind that?
Ali Kamil: One, It's understanding that it is going to be a value driver. But, I would say it is easy to recognize that, yes we need to do this. But the hard part is understanding that there is some investment required to do this. There is going to be a step-by-step change management process. And especially in the industry that we operate in, supply chain logistics, because it's a daily exercise from starting from your leadership to on the ground personnel. They have been doing this for many, many years. Logistics is not a new industry. So some habits, some approaches have been entrenched.
That mindset shift, that change management is the biggest challenge that I see across the board, starting from the leadership to the ground personnel. And I think there are companies that have addressed it well. And they do this by, one, recognizing that it is going to be a core part of our offering. Two, it's going to require investment. It's going to require investment and thought leadership and change management and perseverance. Because the initial aspect is gonna be that you're gonna encounter resistance like traditionally any big innovation has had. It's gonna require some resistance.
You have to persevere, you have to clarify, you have to provide the value. And companies who do this, and once they have the recognition, investment, change management, and perseverance, achieve that goal. We have several companies who have and we are partnered with as well as some we observed, who have seen that value once they have gone through those stages of deployment.
How to start: the crawl, walk, run approach
Raquel Zanoni: Touching on the pieces you mentioned, so change management, thought leadership, let's say you are a retailer who is now fully bought into the last mile as a differentiator. Where do you start to now become some of these bigger brands that we've been hinting at? Where do you focus your efforts from a technology perspective so that you can be differentiated in five to 10 years in the market?
Ali Kamil: The focus should be very targeted. Five to 10 years is the vision, but let's start six months in where we need to rapidly deploy. The key thing is, it can be very intimidating to say, “We're going to provide a three-day service.” I'm making this up. I'm a furniture delivery operator with big and bulky delivery. I want to provide three- to five-day delivery. It takes time to procure load and all this, it’s a complex operation. But if I want to provide a same-week delivery, that's going to be a differentiator. Let's say if you are about to do this, what's it going to take? So map out the processes.
Companies who have done well have taken out every atomic action that happens in every step from inception from order placement to fulfillment and mapped out how we're to do this. They clearly define the process, where technology is going to play a role, where training is going to play a role, what are the going to be the KPIs we're going to track. And, and that's the first, first step.
Second step, a lot of these companies start very, very small. They start with a contained locality with a two-month or three-month pilot with a subset of drivers. If I have 30 drivers in my facility, I'm going to start with five and I'm going to start with these zip codes or postal codes. And that's the service we're going to provide. And we're going to bring customers into this as well. That we're going to provide the visibility that we're going to try the service with you. This is the promise we're going to do in five days. But this is a trial and some companies that we have worked with as well as have provided that sort of visibility and transparency. This is a trial service. We're going to provide five days. If we are delayed, we're going to offer some sort of a discount or a coupon to you for you to be in that partner program.
I think that's the way: start small, learn, adapt, and then gradually increase the aperture to a broader service. And that's why I think companies who have done this have followed a similar blueprint.
Balancing customer experience and cost with KPIs
Raquel Zanoni: So there's a bit of a crawl walk run approach then. You mentioned this other piece about KPIs. I wanna pull on that a little bit because I think what we often see is there's a little bit of a balance between customer satisfaction, what the customer wants in their experience and the cost of doing business. So as it relates to customers, brands that are trying to really enhance their last mile offering, what should they focus on? Should they focus on having an amazing customer experience at potentially the cost of a very high operational back end, or should they try to find that balance? And how does that align to that crawl, walk, run approach you mentioned?
Ali Kamil: Excellent question. think it all drives from the culture and the vision of the organization? So one of the organizations I work with has a very intimate customer experience, an in-store experience, something that you really engage with and not even just buying, just spending the time [in the store]. That's something that the brand has built over the years. For them, they want to replicate that to a delivery experience. And it seems very orthogonal to say that you can mimic this in-store experience to delivery experience, but it's not. You pull on the strings to say what are the key aspects that really drive that emotional response from customers and can we bring that to delivery? Can we bring that service experience? I'm delivering a mattress, a pretty standard delivery, but what is it that we can excel at?
