Stop Start Unlocks Distribution Capacity with Descartes’ Last Mile Delivery Solution

Stop Start is a leading delivery business specialising in B2B and B2C deliveries of large and difficult to handle fragile items.

Its core business supports the kitchen and bathroom sector with a national next-day delivery service in the UK. The Stop Start service is based on high levels of product care and customer service, filling the gap between the parcel network and pallet deliveries. As a customer service-led business, Stop Start has a commitment to continuous investment in digital solutions that enhance efficiency and deliver best in class customer propositions.  

Staying true to these business objectives, Stop Start reviewed its operational processes to identify areas within the business that might be constraining growth. An opportunity to improve the planning and execution of deliveries was identified for its clients, and its clients’ consumer customer base. The business deployed Descartes’ route planner, mobile electronic proof-of-delivery (ePOD) and driver vehicle safety check solutions to improve efficiency, safety and sustainability credentials.  

The Challenge: 

Stop Start has a vehicle fleet of around 70 vehicles executing deliveries for its clients. This equated to around 1200 new and unique deliveries daily. Prior to deploying Descartes’ technology, the business used a team of planners to manually plan and execute deliveries. The process would take three employees over four hours each day. The business also used a paper-based system to organise itself and manage deliveries. What is more, fulfilment for Stop Start’s clients could not start to be executed without any of this planning having been completed first. Ultimately this meant that Stop Start’s growth prospects were constrained by manual, paper-based labour-intensive processes.  

Since strong customer service sits at the heart of the business, Stop Start also reviewed how it could improve its customer communications. One of its challenges was timely communication regarding the status of deliveries to customers. As with delivery planning, this process was also manual and labour intensive. Both processes were also siloed, making it problematic for the business to gain access to rich data and insights, and to join the ‘data dots’ in order to identify better, more efficient and economic delivery patterns.  

Finally, as a consequence of these manual processes, the business realised that it used around 750,000 pieces of paper per annum. By addressing all these issues, operational capacity, time and cost savings could be unlocked, enabling the business to continue with its forecast growth trajectory, towards profitability and great customer service.

The Solution: 

Stop Start went on a journey to research various digital solutions available on the market. When it met with Descartes, it was immediately apparent that there was a deep understanding of the business challenges and synergy between the two organisations.  

Stop Start implemented Descartes’ cloud-based last mile solution, comprising route planning and optimisation, electronic proof of delivery and vehicle check systems. Benefits were realised almost as soon as implementation was complete. 

Descartes’ route planning and optimisation solution enabled Stop Start to decrease its daily route planning time by over 75%. With Descartes, the time spent by its three-strong planning team is reduced to one hour with one employee, allowing the business to significantly increase productivity and redeploy staff to wider strategic initiatives. Once routes have been planned, they are passed onto drivers’ mobile devices, reducing the need for unnecessary paperwork and delivery notes, which have also been replaced with electronic proof of delivery (ePOD). Further, customer communication has been improved along the entire journey. Once an order has been placed, updates around the status of a client’s order are provided using a robust “track-my-order” functionality, that provides notifications to customers. This has significantly improved the customer experience and has supported improvements in invoicing. Another benefit of ePOD is that paper usage has been reduced by around 750,000 pieces per year across the business.   

Prior to using Descartes’ last mile solution Stop Start did not have a precise sense of where business processes and improvements could be made. Since Descartes’ solution is cloud-based and offers sophisticated reporting, dashboards and integration with other systems, Stop Start has been able to review its fulfilment performance in detail. It can now work out which routes are more cost-effective, how much fuel is being used, and it can try and identify further avenues for improvement and growth. 

Finally, the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) mandates vehicle safety checks at the start of the work shift to ensure safety of all road users. Stop Start’s previous traditional paper-based, clipboard-led process was also digitised and moved to the drivers’ mobile devices via an app. Drivers check and log the status of their vehicle before they set off for deliveries. This enables Stop Start’s Transport Manager to keep a thorough handle on the status of Stop Start’s vehicles, along with any required maintenance to ensure vehicles are safe to drive.

The Results:  

Andrew Bayne, Managing Director, Stop Start, comments:

“Making the change to digitise and use automation to unlock our capacity and enable growth was vital. It is also something that we had to engage in so that we could future-proof our business. However, making this transition was not something we took lightly. It required careful strategic planning in order to make this change to our operations. This is because these changes were mission critical and once we ‘pushed the button’ we knew that we could never go back – but, also, any failure would have a significant impact on our business. Suffice to say, it has been one of the most profitable and productive changes we have made to the business. Overnight our business was transformed. Our planning team and drivers love using Descartes. For instance, initially, automation and digitisation enabled one employee to plan around 45 – 50 delivery routes daily, resulting in around 800 – 900 deliveries each day. Since introducing Descartes, Stop Start’s daily delivery volume has increased 50%. This rate of growth would not have been sustainable without digital planning tools."

“So, thanks to Descartes we have now unlocked the capability within our team and have increased delivery capacity to around 1450 deliveries daily, and to around 60 to 65 delivery routes per day, along with all the related additional benefits and gains from digitisation and digital transformation. We couldn’t recommend a more effective, robust solution than Descartes. Working with their team has been an utter professional pleasure.” 

About Stop Start

Stop Start is a leading delivery business specialising in B2B and B2C deliveries of large and difficult to handle fragile items. Our core business supports the kitchen and bathroom sector with a next day delivery service with national coverage. The Stop Start service is based on high levels of product care and customers service, filling the gap between the parcel network and pallet deliveries. A customer service lead business, Stop Start is continuing to invest in digital solutions that enhance efficiency and deliver best in class customer propositions. Stop Start is a portfolio company of Storskogen, a Swedish listed international group of companies. http://www.stop-start.co.uk/ 

About Storskogen

Storskogen is an international group of businesses across Trade, Industry, and Services. We are uniquely positioned to identify, acquire, and develop market leaders with sustainable business models over an infinite ownership horizon. Storskogen creates value by providing access to capital and strategic direction combined with active governance and a decentralised operational model. Storskogen has over 12,900 employees, net sales of SEK 36.5 billion (LTM) across a diversified group of businesses and is listed on Nasdaq Stockholm. www.storskogen.com