Snapdeal, India's largest online marketplace, announced the launch of its Open Logistics Platform (OLP) , a state-of-the-art plug and play technology that will allow its 3PL courier to use Snapdeal's logistics management system, which offers many superior capabilities.
Piloted last year with select couriers, OLP will give end to end visibility of shipments in transit, offer analytics info to plan capacity and load on different lines, and plan timely interventions for effective last mile delivery. This will enable smart management of peaks and troughs in demand by smartly allocating volumes, based on a courier's capacities.
Rajiv Mangla, CTO for Snapdeal said: "As we work with diverse 3PL partners across different regions, we realized that regional logistics players cater to remote geographic areas but are low on technology or lack the financial muscle to control the end user experience. To create a consistent customer experience, we felt the need to improve capabilities of our last-mile delivery partners. The OLP integration is a ground-breaking step in that direction."
Couriers that adopt the OLP are likely to gain significant advantages over the competition because it will allow them to focus on core operational activities, improving customer experience, and save cost due to business optimization and operational efficiencies.
By using OLP, logistics companies can focus on their core business of moving shipments rather than worrying about ever changing technology needs. OLP as a SaaS platform takes care of providing the required innovations well in time to stay ahead of the game. Currently, individual integration with delivery partners happens on an API (application program interface) to API basis and since different players have very different APIs, integration takes up to a couple of months to complete. This platform can reduce the time taken to a week, especially for smarter partners who have some exposure to technology in their operations.
