James Edge: 0:00

If you can know in real time that you've got a parcel jamming and slowing down a thousand other parcels, you could ultimately save, a day, right? Versus if you've missed a cutoff of a truck.

Tom Raftery: 0:14

Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, wherever you are in the world. Welcome to episode 120 of Resilient Supply Chain Stories and strategies that Keep Business moving. I'm your host, Tom Raftery. That tiny moment in the opening there where my guest talked about one parcel stuck in the wrong place at the wrong time, is a perfect metaphor for modern cross-border logistics. The customer sees a delivery promise. The business feels the margin pressure, but behind the scenes resilience often comes down to whether the data, customs, inventory, and final mile handoffs actually work. Today I'm joined by James Edge, CEO of Landmark Global to talk about what really happens when E-commerce crosses borders. Tariffs returns, local fulfilment, delivery expectations, and the hidden operational decisions that make global shopping feel deceptively simple. And here's the twist, the unexpected hero in this story isn't ai. It's the scan. It's that small boring data event that can be the difference between saving a day and missing a truck cutoff. Let's get into it. James, welcome to the podcast. Would you like to introduce yourself?

James Edge: 1:36

Yeah. Thank you Tom. Hi. I am James Edge. I am the leader and CEO of Landmark Global, which is the cross border and international arm of Bnode Group in the e-commerce logistics space.

Tom Raftery: 1:48

And James, just for people who might be unaware, what is it that Landmark does for whom? What problems are you solving for whom?

James Edge: 1:58

Good question. So we are in super simple terms, we are helping, consumers who want to order something from a retailer in a different country, and we're helping the, retailer or the e-commerce site deliver the goods, crossing borders. We'll come onto what we do domestically within those borders. But our kind of specialism is helping our clients, as they go international and as they expand internationally.

Tom Raftery: 2:23

And what markets do you serve?

James Edge: 2:26

A bunch of them. So, we are concentrated in Europe, in Asia, and in North America. We also have a footprint in Australia, for example. And essentially we can ship from anywhere to anywhere. But very much with certain regional specialisation.

Tom Raftery: 2:42

And let's talk about what kind of problems you're seeing out there in the market at the moment. If, if you zoom out over the last few years, what would you say is the biggest structural change in cross-border e-commerce that most people still don't even realise exists?

James Edge: 3:01

There's a few things that have changed and I smile because it's all, it's all very, interesting. If you go back, further than your question. The problem was relatively simple. You Tom might be in Spain and you might be ordering from a, a website in the US and it wasn't simple, but our company would help you receive the product. We'd help the retailer work out the duty and taxes, we'd cover the customs. A lot of complexity in there. And that complexity has only got greater with tariffs, which have been a, big topic for everyone. There's become more choice for the consumer for the order of the goods. We've got large Chinese e-commerce platforms like Shein and Temu to go alongside the Amazons and, and the Walmarts. And then if I just get back to the normal people, me and you ordering, we all have a higher expectation than we used to have. If we were in the US or any country and we were ordering from US website, we'd like, okay, we want it in a couple of days, or we want it tomorrow, or, you know, the service we get from Amazon's now incredible. And that expectation level has risen cross border, so it's not the same. But, whereas you might have gone, oh, I'm ordering something from China. I guess it'll take 18 days. And oh gosh, I hope I get it. The level of service set by those large platforms now is, Hey, Tom, you're gonna get this in five days maybe less. And we, we give you your money back if, that doesn't happen. So that's had a huge impact on the, whole supply chain and the, the service that we all need to deliver.

Tom Raftery: 4:29

And when, when you say you're helping consumers and retailers, as a consumer the name Landmark isn't one that I come across. It's not one that is going to be on a website that I can choose between Landmark and five or 10 others. Basically, it's, it's, you are helping the consumer by making the process easier for the retailers. Is that the way to interpret it?

