New research from Scandit identified how the impact of the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is pushing many last-mile companies to adapt to what has been dubbed the BYOD trend (bring your own device).
In the last 18 months alone, post, parcel and third-party logistics businesses have faced unprecedented hurdles, from driver shortages, evolving COVID-19 safety requirements and processes to new consumer expectations.
As a result, for North American organizations, contactless processes (41.2%) are the primary investment priority, but respondents also had a strong focus on delivery app enhancement (35.3%) to meet current demands. This is in contrast to European businesses that are more forward-looking and open to new services (14.3%) such as lockers and new app features (20.6%) including real-time address changes.
“The report shows that there is a real opportunity for North American firms, especially when it comes to smartphone use and BYOD. Companies in the U.S. aren’t yet capitalizing on smartphones as much as in Europe, but the ones that are can see clear benefits. With finding qualified drivers stated as the biggest last-mile delivery challenge for North American businesses, BYOD and smartphone adoption makes it easier to hire and onboard gig economy workers which can be dialed up or down depending on demand,” says Samuel Mueller, CEO and co-founder at Scandit.
From PR Newswire:
- For dedicated scanning device users in North America, app enhancements to boost speed and compatibility are the main priority (50%), with only a minority stating new features (8.3%) are their focus. However, the results are higher for smartphone users with over a quarter of respondents (26.7%) focused on rolling out new features and 46.7% looking at contactless processes, compared to 33.3% of dedicated device users.
- Over three-quarters (76%) of enterprises globally believe augmented reality (AR) is an important last-mile technology, with over one-third (34%) of survey respondents stating that it is a priority for them to invest in today.
- In North America, full-time workforces are more likely to receive corporate-issued devices (76.7%) than contract workforces (18.2%), who are more likely to leverage BYOD models (72.7%).
