As the lockdown regulations force all South Africans to adapt to “the new normal' as it is often called, technology is shown to be embraced as many entrepreneurs and companies improvise to keep the lights on and doors open.
This includes American multinational delivery services company Fedex, which recently announced that they collaborated with Microsoft to develop a new products and services under a multiyear technology and logistics partnership
Microsoft and FedEx say their partnership will give businesses an “unprecedented level of control and insight into the global movement of goods.”
FedEx announced the first service from the partnership, FedEx Surround. The companies say this service will let businesses track the movement and location of packages down to the level of ZIP codes in near real-time.
“We’ve been developing, over decades, the most granular information about commerce, globally and domestically, and at the local level and by the industry SIC level,” Smith said on the call with Nadella on Microsoft Cloud YouTube channel. “So we can make that information available in FedEx Surround so that inventory process and sales process is much more focused and discrete, which leads to a much higher inventory turn ratio, much fewer markdowns, and so forth.”
The system will use data collected from FedEx scanners and IoT devices, with data analysis from Microsoft’s AI, machine learning and business intelligence technologies.
Now more than ever, organizations are counting on an efficient and capable supply chain to remain competitive and open for business,” said Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft. “Together with FedEx, we will apply the power of Azure, Dynamics 365 and their AI capabilities to this urgent need, building new commerce experiences that transform logistics for our mutual customers around the world.”