James Edge: 4:57

yeah, that's well said. I mean, we, we obviously see our role on both sides and, and particularly with the consumer when, that, order is made. It's kind of our technology and our logistics are making sure it ultimately gets to you, even though it might be delivered by a, a local delivery partner like, well pick anyone like DPD for example. But you're right, our kind of sales pitches to the retailer. And if I kind of tell a story that we always use and we take the origin of our business, which was US to Canada. If you started a business in the US and it started going well, it was all very exciting. And then you realise that you have an opportunity that's also kind of a problem, which is you're getting these international orders. So for every a hundred orders, you're, getting 10 from somewhere else. Nine of them are probably from Canada, maybe all 10. And you need to give the best service possible to that Canadian consumer who's ordering. And again, going back a decade or more, the options were the post office, so a postal service which would take a while and maybe back to that 10 or 14 days. And it would often come with the, custom surprise. And, and you know, many people listening will have had that. You think everything's fine. And then you get the, the piece of paper through the door that says, Hey, if you want your package from such and such retailer, you need to come down to the post office and, and pay the duties and taxes. Ooh. And by the way, we'll add on 10 euros, or 20 euros or $20, for the privilege we've given you to come and get your package. So that was number one. And then number two, you could always get a good one or two day service with FedEx, right? Fantastic. But very expensive. That was the, problem statement for Landmark Global at the beginning was, how do we find something in between? And so what we do in a nutshell is before the order is even made, we're helping the retailers with their catalog of goods. We're giving a, essentially a rating using our customers brokerage service to those goods, which determines the tax and the duty that that can Canadian In my example, a consumer would would need to pay to get the $50 t-shirt delivered end to end. And so essentially the, retailer then can offer an all in cost in the, checkout. And you as the consumer don't have to think about it again. It it takes a little bit longer, but it's that kind of domestic experience with full tracking or your cost covered upfront delivered to your doorstep. That's essentially what we do. It's complicated behind the scenes, but it, it's kind of, it's, it's easy in, in conceptual form.

Tom Raftery: 7:26

And the idea is to make it look non-complicated.

James Edge: 7:29

Absolutely. To make it look and, feel non-complicated and make it quicker and quicker and better and better, which is kind of what we've done over the years. So at the beginning, if we could, between my two examples of two days and 14 days, if we could be at 5, 6, 7, that was okay. But now we need to be getting from anywhere in the US to let's say Toronto. We need to be doing that in two days or three days. You know, it takes a little bit longer as you get further away from the big cities. That's the expectation. And if you go back to the earlier question you asked, that expectation, is being driven by the performance of, of the big platforms, right? So it's that Amazon thing again. It's the fact that Shein will say if you are in Belgium or Spain, we, you know, and you order something from, China, you're, you're gonna get it there in days, not weeks. It's making us all better quality wise, and it, it's putting a, a, I guess what you'd say, a positive pressure on the on the supply chain.

Tom Raftery: 8:26

And in that example you gave there of 10 days to two days going from America to Canada, for example. What's landmark's role in reducing that time? Because it's not like you have a fleet of planes and trucks and things, right?

James Edge: 8:41

No, indeed, indeed. And my two days does, I do need a little geographical help there, right? It's a little bit easier if you're closer to the border. But in getting from the, the 10 to the two or the three, technology helps us in efficiency, but effectively it's still all the same parts of the value chain that have always been there. So we need to pick up the goods from your warehouse if we don't already have them in our warehouse. And then we need to generally truck them. So we have trucks running all the time between say Los Angeles, where I am and Toronto. And the key bit is you can't have any wastage. There's no spare days. So it needs to be a seamless service. The technology enables it. The traditional tracking enables it. But big piece is also the, the customs clearance piece. We are doing the customs bit in the background and it's now a data exchange. You know, you could go to any city in the US and you can see the old customs house. And you know, literally what would happen is all the packages would walk through and be inspected. And now there's a big technological element to that. And because we have our in-house brokerage and, bonded warehouses, it means that we can put everything on the truck and drive it from LA to Toronto. And in the background customs in Canada will say, Hey, we wanna see package number 678. And when we get to Toronto, we can pull out package 678, and we can put it in a secure area and customs can come and inspect when they're ready. But all those other packages can keep moving. That's one example and that's been going for years now, but that was a, a big change for us. And, and took days off the process versus kind of diving into the truck trying to find the package 'cause you know, it was over there somewhere. And then talking to customs and holding up a whole truck, so yeah.

