In 2023 we were hired to sell efficiency to people who already believe they are efficient.
Every distribution manager in the region has a routing system. It is usually a supervisor, a spreadsheet and the accumulated knowledge of which driver knows which neighbourhood. It works, in the sense that goods arrive, and it is impossible to audit, which is the opening.
The qualifying question is fuel and vehicle count, not software. A fleet of eight vans has nothing to optimise. A fleet of eighty has a number attached to every inefficient turn.
What we did
Three months across the UAE, into food distribution, retail supply and logistics. 22 meetings booked, 18 confirmed held, 22 companies introduced.
Grocery and food distribution: Choithrams, Al Maya, Al Adil, Al Douri, Al Islami Foods, Modern Bakery, Jubaili Bros, Hemani. Logistics and freight: DP World, DSV, RSA Global, Global Shipping and Logistics, Integrated National Companies. Retail and consumer: Al Futtaim, Danube Home, Lals, Unilever, Squat Wolf.
The refrigerated van rule
Halfway through the campaign one of our people made a connection that changed the list. Refrigerated vehicles burn considerably more fuel than dry ones, so for any distributor running chilled or frozen goods the cost of a badly planned route is larger, per kilometre, than for anybody else.
That is a targeting insight, not a talking point. It moved dairy, frozen food and pharmaceutical distribution up the list and general merchandise down it, and it is the kind of thing a rep only finds by thinking about the buyer's cost structure rather than the product's feature list.
The engagement's other legacy was a referral. The person leading a different mapping and location business inside the same group came to us on this account's recommendation, wanting to talk about the Middle East. Internal referrals between business units are the closest thing to a real reference an agency ever gets, because nobody passes an agency to a colleague to be polite.
What it shows
For an efficiency product, find the segment where the same inefficiency costs more. Every distributor has routes; only some of them are paying a premium per kilometre to get them wrong. Target on the cost structure, not the job title.