So for them, that's where the KPIs drew from — how can we drive that customer experience and whatever it takes. Cost is not a function, it's the customer experience that was a driver for them.
Now, similarly, I had another client who was more into construction products and building products material. And for them, it was a different aspect. The timing was super critical. Delivery had to be there at some point, otherwise the machines are not going to work, the staff is not going to be able to start the function. So timing was super critical and visibility as well. And I would, you can argue that that's also a bad aspect of custom experience, but it was a little different in the sense that instead of providing that very nice look and feel [in store], you got a text message, your delivery is going to be there at this time and you engage and provide that sort of end to end visibility.
So for organizations that we engage with, we want to identify the key KPIs that are lined up with the culture and the vision of the organization and then marry that to the key core KPIs of what it will take for the last-mile function to excel. So it could be cost, sure. It could be the delivery promise, as Guy mentioned, or it could be like more excellent customer experience. So I would say it ties to your vision of the organization first and foremost.
Guy Bloch: Interesting, so when you look at the CEOs that are in the position to make a decision, do we go into change management or maybe we choose to do nothing and stay as we are today. They're obviously looking at the ROI. What is the ROI that you see that they are tracking? And then when the project gets on its course and goes live, what are the ROI or the KPIs that they really take pride of?
Ali Kamil: I think the KPIs are the biggest driver is the customer satisfaction. It is customer satisfaction tied to ROI. That's also a little bit of mindset shift that has happened, where if you have happy customers that's gonna drive consistent loyalty. So two things that a lot of the leaders we interact with, they track customer satisfaction and then persistence and loyalty. Like how often is Ali ordering and how often does he keep coming back? So there is this loyalty aspect and that's a core metric I've seen these leaders track because that justifies that investment and excelling at last-mile operation.
Yes, it is a cost, it is something that you have to invest in. But if you can drive customer loyalty, customer satisfaction, that's closely tied to revenue growth.
The role of technology and AI in last-Mile operations
Guy Bloch: So obviously technology has a big role here. We're not going to see just people doing so many orders at scale manually. Technology plays a role. AI, machine learning, big buzzwords coming into the industry. Customers are looking at that. Maybe they get confused. What's the role of technology here? And how do you see the evolution of AI and machine learning actually takes a role here?
Ali Kamil: Technology, of course, has a major role to play. But like any function though, it's not a technological solution. It's understanding your vision, your goals and how you want to drive that sort of promise. Then technology becomes an enabler that can provide visibility to my customers. When the customers go in store or online to order a sofa, can I give them a delivery window at that point that aligns with their schedule and maybe provide that additional capability of offering different slots that provide customer flexibility.
Those are the kind of capabilities I feel that technology can enable. We've already seen this. Companies can provide visibility. They provide notifications and flexibility. AI is another evolution of that. AI is helping more on the delivery drivers and the operators. For the customers though, there are very little changes at least more recently. For now, I'm providing my orders. I'm getting flexibility. I'm getting a text message. I'm getting my visibility where my driver is and when I can expect the delivery.
[AI is better for] my operators. If I'm a retailer with a delivery function, I have a copilot for drivers who are telling me where I should go next. It's helping me with where I need to park. When do I need to inform the customer that I'm on the way? If I'm running a little late, proactively adjust my schedule. These are areas that I'm seeing technology really driving impact for the operators.
So the big costs of operation are going to gradually start coming down because you're going to have automated dispatcher capabilities, automated notification adjustment capabilities, that are already emerging. To me, that's where AI and tech is going to make [an impact]. The costs of operations are going to quickly shrink because you're bringing this automation in this space while keeping the level of the service and experience that customers have come to expect.
Delivery as a revenue stream with the network model
Raquel Zanoni: When we think of that crawl walk run approach, that to me sort of falls into maybe the running where we're really thinking about optimization. We're really thinking about balancing cost and customer experience. Are there other elements that fall into that run approach? Things that are interesting within the last mile that you see retailers doing from a technology perspective once they're up and running, once they're sort of known for being the best in class, that they're now accelerating into?
