Anthony Johnson

Tell us about you, and your career journey?

First and foremost, I'm lucky enough to be a father of four and a husband to my amazing wife. My family is central to everything I do. Along the way, I've enjoyed playing my sports including rugby, diving and mountain biking. These days, it’s more watching sports and occasionally getting out with the kids in some of their sporting pursuits. To support all this fun, I needed to build a career some time ago! I’ve completed a Bachelor Degree in Agriculture and Horticulture Sciences so who would have thought I'd end up in Sales......

So over the past 20 years, I've held roles covering Marketing, Technical Sales, Export and Sales Management in industries including FMCG, Australian Manufacturing servicing the Plumbing and Construction Industry, Compressed Air into Mining and Industrial Applications, Scientific Supplies and Freight and Logistics.

In your opinion, what are the top 3 trends in your transport industry niche that everybody should look out for in the next 5 years?‍

- On Demand Delivery - Consumers and businesses want their goods now. Businesses are looking to WOW their customers and providing an exceptional delivery experience same-day, or even within hours of order, is what will keep customers coming back for repeat purchases.

- Drop Shipping - Decentralising warehousing to where your customers are; and even drop shipping directly from suppliers to your end customer increases speed to market. Combine this with an on-demand same-day delivery, and you can provide the ultimate delivery experience.

- Visibility of the delivery experience - Too often customers are left wondering where their goods are. Providing live dynamic tracking on a map and geo- stamped PODs will become the new benchmark in the delivery experience.
‍

How does your company innovate?‍

At Sherpa, we have developed industry leading technology that puts businesses and their customers in the driver’s seat of their delivery. Customers know when the delivery has left the store or warehouse and what the expected arrival time is in minutes. This E.T.A is dynamically updated based on driving and traffic conditions. Customers can literally watch their delivery driver moving along the streets to their address. If need be, the customer or business can communicate directly to the driver via text any changes in instruction; such as: "Won’t be home when you arrive, so can you leave the package behind the pot plant on the porch". If an order is cancelled mid-trip, or the delivery address is changed, the business can dynamically send the updated details to the driver in real time. Sherpa has 1 hour, 2 hour, 4 hour and same-day delivery propositions and using the Sherpa crowd-sourced driver network allows instant scalability for event days or surges in particular customer delivery requirements.

Why is encouraging innovation, new ideas, and applying new technology (particularly within the transport sector) important?

The Sherpa delivery platform and proposition is on the cutting edge of innovation. It takes the delivery experience to a new level and is setting the benchmark in the industry. Technology is what allows us to bring that experience to our customers. In a competitive landscape, utilising such technology is what can make a significant difference to just being in the pack or leading the pack. Leaders reap the benefits of first adoption and keep their customers loyal, and coming back for more. Our routing technology behind the app ensures the most efficient delivery routes are followed. This not only means goods delivered to your customers sooner but we’re minimising travel times which has a positive impact in reducing carbon emissions from vehicles.

‍