Tom Raftery: 10:27

And you mentioned tariffs and trade policies, how are they shaping fulfillment decisions? You know, in ways consumers aren't, you know, they can't see.

James Edge: 10:38

As with anything, the, the difficult thing for our customers and, and the large retailers, the difficult thing has been the uncertainty.

Tom Raftery: 10:46

Hmm.

James Edge: 10:47

That's number one. And then there has also been consumer sentiment, which is a challenge as well. Right. So, there's a bunch of angry Canadians to use an example. And,

Tom Raftery: 10:57

Elbows up.

James Edge: 10:57

It's been well publicised. Yeah, it's been well publicised in the news, but you know, you, you know, Canadians are buying Canadian.

Tom Raftery: 11:04

Yeah.

James Edge: 11:05

so your inclination to buy cross-border can, be reduced. So, that's the, sentiment out there. How it manifests practically, it's how do we help our retailers place their goods in the best place in the most beneficial way versus tariffs. So a good example, we, had a, customer who was talking to us and, their plan was to service Canada from the US and we would help them deliver, you know, one package at a time, across the border, as I've described recently. But with the tariffs and with, what they know and what we know, there's economics and there's maths, and how much volume do they have? But the better solution because of the tariffs is we will house your goods in Canada. So you split your order that's coming from wherever the origin is. Maybe it's China or or or Vietnam, and then we'll bring the goods in bulk into Canada and into the US two separate warehouses. And the, the Canadian goods the Canadian orders are fulfilled from Canada, whereas the original plan was to fulfill those from the US. That's very much down to tariffs. It's down to how the tariff is treated when the bulk goods come into one country versus how the tariff is treated when you do a, a single order across a border. Easy to explain I guess, but for the retailer, it's huge, right? All of a sudden you need a another warehouse. All of a sudden you need to split the goods as they're being shipped in bulk from across the ocean. Our role in all that is to make the part that we can control easy. Say, okay, no problem, we are gonna do everything from LA. We can do it from Calgary, we can do it from Toronto. This is how you do it. This is how the customs and duties are different when you ship in bulk versus move a single package. And we basically give them all, the data and I guess all of the confidence to be able to, make the decision on their side.

Tom Raftery: 12:54

And this is one way, I guess, that people are trying to go local. It's not really going local, but it's kind of going local. What other methodologies are people using to try and go local, and what mistakes are they making?

James Edge: 13:13

Good. Yeah, good question. I can actually go back to the Chinese platforms actually, because it's interesting Right. You know, I can see you going what I just asked him about local, he talking about Temu for? Everybody, in retail and in e-commerce is recognising that we as consumers are interested in local, right? We want to support local merchants maybe at, at one end, or we just want to get things quicker. Could be one or the other. So, if you take a Temu their stated goal and it, it's out there and you can read about it, is they want to enable local e-commerce. Okay, well, that sounds interesting. What does it mean? Well, it, literally means giving local or smaller etailers a platform where they can sell their goods. When the biggest players in the world recognise that that's a need. Then, it's a validation that it's a very real one.

Tom Raftery: 14:02

Hmm.

James Edge: 14:02

It does come with some challenges for everybody, right? Like, you asked about that, but you do need to know the origin of your goods.

Tom Raftery: 14:09

Yeah.

