Parcel-Delivery Market Continues to Evolve

Lee Klaskow (0:07)

Hi, everyone, this is Lee Klaskow and we're Talking Transports. Welcome to Bloomberg Intelligence Talking Transports podcast. I'm your host, Lee Klaskow, Senior Freight Transportation and Logistics Analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, Bloomberg's in-house research arm. Before we dive in, a quick favor, if you enjoy the podcast, please take a moment to follow, rate, review, and share it with a friend or colleague. Your support helps us continue bringing you conversations with the leaders shaping transportation and logistics. If you'd like to connect, you can find me on the Bloomberg Terminal, LinkedIn or on X at Logistics Lee. We have a special episode for you today. We're taking Talking Transports on the road to the Parcel Forum Conference in Orlando where I moderated a panel on the state of the parcel market.

Joining me on stage were Chris Kina, Senior Director Analyst at Gartner, Joanne Strong, Senior Manager at Deloitte, and Andre Pharand, CEO of Pharand Advisors.

Few areas of transportation and logistics are changing as quickly as parcel delivery. Amazon continues to expand its logistics capabilities. Shippers have more carrier choices, consumer expectations continue to evolve, and technology and AI are changing how companies think about everything from forecasting and routing to the last mile.

During our conversation, we'll discuss what Amazon's growing present could mean for UPS, FedEx and other carriers. Whether the US parcel market is becoming more fragmented or could eventually consolidate, and what consumers really value when it comes to speed, reliability, cost and convenience. We'll also talk about the economics of free shipping and returns, the role of the US. Postal Service, and where technology can generate real returns for shippers and carriers. So let's head to Orlando for our conversation on the state of the parcel shipping market.

Lee Klaskow (2:09)

Morning, everybody. Thanks for joining us this morning.

Lee Klaskow (2:13)

So we've got a great panel.

Lee Klaskow (2:14)

I'm sure some of you heard some of the presentations yesterday. So this is be a little more of a conversation. Some of the things you heard yesterday, some great talks.

As Alison said, my name is Lee Klaskow. I'm at Bloomberg and Cullins, Bloomberg's research arm.

SPEAKER_3 (2:28)

I've been covering transports as an analyst for over 22 years at Bloomberg and on Southside on Wall Street during that time. And also for all these people that love transports, I hosted a weekly podcast on Bloomberg about transports called Talking Transports. With that, I'm going to let the panel introduce themselves as they can do about much better jobs than I ever could.

Morning, I'm Chris Kina with Gartner. I'm a SEMA Director Analyst within a logistics and customer fulfillment practice. So part of our bigger supply chain group, I cover our weekly logistics, warehouse and fulfillment, transportation, but I specialize in market coverage for parcel. So good to see everybody.

Joanne Strong (3:08)

Good morning. My name is Joanne Strong. I'm the WMS practice lead at Deloitte Consulting.

I help our shippers, logistics providers, clients of all sorts, go through the technology and digital strategy all the way through implementation. And I'm looking forward to this conversation as to how we can all go through that journey together.

SPEAKER_3 (3:32)

My name is Andre Pharand. I'm the CEO and founder of Pharand Advisors. I do the teaching advisory and IDFU consulting for basically companies the last mile or part of the ecosystem, the farmers ecosystem.

Most people know me as my former self. I was the former managing director of Coast and Parcel at Accenture for about 17 years. In total, I have about 30 years of experience across these continents. I've worked with leaders of over 30 different carriers, logistics companies, pharmaceutical companies around the world. I'm glad to be here and I'll be providing maybe some perspective over time and perspective on the global level. All right.

SPEAKER_5 (4:16)

Let's get the conversation going.

Lee Klaskow (4:18)

We talk constantly about the parcel market being transformed, but you strip away the buzzwords. You'll hear a lot of them at social conferences like these. What's the single biggest structural change happening in the parcel delivery business right now? Why does it matter over the next three to five years? And, Chris, you can start us off, since you're closest to me. Thanks.

Drew, the short start.

SPEAKER_3 (4:43)

We think that it is just the change from the physical infrastructure advantage of multiple sortation hubs and all the assets to technology, and specifically AI-invented technologies that are a part of the personality I talked about yesterday. It's really changing the optimization process. For example, if you get a next-date order, it's going to default to go, no, safe, no FedEx overman. That might not be the answer. The AI treaters can figure out that there is a ground truck that's going to be available based upon the load build, the load optimization, those types of things.