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Last year’s pandemic disrupted the way people live and want to live. Governments were forced to lockdowns, where people had to stick to curfews. In addition, shopper’s fear to get infected impacted physical retailing negatively.

Where brick and mortar stores were suffering from governmental regulations to combat spread of the virus, e-commerce was thriving. These regulations forced people to shop online and opened up customer’s mind to the benefits of online shopping. Looking at world’s largest economies, online transactions in the YK rose from 15.8% to 23.3 per cent, in China a similar positive trend from 20.7 to 24.9 per cent and the US saw an increase from 11 to 14 per cent. Both opportunities and challenges of an increase in e-commerce became sooner than expected, more urgent than expected. One of the main challenges of such an online-first environment is delivery of orders. As in most countries people only could go out for primary reasons such as groceries, all other had to be ordered online. Urban order deliveries become more frequent and smaller where efficiency plays a key role.

As customer experience is a central theme in e-commerce, related supply chain solutions are following the same approach. Where customer deliveries all started with home deliveries, iterations such as same day deliveries, pack-stations and alternative locations are rising. These so-called last mile delivery solutions are acting as a catalyst for e-commerce as it enables companies to offer differential solutions to customers.

Also, the use of electrical vehicles allows last mile delivery to comply to emission standards. Zero emission deliveries with bikes, cards, and even vans enable companies involved to meet urban standards. Also, the use of technologies in the supply chain industry can lead to achievements of efficiencies, also in the delivery process.

To conclude, opportunities in last mile delivery are driven by a forced change of consumers’ perception to (online) shopping. Similar to e-commerce, alternatives for customers are increasing. Not only general shopping, but also the rise of fast-delivery supermarkets such as Gorilla’s is part of this trend. While these developments seem to make our lives a lot easier, critics argue whether that really is the case. We have to ask ourselves the question to what extent it adds significant sustainable value to our daily lives and does not pollute our urban areas with all different but unnecessary alternatives.

[1] https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/05/1091182

[2] https://www.kennisdclogistiek.nl/nieuws/the-future-of-last-mile-delivery-10-most-important-trends

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The dependency on digital solutions has never been as big as it is nowadays. I always find it an interesting question to ask myself to what extent I rely on digital technologies. When I go to the university I book a Felyx or Check (shared e-scooters); once at university I open my laptop and check the news on my favorite news websites; for study I have to log in to Canvas; I pay my lunch with Apple pay; in the evening I have to book the gym with an application; and so on.

I am a true advocate of all these digital advantages as it makes our lives a lot easier and more efficient. However, an increasing online presence also means that with every action we give away a bit more of our digital identity. With big tech companies being sued because of security and privacy reasons, we also have to ask ourselves the question how this will impact us.

The current digital identity framework makes use of centralized digital identity systems. This means that discrete identities are created online such as an account on social media and identity issuance by governments. This created a fragmented digital network with the risk of data silo’s that could be hacked. It is not only the knowledge that digital companies gather about us, but also the risk of losing this data to parties over which we have even less control. Therefore, it is time for change, and this change is close.

Self-sovereign identity solutions allow online users to recover ownership and control over their verifiable credentials. By using blockchain as a fundamental technology to these solutions, a decentralized digital identity framework is applied where information and consent of the issues is required to share the information. This decreases the risk of personal data being hacked and unintended sharing of this personal data. Also, the verification of a user’s identity for solutions such as Felyx can become more efficient and reliable as a user’s financial footprint issued by the bank can easily be applied. The London-based start-up Cheqd recently raised 2.06 million dollars. This start-up is currently building a SSI product and will use this investment to accelerate development of their product. The digital footprint it creates can be stored on devices such as your mobile phone and be used to verify a user’s identity or information such as vaccine status. The decentralized nature of these solutions means that such information won’t be stored on online databases, increasing security and decreasing likelihood of fraud.

It has to be said that such digital identity alternatives don’t have the ability to replace current solutions, yet. Being said, the increasing need for online security and privacy creates opportunities for such solutions and therefore I think that we definitely have to be open for such alternatives. Someday, we don’t need physical identification anymore…

<https://ibsintelligence.com/ibsi-news/cheqd-raises-2-6-million-to-drive-the-uptake-of-digital-ids/>

<https://www.cpomagazine.com/data-privacy/better-but-still-not-good-making-sense-of-big-techs-privacy-push/>