Ali Kamil: One area once you start to crawl that you're focusing on is change management. You're making sure you have the right structure and systems in place. Like walking, you're building the customers and you're learning and all this. Once you get to the run stage, the opportunities open up. Then the diversity of areas where you could go into is an exciting space where you can start realizing the value.
And some of the things that's super exciting for me, and I know something that Guy is also passionate about, is that you start evaluating that we have access capacity. If I am an operator, if I'm running my network of deliveries, I know that my vehicles have additional capacity that I can accommodate. Would it come from additional orders? Of course. We can always get more customers. But however, can we partner with other players who may not be in the same industry, but we can provide this as a revenue generating option. So delivery becomes more of providing access capacity and selling it to other operators in this space. So this network model is something that's super exciting.
And that's something that we have seen in the US and some European countries as well. And I'd love to get a Guy's opinion as well here, because that's where I feel that's the future, which once you get to that run stage, the opportunities open up for you. And I think that's where a lot of them are exploring in this space, especially the network model.
Guy Bloch: Yeah, I'll jump in because this is a topic we discuss a lot and we also see that with the cutting edge retailers that really took delivery to the next level, moving from a cost center to a break-even center and actually creating a revenue line around that. But the basic [fact] is, first of all, you want to connect to all the third parties out there. Just make sure you have full coverage.
Once you have it, you start understanding the economics of the different zones and zip codes and regions and territories. And it's very easy for you to start understanding where it makes sense to stand up your own drivers, where it makes sense to lean on a third-party and move to a hybrid approach. Once you have that in so many ways, you create a network of assets and those assets are available to serve the demand that you create.
At that point, technology also has a limit to how much they can optimize it. The best way to move from that point into further optimization is simply bring more scale into the network and serve the demand of others. And we see it with customers like Coop that made it very famous out there with the package app. And these days on the same technology and the same last mile operations, they serve the SMBs and the mid-market retailers of the UK in every different zone.
I think this is where we move from what we discussed at the beginning of deliveries moving from the basement to the boardroom. That's it. It's a topic everyone wants to talk about because without that, guess what? More than 50% of e-commerce is owned by two goliaths, by Walmart and by Amazon. The only way to stand up and really fight and compete effectively against them is just to give the same promise that they give, or even better promises. And do it in the most efficient way to really deliver that. But once you're there, the secret sauce becomes the demand that you serve from others and really creating a network.
What to expect over the next five years
Guy Bloch: I feel like Raquel and I can keep on going with Ali forever. He brings so much practical experience from being the operator and now being the advisor. But two quick questions. First of all, it looks like five years from now. Don't even go to 10 years. This world is moving so fast. How do you see the world changing in terms of customer expectations? And how do you feel those changes or that evolution eventually will influence the way retailers think?
Ali Kamil: I can definitely go on for, for much longer. It's always fun talking about this topic. I think we are seeing parts of the evolution happening in front of us. There are leading retailers who are investing in the customer experience because they have been [focusing on] the crawl, walk, run.
They have been running into this for a couple of years now and now looking to optimize operations. It could be through operational rigor, or it could be new technology capabilities like electric vehicles, or drone deliveries. I think a few years from now, what I see from the industry is that this is gonna become a fact. This is going to become a reality. It's not just going to be a boardroom composition. It's going to be like table stakes. It already is, in my opinion; that if you are an online or retailer or an e-commerce player or in this space, you have to provide this level of service. Otherwise, it's not going to survive.
So it is that adapt or die mentality. They have to adapt. I think five years from now, we'll see that it's going to be a norm. And that's where a lot of them will be running towards optimizing their operations, not just experimenting with it. They would have deployed this. It would mean that keeping the customer promise is going to be table stakes. But how can we optimize? How can we now build this last-mile economics as Guy articulated? How can I build this network? Where can I have my captive drivers? Where can I rely on third party operators in this space? And I think that's where the evolution is happening.
