#8 Importance of staying adaptable to changing times

According to a study by Bain & Company and Facebook, Digital Consumers of Tomorrow, Here Today, digital consumers were expected to make up 69 percent of Southeast Asia’s population by 2025.

However, the Covid-19 pandemic that broke out in late-2019 accelerated the five-year acceleration within 2020 alone ushering in a new wave of purchasing habits and expectations.

Speaking to Head’s Up, Chief Executive Officer of Ninja Van Malaysia, Adzim Halim says the pandemic has dramatically reshaped how many offline small and medium businesses operate.

Offline retailers who pivoted online to survive will have enjoyed the benefits of reaching new customers and will continue to invest in their online sales channels even as stores reopen, he points out.

“The new wave of consumers who shop online initially out of necessity, will likely continue as they have discovered the ease and convenience of doing so.”

In view of this, Adzim says logistics companies everywhere will need to adapt new and innovative solutions to further enhance their services as more and more people are going online.

“It’s really up to logistics players to further digitalise and incorporate changes to their user interfaces and experiences to accommodate to consumer needs and this includes the older generations,” Adzim adds.

Additionally, as employees’ working locations are becoming more decentralised due to working from home, Ninja Van foresees an increase in on-demand and time definite deliveries.

One way the startup is addressing this demand is through same-day or next-day deliveries and Ninja Packs which have Ninja Van® proprietary real-time tracking technology.

This further highlights the importance of staying adaptable with delivery times. As consumers get more sophisticated, Adzim says they would like to know exactly where their parcels are at all times.

In an effort to continuously innovate the way the company reaches out to their customers; Ninja Van implemented the ‘Live Chat’ functions to improve transparency with customers. This proved to be a success for the company as 30% of customers reach out via the platform, as compared to the 10% of customers prior to the outbreak.

Adapting to the new normal

“Being a tech-enabled company, we improvised with tech-savvy solutions which included contactless deliveries and live chat implementation to further enhance how we continue to deliver seamless and hassle-free delivery services during the pandemic.

We’ve also scaled up our operations and capacity to ensure that we are able to meet the demands of our customers,” Adzim says.

Being tech-enabled helped the company adapt quickly to the changes that took place during the first MCO when parcel volumes witnessed a sharp drop. Being able to pivot and quickly adapt allowed the company to keep up with the volumes during the pandemic, even during peak period such as the 11.11 and 12.12 sales.

In fact, Ninja Van’s peak last year saw the company breaking the 300,000 per day mark and as a group, it managed to deliver a record breaking of over two million parcels in a single day.

“This year, we will continue to do everything we can to keep up with the on-going demand as well as looking at ways to improve and streamline our operations,” he says.

To match consumer expectations, the pressure to deliver purchases effortless now falls onto logistics companies, the CEO says. However, it also results in a high demand for logistics players from businesses as well as profit opportunities that can ultimately tip off the economic output in the industry.

As such, the tech-enabled logistics startup aims to continue operating in a VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous) environment and introduced new services and processes to adapt to the new normal.

These include being able to improve delivery routes via AI and algorithms to optimise costs, which will then result in lower prices offered to customers. Data analytics have also allowed Ninja Van to gain deeper insights into market trends and assist with forecasting and capacity management.

“We believe that our ability to adapt is our competitive edge and is what will continue to set us apart from the rest. After all, we have to embrace change and plan for the unexpected,” Adzim tells Head’s Up.

What’s in store?

In face of the current climate, Ninja Van Malaysia will continue to strategically diversify their operations and fleet types moving forward to support the wider range of businesses that are making their transition online.

“Since we have achieved 100% coverage throughout Malaysia, our future will be mainly driven by expanding our services for more industries within the B2B and B2C segment and developing new products,” Adzim shares.

The company will be working with the likes of Bjak, Finology, Estee Lauder and Amway as part of their initiative to penetrate newer segments.