James Edge: 14:09

You do need to know that they are legal in the country, that you're going to. So something that you can buy in the US you, you, might not be able to, buy in Europe. That could be anything from an item you would imagine that's small and regulated in a different way to a CyberTruck, right? No CyberTrucks in Europe. And that's because of these different rules and, and regulations. So I would say the biggest mistake is not understanding how each country is different. And that's why it's super important to have a partner that understands customs and the legal side of importing goods into those countries. But insofar as once you've done that the technology today makes a local service or an in-country service so much easier than it, would've done in the past. Let's also acknowledge the dynamic that if I step back from my role in the supply chain, if you are the, the local manufacturer or the, the local store. It could be just a little store in, Belgium, right. We have a big Belgium presence. Ideally I would sell to Tom directly, you know, and it would be great if Tom knew I had my little store in Brussels. And it's much more efficient for me to just sell to Tom. But in the end, you need to be able to reach Tom. Tom needs to know that, I've got the, best little chocolate store in, in Brussels. And that's where the, platforms come in. So there's this kind of arbitrage between the help they can give you versus the, fees or the profit margin you, you have to sacrifice to be part of that ecosystem.

Tom Raftery: 15:35

And I mean, you're dealing a lot with the last mile, obviously. So what would you say has changed in the final mile most in the last few years?

James Edge: 15:46

I'm smiling because it's such a pertinent question to, the last two weeks. So as part of my role I'm part of a much bigger group and when you put Landmark Global together with the other brands in our group, we have a lot of final mile volume in the United States. So, using the, that geography as an example, we could use Europe as well. In the past and really recent past, like less than five years, less than three years, really, we would go out and negotiate with FedEx and UPS. And there's certainly some regional carriers that have existed longer than two or three years without a doubt, but those were the big players. In the most recent round of discussions and partners that we meet. There's so many more players. So, you know, you are having very serious conversations with, companies that you may or may not have heard of, like Uniuni Chinese Origin growing super fast. Imagine a, a type of Uber model with Vans. But also, and, and again, I, I smile. I ordered my Sunday evening meal from the local store here, and it was delivered by DoorDash. And then my team said, oh, we're meeting DoorDash tomorrow. Because, you know, they're, they're delivering e-commerce parcels now. You know, like, the world's, it's changing so rapidly and it's, DoorDash is a good example because it's, it's the technology that lets it happen. If you can receive an item, whether it's a pokey ball or a T-shirt, and it has a tracking number and it has to go from A to B, then actually of course you can deliver it,

Tom Raftery: 17:17

Hmm.

James Edge: 17:18

and. I wanna acknowledge that you, the UPSs and FedExs still offer amazing quality. But the technology is allowing other people to close the gap. because the big thing is items not getting lost in the system. It's.

Tom Raftery: 17:33

Sure.

James Edge: 17:33

we as consumers, we want certainty, don't we? And if I get the certainty for free and it takes maybe a little bit longer or, comes in a, maybe a manner that my parents wouldn't recognise with a pretty casual person running up to the steps without a uniform on, well, that, again, it, it's something that we all need to balance. So that's the biggest thing. It's a, it's a massive change and I think it's going to, keep going. It's not going anywhere. There's gonna be more and more players competing in that, in that space.

Tom Raftery: 18:01

That, and I guess the ability to track your parcel, wherever it is, see in real time, you know how it's progressing along the route. And I guess the other thing that as a consumer I would've noticed is the shift in last mile to more electric delivery trucks.

James Edge: 18:19

Yeah, indeed. We're certainly seeing that. It, it's cool being part of, the Bnode Group. Now Bnode is the, holding company. Essentially it's well, we're an international logistics company, but our origin is the Belgium Post Office. So, just seeing what we're doing in whole city areas, electrifying all the deliveries, using bicycles, using other means. So yeah, I can totally relate to that. And again, that's another trend that's not going anywhere. It's, it's gonna continue and you're gonna see as you do again, I'm in LA and I'm, I sometimes I stop because there's a robot, walking past me with something to deliver, you know? That's interesting. So, so that's definitely coming too.

