Route planning and optimisation is a solution used by many businesses worldwide. In 2020, COVID-19 pandemic brought major changes in the retail and e-commerce landscape that caused even greater demand for this solution – businesses needed it to ensure high transportation and delivery service efficiency and maintain good customer satisfaction levels. Now, the latest research by Global Newswire says that the route planning software market is expected to have a 10.9% compound annual growth rate until 2025. 

Meanwhile, some of our clients have already tried the solution and discovered the benefits it brings to the business. Read on and find out how Scandinavian household goods retailer JYSK has used route planning to manage their online store deliveries to clients in Riga, Vilnius and Minsk.

JYSK has had an online store for many years and fully outsourced delivery services up until 2020. The business was growing steadily every year but, once the global pandemic started causing a rapid e-commerce market growth (by 15% in Q2 2020 compared to Q1 2020, according to OECD data), the company had to look for new ways to maintain and increase their delivery capacity.

“We already had a thought of having our own fleet to ensure a better delivery service quality, but the pandemic made us fast-forward our plans and we ended up launching the project within a few months, where, in normal circumstances, it would’ve taken us a year,” tells JYSK Parcel Delivery Network Manager Artūrs Meisters. “Once we started to work on the project, it became clear that we’d also need GPS tracking, fuel control, as well as route planning solution to keep track of our fleet performance,” he adds.

JYSK fleet consists of multiple vans that deliver online orders to 40-60 addresses daily both from the company’s warehouse and stores. When choosing the fleet management solutions provider, the company looked for a digital solution that would allow to plan routes with multiple delivery points and delivery time windows, keep track of the route progress and get accurate delivery information – the most essential data for an online retailer. 

“After doing market research and having a meeting with the company representatives, we decided that Mapon fleet routing software offer fits our needs the most – both function and cost-wise,” explains Artūrs Meisters, adding,

“At that time, route planning was recently launched but it had enough functionality for us to start using it. Besides, we saw that the company’s plans on the future development of the solution include some features that we’d also like to have for our fleet.”

Route planning is one of the main solutions JYSK uses to manage their delivery operations. “Currently, we use route planning and optimisation with multiple delivery points, as well as additional loadings and unloadings. Moreover,

we plan routes in three different delivery time windows, regularly keep track of the route progress and planned time of arrival (PTA). Having this data allows us to get information about schedule deviations, thus provide more accurate delivery information to our customers,”

Artūrs Meisters explains.

According to a company representative, JYSK also benefits from a variety of other Mapon platform solutions, such as reports, all-in-one communication tool, etc. He says that, for example, having fuel reports has saved the company a lot of time on gathering all fuel receipts, registering them into the internal systems and filling out route reports for the State Revenue Service. 

Artūrs Meisters also tells, “We use Mapon as a communication channel between our couriers, Transport department and warehouse operators. Having a unified communication platform allows us to ensure transparency and stay informed about re-scheduled order deliveries, as well as any issues that occur in the delivery process.”

When talking about the cooperation so far, Artūrs Meisters says,

 “We’ve been working with Mapon for only a few months but can already see that the company cares about its clients. Both Project Managers and Client Consultants are always ready to talk to us, answer our questions and solve issues if any arise. The fact that they listen to our feedback is what we value the most.”

The company representative also shares that, in their opinion, both Mapon platform and mobile apps are thought through and easy-to-adapt to the company needs. “You can tell that the solutions are designed to solve business challenges and ease many of the daily business operations. So far, Mapon has helped us not only to improve customer service by providing accurate delivery time calculations but also allowed us to plan precise working hours for our employees,” he says.

Route planning is just one of the solutions that can help businesses to improve their fleet management operations and achieve business goals. If you wish to find out what solutions could help your business thrive, set up a free consultation with one of our team members by filling in a simple form or get in touch with us via [email protected]!