An in depth market analysis was performed as part of the feasibility study. Several surveys were distributed among key stakeholders in the industry (e-commerce executives, express carriers, delivery people, shoppers, etc.) in order to gain insights and better understand their needs, and adapt the proposed solution. In addition, the company dedicated two people to search for publicly available data about the market to gain a wider understanding of the market conditions, trends and needs. As a result the company has gained a deeper knowledge of customer needs, differentiating the needs for each user typology: e-retailers, e-shoppers, express delivery companies and on-demand service providers. Also, a wide analysis of market trends, size and competitor analysis has assisted the company to better understand the product-market fit.
Based on the market overview and the gained insights about the challenges faced by the express delivery and e-commerce sectors, as well as consumers, the company refined its product definition. This was carried out through several team meetings that included company executives, engineers and business developers. As a result the desired product features and advantages to the end customers were defined. The key product functionalities (collaborative behaviour, bidirectional communication customer-provider and dynamic pricing to optimize demand) were defined with the final objective to allow CEP companies to make a better use of their resources, as well as to allow eCommerce sites to improve delivery experience, improving revenue and profit margins as well as providing a better service.
In order to evaluate the technical feasibility of the project, the project’s team has collaborated with the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC). After analysing the existing technology of COLLOGISTICS, the state of the art and the objectives of the project, both teams concluded that the correct implementation of a market-ready version of COLLOGISTICS would require the de use of advanced artificial intelligence algorithms based on evolutionary algorithms, multi agent systems and neural networks. This collaboration with the UPC will continue in the future project development and implementation.
Once the company had a better knowledge of the market and its customers, and a product designed to better fit their needs, the company defined a commercialization strategy. This included the definition of key partners that would enable a more successful commercialization, defining strategic markets, and understanding the commercialization barriers the company would face. This commercialization will have to approaches, one for CEP companies and another one for e-retailers.
During the feasibility study a patents agency was subcontracted in order to analyse the patentability of the solution and perform a freedom to operate analysis. In addition, an ISO specialist agency was subcontracted to better understand the requirements and advantages of obtaining ISO certifications, the only regulatory aspect that applied to COLLOGISTICS. As a result, COLLOGISTICS has now a clear IP strategy and a lear understanding of regulatory issues and requirements to obtaining ISO certifications.
Based on the development and commercial needs of the project, all the partners involved have made a projection of the tasks to carry out, the resources and its costs. This has been implemented on a Gantt plan as well as a budget for the necessary tasks to develop a market ready version of COLLOGISTICS.
