HERE Technologies helps
Descartes optimize last
mile logistics
brought to you by HERE Technologies

The e-commerce revolution is impacting all elements of global supply chains, but it's in the last mile where e-commerce
disruption manifests most acutely, both in the B2B and B2C space. In the retail world, virtually every business is working
to develop strategies for getting goods into the hands of customers quickly and accurately. They're creating their versionof the Amazon model, one that guarantees delivery when and where their customers want it, as economically as possible,
whether the product was purchased online or in the store.
Descartes Systems Group stands with its customers at the last mile. That's the nexus of location-based services andlogistics technology, where sensor data, electronic logging devices and connected handheld devices, as well as all thestakeholders involved in shipping product – buyer, seller, carrier, consignee and freight broker – link together.
"Expectations are changing around visibility into a particular shipment's present status, plans for getting that shipment
to the customer and whether or not the current disposition of the shipment aligns with the plan. That's the primaryarena of change and transformation for us," says Ken Wood, Vice President of Product Management for Descartes. "We've
all become accustomed to Uber's ability to show us where they are to the second as they make their way to us, andAmazon's ability to promise same-day or next-day delivery with visibility along the way."
And, even though retail has been out on the bleeding edge of this disruption, expectations for real-time visibility andfinal mile delivery have taken root in B2B transportation. In wholesale distribution and commodity transportationscenarios, people still want to know where their shipment is now and the ETA.

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HERE location data at the forefront of thee-commerce transformation

For forward-thinking organizations, supply chain and logistics have moved from a back-office function to the strategic
forefront of sales, customer engagement and competitive differentiation. No longer is it the sole purview of a planner
sitting in a logistics office using a route optimization tool.
"When a consumer is on a website, trying to decide when he or she wants delivery of an appliance or some other thing tothe home, it becomes a different dynamic," Chris Jones, Descartes' Senior Director of Customer Solutions at Descartes
Systems Group, says. "Companies are looking at how they can leverage their logistics capabilities and decision support
capabilities to improve customer retention and the customer service experience. That's a different type of relationshipand discussion compared to years past."
Descartes is a global company with customers for its final-mile solutions around the globe. Location data, location-based
services and GIS mapping are more critical than ever, and HERE Technologies lies at the core of Descartes ability toprovide organizations services for route optimization, delivery planning, last-mile and ETA capabilities and more.
The company starts with HERE's vector data for the road networks worldwide. "None of our services are possible without
being able to understand the road network. We have to be able to intersect where a logistics-related activity takes place
within the road network the vehicle is traveling on. Then we can optimize and re-plan and reschedule those activities ifnecessary," Wood says.
Descartes uses HERE geocoding data for ETA-planning. It's a capability Wood admits Descartes takes a bit for granted
now, because of its partnership with HERE. "But trying to figure out where a particular address is on the planet wasn't
always as easy or accurate, but it's always been vital. We have to know where 'there' is, right? So, we use that data, insome cases, right at point of sale to translate the address into a location on the map with a high degree of accuracy andcreate a plan to get from point-A to point-B using the HERE data. And then we also take advantage of some of the HERE
API services for geocoding and tiling and map rendering out of the cloud."3Merging HERE location
expertise with Descartes

Wood views HERE as a knowledge partner, leveraging the data HERE delivers as baseline information, which Descartes
then tunes to the particulars of a specific customer scenario, using machine-learning algorithms and decision-support
engines developed by its engineers. "We can build these route planning and optimization models very quickly andachieve results for customers using that geometry data. We also use things like real-time traffic conditions, predictivetraffic, historical traffic patterns, posted speeds and some of the other premium location-based attributes HERE
provides."When building routes, Descartes also considers everything from labor standards and driving behaviors to the physicalattributes of the goods being handled – weight, dimensions, for example - which vary from customer to customer,
industry to industry, asset to asset and shipment to shipment. That's Descartes area of expertise, and that's whereDescartes merges its know-how with HERE content.
"We can get a really good ETA out of the algorithms we employ and the data we use from HERE, the vector data for theroad networks, traffic patterns and time/distance calculation," Wood says. "But where machine learning comes into playin refining the results is understanding more around how your particular workers, how your particular assets, how aparticular market, cities, traffic patterns look like over time and refining the results of those ETA calculations to theparticular customer.""HERE location technology improves accuracy when we're determining how long it's going to take to get from point-A topoint-B on a particular day at a particular time. All that is important in our solutions, at the planning stage and thereal-time execution stage, when a driver on the road wants to know, dynamically, where they are against their scheduleand how traffic and real-world conditions are impacting that."
He emphasizes that a solution dependent on location-based data requires intelligent, dynamic maps and vector data,
especially for companies, like Descartes, focused on final-mile route optimization. "We can't just present a static picture.
It has to be a map that has a lot of real-time, high-fidelity data associated with the road network and geocodes. And, oneof the things we value particularly from HERE is high-quality data with a lot of coverage. As we've watched how map data
has unfolded over the years, we've gone from having great data in the US to great data in parts of Europe to now we're to
the point where we have great data available for much of the world. That's not being driven because of logistics
solutions; it's being driven through the things HERE is doing to enable in-car navigation. We're the beneficiaries of all of
this data that HERE's building to create a digital version of the world's road networks. And because we have customers
virtually everywhere, having a partner that provides global map data is extremely important to us."4About HERE Technologies
HERE, the Open Location Platform company, enables people, enterprises and cities to harness the power oflocation. By making sense of the world through the lens of location we empower our customers to achieve
better outcomes – from helping a city manage its infrastructure or an enterprise optimize its assets to guiding
drivers to their destination safely. To learn more about HERE, including our new generation of cloud-based
location platform services, visit 360.here.com and here.com© 2019 HERE | here.com