I think tech is going to play a core part in: the driver experience, the customer experience, the delivery promise, and the driver experience to the last few feet. We talk about the last-mile, but it's the last few feet that's going to also be very, very critical. And I think that's where, where [questions like] do I park? When do I go there? When do I engage with the recipient from the retailer side when I'm delivering to a business? So these are areas that's going to become very common. We'll start seeing this sort of reality.
Guy Bloch: Amazing. The world will be completely digitized. We'll have robots sending everything everywhere and we'll be just happy people because whatever promises they made they stood up to that and they didn't disappoint us, which is great.
How to break away from the competition
Guy Bloch: Ali, what will separate between the winners and the laggards that will stand behind?
Ali Kamil: Adapting, learning, and changing is what separates the winners from the laggards. I see this everywhere, but for specifically the last-mile, the reality is that there are two big players who have set the bar. We can get intimidated and say that we cannot ever do that, but there are capabilities, there are partners out there, there are companies that are providing the capabilities and tools for you to exceed that expectation.
So learning and adapting and striving for that is what is going to separate the laggards from the winners. And I think for specifically the last-mile, the two big goliaths have scale and reach, but they also have challenges. Smaller scale brings advantages. You can move faster. You can experiment and bring the customer in. And I think that's where the success is going to be.
I'm actually open. When one of our local companies wanted to experiment with drone deliveries, I signed up. This xis exciting for me. Again, bring the customers in, bring the customers into your plan that this is what we are doing. We may miss, but we're going to provide this extra care for you. And you're going to be part of the partner program. I think that's what brings your customers in.
I think that's the kind of philosophy that smaller retailers have to adapt. That this is a reality, we can move faster, we can provide greater service and set the standard and then optimize. Because once you get to that run stage, you can optimize and make it a profit center rather than a cost center. That's where I believe we are headed. We're gonna head to the last mile delivery being a profit center for players who have the demand and the volume to support it.
Guy Bloch: Absolutely. I think we covered a lot in this episode. For those that are listening to us, live with you guys, the last-mile is important. It's already discussed at every executive meeting. It has an impact on conversions and on the returning customers and lifetime value and revenue and cost. It's important. Make it important. Make a strategy behind it.
Understand that it behaves like any other market or any other economy on any other network. As long as we can digitize, we can manage that and we can manage that to perfection. We can find the most efficient way to create exceptional and personalized customer experience. It's a data game.
The most important thing is you're not alone in it. As you said, Ali, there's so many partners. Find one to collaborate and come together, whether they’re your peers in the industry or from other industries or tech providers, everyone wants to come together in order to collaborate and be able to stand up to the goliaths together in a collaborative way. The delivery promise is important. That promise is critical.
We talked about orchestration. We talked about monetization and diversification. Those are areas that need to have decisions by the CEOs, by the executive team that's during direction. And then at the end of the day, it's also about change management. Get out of your comfort zone. Stay small, do it in a small contained environment, and get into forming that new environment, field the storm, build all the capabilities and the functionalities that you need in order to be strong. And then just perform. Just over time, it will continue performing itself.
Ali, advice for retailers, logistics providers. [Can you wave a] magic wand with magical advice from you?
Ali Kamil: I don't think it's magical, but I think, evolve. They have to evolve and adapt. Otherwise it's going to be a rough road ahead. I don't mean to be negative, but I see this happening already: evolution is important. Change management is necessary. And companies who adapt have staying power. Evolve, adapt and change towards the future because that is what's already here. And that's what the customers are expecting.
Guy Bloch: I would say exactly that. And I will add just on top of that, just a sense of urgency. The market is moving fast at the speed of light, especially because it's being pulled by the customers themselves and the expectations. It's a journey. It’s not a sprint. It's not a plug and play. There are a lot of decisions to make. It’s a very fun place. A lot of room for creativity and impact. Like 50% of the cost of logistics is the last mile. There is so much room for driving efficiencies and turning areas that are obstacles or challenges into opportunities.
Ali, thank you so much. That was a fascinating first episode together. Raquel, it's fun to be with you out on the field, but here we are here together on the Zoom. Thank you so much for both of you. That was an insightful episode.
Ali Kamil: Thank you, It was a great discussion.