Tom Raftery: 19:01

Interesting.

James Edge: 19:02

yeah, so fully agree. And there's a, there's an efficiency element to it and there's also a, an ESG and environmental element to it. And I think when those two, things meet, that's when companies have the impetus to take it forward.

Tom Raftery: 19:15

Yeah. Yeah. They're, they're doing better and it's cheaper.

James Edge: 19:19

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Economics help, right? They, they, they help us do good things. I was just thinking, I, you know, thinking about the robots and thinking about your question about the EVs and I think about my visit to China last year and then my probably first visit in an e-commerce capacity was maybe 10, years before. When we went 10 years before to China, we were impressed with the scale. We were like, Ooh, they don't have that much automation. You know, like they, they're really efficient. They're these companies and they're putting people at a problem. We admire that. 10 years later, my goodness, me, it's not conveyor belt. it's proper, proper robot automation. And, and when you are walking around the streets, you watch people riding mopeds and stopping and taking the battery out and replacing it with a battery from what looks like a vending machine. Just things that conceptually we understand, but like, wow, this continent is potentially leading now in innovation where it used to be following,

Tom Raftery: 20:16

Oh yeah.

James Edge: 20:17

which is interesting.

Tom Raftery: 20:18

And talking about being able to track things in real time, talk to me a little bit about digitisation and how that's affecting your business and also the industry in general.

James Edge: 20:33

Yeah, indeed. Affecting it in a really good way. So there's I'll probably address two different types of tracking. Again, I go back to one of our big sorting centers in, in Belgium, we're not just tracking the item from the truck into the sorting center touch. Something happens magically, and then it leaves again. We're tracking it around the sorting center and we're tracking the problems that might happen in a sorting center. So, you know, if you imagine these huge conveyors that are like might be a mile long. Right? And it goes everywhere. If you can know in real time that you've got a parcel jamming and slowing down a thousand other parcels, you could ultimately save, a day, right? Versus if you've missed a cutoff of a truck. It's a, yeah. Extreme example. So tracking in real time improves our efficiency uh, when it's on the trucks, which is, is more the area I'm familiar with every day. But we know when it's on the truck and we know when that truck should arrive and we know the item's gonna get a scan there. And again, we can very quickly work out problems. Whereas in the past it was, you know, that truck would leave LA and we'd assume it would be in Buffalo on Friday. Fingers it's crossed, whereas now we, we, we know where everything is. And then in the final mile bit. So that's, the technology's improved our efficiency, I guess, is point one, but in the final, final mile bit, because technology is so scalable and, digital and inexpensive. Again, I hate to always use the Uber example or the DoorDash one, but it's the one people understand, you know, I can become a driver tomorrow. And with basic training and a smartphone, can receive a parcel or a, a bowl of food and I can deliver it and you've ordered it and you can follow me along the road.

Tom Raftery: 22:24

Yeah.

James Edge: 22:24

I mean, that's, amazing compared to where we were a decade ago. So it is allowing companies, Uniuni is a good example. This company has grown in, I think, less than four years to hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue delivering parcels for major retailers. It's not on the back of traditional old school logistics knowledge. That's part of it, but it's on the back of digitalisation and buying into digitalisation and using digital means to create competent drivers, delivery drivers. Whereas, you know, in the past it would take a while, right? You'd join UPS or, or Royal Mail where I worked, or B Post and there's quite a lot of training. And after a few years you'd get better and, you know, over time you develop your career and now it's chu. There's some technology, you know, go forth. It's, it's quite, it's amazing, right? And, the plus side, you still need good people. You still need good training. Retailers still need to set high expectations for quality. But that digital piece enables it in a way that just being a logistics professional, logistics company. you don't have to just be that anymore.

Tom Raftery: 23:36

Yeah. Yeah. And, and you, you've talked about the shift from the two or three big carriers to now the lots of smaller ones and how this has been enabled, at least in part by digitisation and technology narrowing that gap, are there other factors that are also helping them the rise of these smaller players?

