What is Final Mile and How Do You Optimize It?
April 14, 2021
What Is Final Mile Logistics?
In a track race, the anchor leg is the final position of the relay. While each runner on the team holds unique value, the anchor is responsible for either making up ground or securing the team’s lead. In essence, this position is the final step for the team to ensure their baton crosses the finish line as fast as possible.
In transportation, the anchor leg is referred to as final mile. When a product leaves its origin to be delivered to its end consumer, the final mile leg represents the last route products take to get to customers. In today’s supply chain climate, this leg of transportation couldn’t be more important. According to Morgan Stanley’s research, 2021 U.S. e-commerce sales projections increased by 10% with a projection of $836B, up from the previous forecast of $753B. The growing surge in e-commerce, increasingly strident expectations of consumer demand and heightened momentum in omnichannel supply chains have added tremendous pressure on logistics operations. For shippers looking to drive growth and profitability, optimizing their final mile network is a cornerstone.
Hub Group’s Final Mile
An effective final mile strategy must focus on the needs of the consumer. This may involve thinking outside of the box to deploy unconventional shipping tactics to achieve customer satisfaction. To achieve customer satisfaction, you often need to take a holistic view of your supply chain, evaluate the product’s full lifecycle and optimize in all areas. This may involve forward positioning, mode conversions, and or freight consolidation. And to execute on an initiative like this takes a provider that can leverage a flexible model to deliver.
At Hub Group, we offer robust asset-backed multimodal solutions to meet your transportation logistics requirements. This network is perfectly aligned and ready to deploy to move product for your customers. Our nationwide network and teams of logistics experts deliver comprehensive transportation solutions, so each leg of your supply chain runs like a well-oiled machine. For quality assurance, we are constantly enhancing on our services, ensuring your supply chain operates in the most efficient, optimized and cost-effective manner.
Such was the case when we paired our industry-leading first and middle-mile capabilities with final mile. Through the acquisition of NSD®, one of the fastest-growing, non-asset, last mile logistics providers in the U.S., Hub Group is able to deliver an efficient, unrivaled solution for your end-to-end supply chain.
By controlling both the middle and final leg of the journey, we’re able to bring the flexibility to surge and meet the ebbs and flows of your customers’ demands without compromising speed, flexibility and precision. In fact, Hub Group’s final mile on-time percentage (OTP) currently stands at 98.5% average for all delivery types, including threshold and white glove service.
This demonstrates the key advantage to working with a transportation and logistics provider with sufficient final mile capabilities to service or supplement your business on the last leg.
The ever-changing nature of the supply chain industry demands that we adapt and act quickly. As you race to deliver for your customer with Hub Group–you can rest assured that your last leg will be run with the delicate balance of speed, flexibility and precision.
Sources
https://www.morganstanley.com/ideas/coronavirus-ecommerce-retail-shopping