Introducing Inquisitorial by Indianaut, a long-form newsletter where we explain and analyze important stories stemming out of the Indian entrepreneurial ecosystem & economy. New articles every Saturday & Sunday.
Gone are the days when businesses were traditional brick and mortar when home deliveries didn’t exist and the only way to acquire goods was by traveling to the location. As the pandemic forced us to effortlessly embrace technology, the latest advancement in this area is the development of product delivery services.
Everyone enjoys receiving a package. We'll transmit more than 100 billion by 2020, with the amount potentially doubling by 2030. Who will deliver all of those items, and how will they be delivered? The Next Normal needs to delve into the future of last-mile parcel delivery.
The moment you finally get your hands on that long-awaited, much-anticipated thing you bought is one of the most enjoyable moments of the e-commerce trip. Customers' expectations of what they can have are rising, and their alternatives for receiving those items are expanding as well.
(Image Credits: Forbes)
Customers are not only becoming more demanding, but they are also becoming more cost-conscious, with a low willingness to pay for more convenience. In such scenarios, it becomes extremely important to form ways of delivering that can effectively sit well with the customers.
Today, we see technology piloting and testing all around the world. However, we're witnessing the start of series productions and the scaling up of technology implementation by a number of firms. Last-mile technology is rapidly improving at every level of development, from idea to testing to deployment.
The Indian Government too has approved around 20 entities to carry out experimental drone flights beyond the visual line of sight (BVLOS). Companies like Swiggy, Dunzo, Spicejet, etc are a few renowned names who have been given permission to test drone delivery.
Once the protocols and guidelines are met, drones can be used to deliver Covid vaccines, meals, medicines, etc while ensuring safety and security issues.
Use-case A: Swiggy’s Advancements
Our fantasy of having meals delivered by drones may soon become a reality as the leading food delivery startup Swiggy is planning drone delivery of its orders. Food and medical supplies will be delivered by drones, according to the food-delivery behemoth. Swiggy has teamed up with ANRA Technologies to distribute food by drone. ANRA Technologies has acquired final approval from the Ministry of Defence (MoD), the Directorate General of Aviation (DGCA), and the Ministry of Civil Aviation to begin BVLOS testing in India.
After months of preparation, evaluation, and air traffic control integration, ANRA's flying crew flew their maiden sortie on June 16, 2021. Using ANRA SmartSkies technology, the flying team will distribute food and medical packages in the Etah and Rupnagar districts. ANRA had also teamed up with the Indian Institute of Technology, Ropar, to work on medical delivery.
Swiggy, Zomato's main competitor, has teamed up with Skylark to try out its drone delivery technology. Skylark Drones, a Bengaluru-based company has secured $3 million (about Rs 22 crore) in a pre-Series A investment round headed by Zomato investor Info Edge Ventures and the Indian Angel Network (IAN) fund. This round also included Fowler Westrup, AdvantEdge Founders, Redstart Labs, IKP, and Vimson Group taking up active parts in jumping on to the new advancements.
Use-case B: Medicines from the Sky
Not only food but the area of delivering medicines is also becoming one of the most popular aspects. Flipkart teamed up with the Telangana government to lead a consortium charged with developing and implementing drone delivery of medical supplies to distant locations as part of the ‘Medicines from the Sky' initiative.
Flipkart said it will deploy drones and allow medical supply delivery using lessons learned from its tech-enabled supply chain. These efforts will be supplemented by technologies developed throughout time, such as geo-mapping, cargo routing, and location track and trace.
Even India’s leading express logistics service provider Blue Dart will start delivering medical packages through drones. The company announced that it formed Blue Dart Med-Express Consortium to deliver vaccines and emergency medical supplies to the remotest parts of India using drones.
“The Medicine of Sky is one of the first such programs in the country where multiple drones would fly BVLOS to establish their value proposition for the healthcare supply chain. The vision is to ensure healthcare equity for rural areas.” Jayesh Ranjan, IAS, Principal Secretary, ITE&C Department, Government of Telangana, said emphasizing on this new development.
Fly High to New Heights
Customers are demanding more from their delivery providers, and a highly competitive environment combined with customers’ high-cost sensitivity has pushed forward the development of technology that will help the industry deliver on these demands. Although India too faces lots of issues based on logistics to implement the drone delivery system leading the discord amongst analysts.
However, the remarkable speed with which technology is projected to advance in the future is likely to put pressure on economic agents to respond quickly to protect existing industry positions and seize new value possibilities. In addition, effective tactics in the future will need to be built on a set of specialized skills and will necessitate the use of a sophisticated and resource-intensive technical infrastructure. We anticipate players to form strong commercial alliances in response to these problems since meeting these objectives appears excessively ambitious for any one player.