James Edge: 23:55

Yeah, there, there's a couple of other things spring to mind. This is technology again, but even if I take we were looking at conveyor belts for our final mile delivery company again a few years ago. And the cost was in the millions, many millions. And now something as effective, I, I'm not gonna say the same thing'cause it's very different, but it's, it's like a million or less. Again, technology has helped that, but so has this kind of more like global supply chain and the fact that you can. In the past, we probably were looking in a couple of countries, but now we're like, oh, I wonder what's happening in China. Right? Or I wonder what's happening in India. I won't lead us back into tariffs, which then complicate that. But, you know, there's just, there's a whole world of places where you can get technology and, and knowledge that you, you might not otherwise have had in this global world. I think the other thing that's enabled it is the way that we start to use thinking in a way. So I guess DoorDash again, or, or Uber again, like, huh, why wouldn't I use that technology to deliver parcels? So I think that's flipping things on it, on its head as well.

Tom Raftery: 25:01

Yeah.

James Edge: 25:02

it does lead, it is a little technology in a way, but it's not, it's not robots, right. It's, it's. That's part of it. It's, thinking and using technology and the speed that you can implement things, which is really changing the world, I think, or changing our world.

Tom Raftery: 25:16

Yeah. It reminds me a lot of Amazon because when Amazon started out, famously, they were a bookstore and they said to themselves, okay, we've got this great platform for selling books, but it doesn't just have to be books. We could use this platform for selling things other than books. And so they started selling other things and then they said, okay, we've got this great platform for selling things. Why don't we allow other people to use our platform to sell things? And so you can see each time they made a leap, okay, we've got this great platform and it's built on this cloud. Why don't we start selling space on the cloud? They just kept, you know, thinking even bigger and bigger again, how, how could they use the platform they'd just recently developed and, you know, blow that out. Again, another order of magnitude. So technology, I guess stepping in there, not just for Amazon, but similarly for the likes of DoorDash, as you mentioned, going, delivering things, not just your latest Chinese meal that you've ordered.

James Edge: 26:15

Yeah, indeed. Yeah. And Shopify is another, a good example who you know, they, they set out, at first, let me make it easy for you to launch your eCommerce website, and it's kind of like. It was about having a website, but now it's a whole ecosystem. If you don't want to have conversations with delivery companies like mine, you can find one on that ecosystem and kind of plug and play. We try and encourage both, like, you know, come and talk to us and we'll plug through that. But it's very interesting how you start to expand that, thinking in that Amazon way that you described.

Tom Raftery: 26:49

And what about things then, like predictive logistics? Is, is that something that's real or is it something that's hype and buzz, or where does it fall in that kind of spectrum?

James Edge: 27:00

Yeah, so in my world it's it's usually down to which day of something going to arrive. And that part is very real, right? It's all those things that we've recently talked about a few minutes ago with the tracking points. It gets to a point where it, it's if you are tracking everything, and if you can, I, I keep saying touch, it's almost the wrong word, right? Because it implies that a human's doing something, but it, it's an event. The more events you have from the pickup to the first truck, to moving through that sorting center, to being in a post person's hands, to knowing what the route of the truck is actually predictive isn't, in my world, isn't, such a leap anymore? You know, and, and we're seeing it, of course you get your, two hour window, but, it can certainly be squeezed. I don't wanna say like for the right price, but you do have to think about the efficiency of your routings, right? Otherwise, we'd give you a 10 minute window. But where we have B2B deliveries thinking about one of our companies in Canada, we can, predict when it's gonna get there and we can tell you that, it's gonna arrive between 1130 and 12. And please have someone ready to, to sign for this very important item. It's pretty cool. I think it gets interesting when you, start to conceptualise going back into the supply chain and your item has been manufactured at, in some country in the world. And then it's moving in bulk with other manufactured goods of that type. And that's, generally a few weeks. And then there's my part that I described at the other end. If you can track it all the way and predict it, you know, I think that's the next. stage or the next step?

