Innovation delivers Queen's Award for parcel company

When a DPD delivery van pulls up at a domestic address in the UK, the driver can be pretty sure someone is at home to receive the packet before they get out to ring the doorbell. Not only has the time slot for dropping off parcels been narrowed down to one hour, but the shopper waiting in for goods bought online the day before may have been following the progress of the van on a digital map.

But perhaps they have to go out at short notice, maybe to collect a sick child? No problem, they can ask DPD to tell the driver to leave the item with a neighbour or in a safe place. The driver snaps a digital photo to show the exact time and place it was left and DPD sends the link.

Such responsiveness by express delivery company DPD - a division of GeoPost UK - is down to its Predict service, which has won an Innovation Award. Caller cards - those disheartening "sorry we missed you" notes - now account for 4 per cent of deliveries, down from more than 8 per cent when Predict was introduced five years ago. Last year a central DPD unit handled 150m emails and 90m texts passing between drivers and people waiting for deliveries, says Dwain McDonald, DPD chief executive.

The process of ordering goods online is ever more smoothly convenient. But then comes the problem of placing the items in the eager hands of the shoppers, who expect the delivery to be as fast as possible and just as pain-free. Hence DPD's customers, such as John Lewis, Marks and Spencer and Asos, rely on it to deliver the goods - 185m of them last year - next day, every day.

In this competitive sector, innovation is crucial. DPD recently initiated a £150,000 "Last Mile Lab" programme in London, to identify and work with sparky tech start-ups that might help improve Predict.

Another potential development could do away with the need for a delivery address at all. "We're looking to a point where we can find you as an individual if you have your smartphone," says Mr McDonald. Using GPS technology, the driver could arrange to meet the shopper, verify their identity using a picture and hand over the goods. "We're building an app in which the driver can message you to say 'I'm 30 minutes away, shall we meet?"

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