On January 23^rd, the MOBIS Institute held a NEOMAtinée event on the theme: First mile / last mile: What are tomorrow’s collaborative models ? More than 30 professionals were present on NEOMA Business School’s Paris campus for this informative and inspiring event, organised by the Master of Science Digital & Innovative Supply Chain (DISC).

Today, the first / last mile remains a major concern for logisticians, urban economic stakeholders (traders, companies, etc.) and local authorities. Under the growing impetus of e-commerce, a new generation of consumers, agile and connected, interested in the offerings of retailers, combined with an increased demand on the conditions of delivery have become an operational reality today in the supply chain design of the urban space. This observation is all the more accentuated in the large metropolises experiencing a demographic concentration, a very dense road traffic which must adapt to the very heterogeneous urban specificities. It is to be seen that the urban logistics ecosystem is evolving with the deployment of digital solutions based on data, its assimilation, exploitation and integration into what could be called the ‘strategic last-mile design’. “It is extremely complicated to anticipate societal behaviour, but one thing is certain: we must improve on the promise of fast, environmentally friendly and non-disruptive delivery. All this without any extra cost, of course…”, explained the speakers during the round table discussion.

To respond to the range of issues related to future delivery trends, several speakers were invited to this round table chaired by Ouail OULMAKKI, Research Engineer at the MOBIS Institute.

• Damien BON, CEO of STUART, a multimodal platform for a shared delivery concept allowing costs to be mutualised and, above all, providing a fast delivery service for customers.
• Laetitia DABLANC, Research Director at the French Institute of Science and Technology for Transport, Planning and Networks.
• Benjamin LEVINE, CEO of TOUSFACTEURS, start-up offering scheduled evening deliveries.
• Inda KECHROUD, Co-Founder of NESTORE-GREEN TECHNOLOGIES, a horizontal box concept with multiple refrigerated units.

During the discussions, a range of future concerns were addressed: the repositioning of city-centre logistics, the development of green delivery methods, crowd-logistics, evening deliveries, connected locks and locker delivery services…“Nonetheless, I think that our models tend to go even further. In the future, customers will become more and more active in their deliveries. It is up to us as companies, start-ups and carriers to anticipate these changes to improve their daily lives”, one of the speakers expressed.

> Learn more about NEOMA Business School Master of Science Digital & Innovative Supply Chain (DISC)