Tom Raftery: 28:36

Yeah. And then going, stepping back out to kind of cross-border logistics, what would you say is the wrong question leaders keep asking about cross-border logistics, and what should they be asking instead?

James Edge: 28:49

Yeah, I think the wrong question is, well, that's not the wrong question. I think the right question is how can I get something anywhere in the world in five days?

Tom Raftery: 29:02

Hmm.

James Edge: 29:02

I think the, approach that constrains people is thinking, oh, it's so complicated. Can you make it go away? And, and we can, we can, we can, you know, work with us. We can help make your trouble go away. But if we set out from the more positive perspective, how could we pick up an item? How could we classify the duties and taxes and get the right price and the checkout? How can we get it moving along its way into a truck or a plane? And then how can we get it to Tom with him thinking, gosh, that was just like a domestic order. You know, as a, as a positive thing, that's what we can enable. The thing that slows people down is, going back, it's almost at the growth stage. Maybe it's not the a hundred orders with 10 from Canada, but you know, if you've got a thousand orders and there's a hundred coming from somewhere else, it's worth focusing on them. And I know it's not easy and you can't necessarily, as a startup, afford an international marketing manager, an international shipping manager, and an international compliance manager. But if you can find a partner to help you with those hundred, well, the bulk of your team is, is working on the other 900, that's the right question to ask. Who, who could help me do this? As, as opposed to why do I have all these complicated orders?

Tom Raftery: 30:19

Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. And. If we take a kind of a, a long view on a five or 10 year horizon, what do you think? What part of today's cross-border logistics model will feel outdated?

James Edge: 30:35

Hmm. I've tried to paint a, a nice technological picture today, but goodness me, there's a lot of paper still going on in, in the background. And the area of customs brokerage, customs compliance with governments. I think that's the bit that we won't recognise. Every now and again, I'll still be asked or one of our, team will be asked for a wet ink signature. And I think that will be like trying to describe to, kids that we used to, dial a phone using our fingers or, you know, there was a phone with a wire attached to it. So. We still got a long way to go in certain elements of that supply chain, and I think that will be unrecognizable because there's, there's no need for it. Just think about blockchain and, and the technology that's out there. We can create today a digital ledger in the world, but we don't apply that to certain processes in the world. And that, that customs piece, crossing borders is definitely one of those.

Tom Raftery: 31:34

Okay. And I'm curious, do you think the likes, I mean. You've got this background, so maybe you'd be a good one to ask. Do you think National Postal Networks are gonna become infrastructure platforms, utilities, go away?

James Edge: 31:50

Hey, it's a great question. We ask ourselves questions related to that every day at Bpost and Bnode. Certain Nordic countries where they've almost gone away.

Tom Raftery: 31:58

Hmm.

James Edge: 31:58

In so far as how how my parents would think of the National Post Office, for example. I think what we are doing in Belgium, and you see it in other places, is the future. So moving away from expectation of door deliveries and how can we have lockers for example. This is not the solution for everywhere, but we've kind of got this boutique in city, locker store. There's a better way to describe it. I'm not the marketing person, but you can go in there and do a bunch of cool stuff. You can receive your package, you can do your returns. Maybe you have an item you want to drop off for a friend. You put it in a locker, the friend comes and gets it, gets it. So it's how do we use that infrastructure that we have? How do we use that trust that we have as post offices to still be, be relevant. But that need for the same number of trucks and the same number of people driving up and down streets because we're all receiving the same amount of, of mail. Definitely that, that ship has sailed or is, you know, leaving the port at different speeds in different places. Um, but it, it won't be recognizable to the next generation as it is to the previous generation for sure.

Tom Raftery: 33:07

Hmm. And one topic we haven't touched on, it's just occurred to me is reverse logistics. And

James Edge: 33:15

Ah, yeah.

