Metrik Logistics

Consumer goods producers (FMCGs) have to deal with the difficulty of building and scaling up their retail distribution channels especially in Africa where most companies have to build their logistics infrastructure from scratch. This pain point is mainly experienced early on in their business life when they do not have the time, capital or expertise to get their product to potential markets the same way larger producers can. SMEs and independent sellers doing e-commerce would also like to offer delivery at a speed and cost that is competitive to large online stores.

Metrik Logistics is building a platform to support a ready-made distribution network consisting of  warehouse providers, storage facilities, transportation service providers and other 3PL services.

Our platform is a way for small&medium storage facility owners, truck/van drivers to easily gain more and consistent revenue and also a way for small producers to scale up to larger markets.

Small consumer goods producers in Africa are commonly faced with the challenge of having to build their retail distribution infrastructure from scratch, while still having to focus on producing and improving their main product. In addition, for every new market they wish to enter, they have to repeat this process therefore limiting their growth potential. The problem is not a lack of logistics service providers as there are many small and medium scale or independent depot/storage facility owners and truck, van, 'tuktuk', motorbike drivers/riders. The infrastructure to efficiently coordinate logistics providers at the massive scale required for retail distribution and delivery is the missing piece. Large producers have the capital and expertise to develop their own delivery networks leaving small producers and new ventures unable to compete. SMEs and independent sellers doing e-commerce would also like to offer delivery at a speed and cost that is competitive to large online stores.

The Metrik Platform integrates into warehousing and transportation providers' systems, keeping track of their free space, available vans/trucks etc. The platform has a partners portal for warehousing, transportation and other 3PL providers to onboard and manage their resources (warehouses, trucks,...). It also provides mobile software to ease operations such as mobile apps for warehouse workers to track and scan pallets, truck drivers to update their location and job status etc. These tools and others such as a minimalist warehouse management system (WMS) are useful since most small scale providers do not already run on resource management systems.

On the other end, the platform provides our clients with an easy way to select storage locations and plan distribution strategies on top of our network. It also integrates with several of the most popular ERPs so that their inventory management workflows are not disrupted.

Metrik provides advantages of easy scaling, efficiency, and 'pay for what you use', avoiding long-term leases and agreements. For 3PL, Metrik is a source of additional revenue streams with little disruption to their operations.

A large distribution network of independent logistics providers has the potential to enable the rapid growth of small producers of the products that people demand. It would also enable SMEs to be involved in e-commerce and to offer online products and services at competitive speed and prices.

Such a platform would also provide new revenue streams for logistics providers of all sizes, from large warehouse and truck companies to independent storage facility owners and van drivers. Getting involved in retail distribution and e-commerce delivery usually requires existing relations with producers that only large logistics providers currently have.

Although we are still early on in product development, engaging our future partners is important for us. We are currently looking for logistics provider to engage with, mainly from our website. Also in the plan is an online survey and networking with clients.

Although our main potential clients are consumer goods producers, Metrik is essentially a network of independent business providing logistics services. In Africa, specifically in the Kenyan market where we are based, small and medium warehouse/depot proprietors, and truck/lorry/van/'tuktuk'/motobike drivers, comprise the larger portion of logistics providers. However, due to their small scale they usually are not significant players in retail distribution and e-commerce delivery.

The Metrik platform will enable small and new logistics business to access the larger markets of retail distribution and e-commerce delivery.

We also envision enabling SMEs to be more competitive selling online.

Metrik's key contribution is building and intelligently coordinating a network of logistics providers for the purpose of easing the process of growing and managing retail distribution.

Most large producers currently heavily rely on assembling and managing their distribution by inflexible long-term agreements with large transporters, wholesalers and warehouse providers or sometimes by actually investing in acquiring company trucks and vans. This arrangement is complex to establish, requiring an experience logistics team and a lot of initial investment of time and money. Network platforms on the other hand have already proven, especially in recent years, to provide scalable, 'plug-and-play' solutions by concentrating resources and expertise.

Comparable existing solutions include: on-demand warehousing platforms
such as Flexe (US), transporter platforms such as Lori Systems(Kenya),
last-mile distribution platforms such as Darkstore(US) and traditional
large logistics providers such as DHL.

For logistics providers, unless they are a well established provider, getting into the retail distribution game is extremely hard. Enterprises would rather deal with one large distributor than 100 smaller transporters and depots even when their need is small-scale, last-mile distribution and small distributors are cheaper and more convenient. This incongruity necessitates a network platform such as Metrik seeks to provide.

Having established a highly available distribution network, the Metrik platform then provides higher efficiencies through intelligent, data-driven planning and scheduling, driving down cost and increasing product availability for clients.

As with any network platform, good cloud-based infrastructure is the core of the Metrik platform. The requirements on our technology is to integrate with many different client and partner systems and effectively manage partner resources to fulfill requests by clients in real-time with minimal supervision. This requires a robust micro-services architecture with plugins to connect to many of the common ERP software in the market such as SAP, ERPNext and Odoo.

We are also building and integrating tools to enable our partners to run efficiently and connect with the Metrik platform effectively, noting that most of our prospective partners are small-scale logistics providers most of whom have not integrated technology systems into their business flow.

Data-driven intelligent planning and scheduling is a major objective of the Metrik platform.

Network platforms have become some of the most successful service providers in the world. Networks have been built for almost all services with small-scale, independent and distributed providers; such as Uber, Lyft, Taxify for ride-hailing, Postmates, Deliv and Darkstore for last-mile fulfillment and delivery, Flexe and BoxMySpace for warehouse providers.

Metrik's main activity is providing a platform that brings together multiple small  and medium scale logistics providers to give them access to the large retail distribution market by helping them operate as one network.

