Last-mile operating-model structuring

We settle which drops run on vehicles the group owns, which on leased capacity and which with delivery partners, and who holds the authority to dispatch, price and promise a delivery window.

The board approves one operating model, with the rules that keep each part of the network in its role.

• An operating-model options paper comparing owned, leased, partner and mixed structures on cost, control and capital.
• A lane map that assigns each zone and order type to a delivery model, with the reason for each assignment.
• A decision-rights chart for dispatch, pricing, promise windows and customer data.
• A capital and run-rate profile for the target model, in the same basis as the group's other investments.
• A transition plan with the order in which vehicles, contracts and systems change hands.

• Each lane runs in the delivery model chosen for it.
• Fully loaded cost per drop is read by model and by city, side by side.
• Capital tied up per daily drop sits beside cost per drop for every model.
• You see how much customer data and contact the group holds and how much a partner holds.
• A new-zone request reaches an approved delivery model on a clock.

Delivery usually arrives as a series of urgent decisions: a few vehicles bought for one launch, an aggregator added for a peak, a courier contract signed for a new city. Nobody has priced the whole structure, so the group cannot say where it controls its customer and where it rents access to it.

• Delivery cost per order differs between cities and no one can explain the gap.
• A partner holds the customer's address history and phone number, and your team cannot switch them off.
• Owned vehicles sit idle on slow days while a third party covers the same zone at a premium.
• The board is asked to approve more vehicles with no comparison against partner capacity.
• Three managers each believe they run dispatch.

Chairmen and chief executives of retailers, restaurant groups, distributors and q-commerce operators whose delivery has grown by accumulation, and the owners of couriers and delivery startups deciding what to hold themselves as volumes rise.

Qasim Abbas set the capital logic behind a blended last-mile fleet of about 1,000 vehicles at BaladiMart, part of Al Baladi Group, so he knows what a group should hold on its balance sheet and what it should rent. Your operating model is structured around that decision.

We open on the Control Matrix and read your dispatch platform, Tookan or another, partner invoices and your ledger. See how fees work.

Who holds dispatch authority under the new model?

The decision-rights chart sets who holds dispatch, pricing, promise windows and customer data, and the board approves it with the operating model.

Can the answer differ by city?

Yes. A group holds owned capacity in a dense home market while a partner serves a newer city until volume justifies a fleet, and the lane map records that.

What does the board approve?

One operating model, with the lane map that assigns each zone and order type to a delivery model and the rules that keep each part of the network in its role.

Bring the current delivery map and the decision the board is facing to a private briefing. We arrange a confidential conversation with the Managing Partner and return our view of which lanes the group should hold.