Tom Raftery: 33:16

it, it should be one that's close to my heart.'cause my first job in supply chain was in a software for a reverse logistics company. But that's going back a couple of, couple of decades at this point. Talk to me about that. Talk to me about how you see reverse logistics having come to where it is today and evolving in the next 10 years.

James Edge: 33:35

It certainly has evolved, hasn't it? Because when I started in this industry, we'd often know who our most likely cross-border clients were based on the fact that you could go, ah, they won't have that many returns, so they'll probably be more interested in cross-border, right? Cross border extreme example. But it was just really hard to get goods back.

Tom Raftery: 33:55

Yep.

James Edge: 33:56

Returns back, reverse logistics. whereas now again, that technology and there's a bunch of players out there, but they've enabled the visibility and the consolidation aspect of reverse logistics, that makes it much more viable now, domestically or across border. You don't, nobody wants to be in a world where we all order 16 pairs of shoes because it's so cheap and so easy to return them. But it shouldn't be a constraint to ordering a pair of shoes. And if we link it to other things we've talked about, it's that tracking bit. It's the automation bit, but it's also potentially or very much so the locker bit. Just another easy way. It can be a locker, it can be a convenience store. I think last time I was in the UK I, I ordered something. I had to return it, you know, and I, I had nothing. I just had the item. I didn't even have the box anymore, but I was able to walk in and put a barcode in and everything was taken care for me. So, you know, that was for me in Britain, you know, there's similar things here in the US but that was mind blowing because it'd been a few years and I was like, goodness me, I don't have to go to the post office. I don't have to have the box, I don't have to have the receipt.

Tom Raftery: 35:05

Yeah.

James Edge: 35:05

yeah, I, I think, I think that's only gonna evolve and just be a much more integrated part of the piece that we've been talking about all morning basically. You're gonna expect it. there may be a cost to it, but there shouldn't be any other constraint.

Tom Raftery: 35:20

Yeah. Yeah, it makes sense. Makes sense. Left field question for you, James. If you could have any person or character, alive or dead, real or fictional as a champion for seamless cross-border logistics, who would it be and why?

James Edge: 35:40

Alright. That's a great question. I'm gonna take a small pause and think about that one. Let's see. I am not sure I can think of someone by name, but I would want one of our top technologists and artificial intelligence people in the world who knows nothing necessarily about cross-border logistics. But I would like to take that that person, that big brain some of the problems the challenges that I've described or some of the things I think are great, I'd love to say, Hey, make it 10 times better. And we're trying to do that internally. But I, I'd take some more firepower for sure.

Tom Raftery: 36:23

We got 40 minutes into the podcast without once mentioning AI and you blew it right at the end.

James Edge: 36:28

I know, I know. Sorry, sorry.

Tom Raftery: 36:31

No worries no worries.

James Edge: 36:33

when I said machine learning as well, I thought that's a good way not to say AI, but yeah, there we are.

Tom Raftery: 36:39

Great James. We're coming towards the end of the podcast. Is there any question that I didn't ask that you wish I did or any aspect of this we haven't touched on that you think it's important for people to be aware of?

James Edge: 36:53

Tom, I don't think so, no. I think we covered some good broad topics. I like the mix with the, the technology piece and the, the global piece and yeah, just the way the world's changing really fast. I enjoyed the conversation. Thank you.

Tom Raftery: 37:04

Fantastic. And so if people would like to know more about yourself or any of the things we discussed on the podcast today, James, where would you have me direct them?

James Edge: 37:13

Yeah, no problem. Most easily found on LinkedIn. So it's James Edge, EDGE. I don't think there's many of us. And yeah, please, please reach out. Be happy to continue this conversation.

Tom Raftery: 37:23

Fantastic. James, that's been really interesting. Thanks a million for coming on the podcast today.

James Edge: 37:28

Thank you, Tom. It was a pleasure.