We expect such a platform to have two outcomes: easing the process of establishing and managing of distribution channels is that currently resource intensive for small/medium producers, and providing steady and profitable business for warehouse/depot and truck/van owners on the platform.

In the long term, readily available and effective distribution channels have been empirically shown to have a huge impact on the performance of SMEs, especially agro-based manufacturing. One such study that investigated this relationship: [Ghorbani Dastgerdi, Hamidreza. (2012). Impact of Distribution Channel Innovation on the Performance of Small and Medium Enterprises. International Business and Management.]

Currently, 0, the platform is still in the development phase.

We project 20-50 warehouse providers and transporters within the next one year, and 150-250 within 5 years.

Considering our platform is still under active development, our goals for the next few months to one year are on-boarding a few logistics providers (partners) as initial testers and rapid iteration based on their feedback and ease of operating within the platform.

Within the next five years, our goal is to be operating a large distribution network within Kenya and Uganda which are the markets where most of our target producers operate. The plan is to initially establish such a network within Nairobi, Kenya and its neighbouring towns since it is the largest local market with a population of ~9 million. Majority of Kenya's enterprises are based or distribute mainly within Nairobi. If the platform is successful in this setting, we predict replication and expansion to our larger target region to be a streamlined path.

Our current blockers are mainly financial, We are limited in our ability to expand our development team to finish up development of a minimum viable product. For a platform network whose success relies on establishing good integration with a large number of partners, testing and rapid iteration is the most critical stage.

Additionally, our team does not currently have the legal and business relations expertise required to operate successfully in the logistics industry.

Parallel to our efforts developing the platform, we are also actively looking for angel and pre-seed investment, and for opportunities in startup incubators. Bootstrap investment from the founders currently constitute the company's resources.

Startup incubator programs are a chance to get legal and business advisers early on as we seek to add related expertise to our team.

N/A

4 full-time staff; 3 software developers and 1 operations and logistics expert.

Building and running a logistics platform such as Metrik requires not only a software team with experience in building enterprise and data-driven software but also logistics experts with experience in how enterprises run distribution.

The team at Metrik is such a team. Some our software developers, including one of the founders, have an electrical engineering training and then experience in data analysis and software development. Also part of the team is a developer with a computer science background and experience in enterprise software and building cloud solutions. One of the co-founders has a background in supply chain management and also accounting. Our members have worked in a major bank in Kenya, the transport authority and a heath-tech startup.

We are highly motivated individuals, intent on seeing such a solution succeed.

We do not currently partner with any organization.

Metrik's main target population is our partner logistics providers. Our model is a Platform as a Service, to provide warehouse owners and transporters with a platform to involve their resources in retail distribution. The proposition is increased business from our enterprise clients. To provide access to enterprise clients, the platform integrates with the partners' management systems, keeps track of available resources (free warehouse space, available trucks/vans/bikes), does planning and scheduling, matching distribution requests from clients. We also provide minimalist resource management software since most small/medium scale providers might not currently integrate such tools.

Our clients who use the platform for retail distribution are the revenue source on the platform. The proposition is a platform to establish, manage and expand the distribution channels in low-resource and pay-as-you-go manner. Enabling wide distribution for even small producers and reducing direct cost by charging only for resources used with no initial setup cost and expertise are the major benefits. The platform provides integration to common ERPs and a minimalist web-based logistics management software.

Our revenue model is a tiered subscription fee to enterprise clients, depending on their distribution volume and geographical extent.

Since our revenue model is a tiered subscription fee to enterprise clients

depending on their distribution volume and geographical extent, financial sustainability of the business is based on on-boarding many logistics providers who then serve multiple enterprise clients at a high and consistent distribution volume. A tiered subscription model is a good way to provide maintenance and management services that our partners and clients expect at a low and consistent cost to our clients.

Solve's main appeal is access to mentorship and strategic advice in legal and business planning. We also seek to benefit from access to the Solve community especially to networking with members solving problems in related target market and industry.

We also wish to be considered for the funding opportunities that Solve provides.

As an early stage startup we recognize that the logistics industry is a difficult industry to get into and provide viable solutions for. We therefore, are mainly seeking mentors and advisers with expertise in legal and business planning, especially in the logistics industry.

A partnership with an enterprise in the logistics industry
such as large producer with experience in the difficulty of retail
distribution would greatly help to shape our product development to
better match the industry requirements.

Also, expert advisers and mentors from the Solve community would similarly help.

At this stage however, we do not have specific target organisations for a partnership.

A platform for logistics service providers, especially one targeted at small to medium scale providers, would be beneficial to such entrepreneurs giving them access to the large retail distribution and even e-commerce fulfillment and delivery markets. The possibility of such profitable opportunities would potential get more people interested in becoming self-employed small-scale service providers such as establishing and running a storage space facility or running shipping and delivery jobs with only a single truck/van.

The Metrik platform is still under active development and the GM Prize on Good Jobs and Inclusive Entrepreneurship would enable this solution to come to market within the next few months.

Logistics, and especially retail distribution, greatly benefit from efficient and widely available channels. A network of logistics providers of all sizes, in many geographical regions, operating in a coordinated way such as to reduce the setup and management cost imposed on enterprises when they build their distribution channels would not only be favoured by this enterprises, but would also be profitable and scale very easily. It is essentially outsourcing logistics to a specialized platform.

Metrik Logistics seek to achieve such scale in terms of the availability of logistics providers, the geographical area accessible, and the volume of products distributed through our platform. We also seek to high efficiency possible through data-driven planning and scheduling on a large scale.

The Metrik platform is still under active development and the Future Planet Capital Prize would enable this solution to come to market within the next few months.