Global Package Delivery Ripe for Disruption

If you are operating a business anywhere and you are not operating at a modern level, your business is ripe for disruption. What this means, is that smarter, faster, more efficient companies are going to come and disrupt your business, perhaps even your industry and eventually take all your business.

I haven't seen an industry more ripe for disruption lately then the global package shipping industry. This is a $300 billion industry dominated by UPS, FedEX, and DHL. All of these companies operate in Nigeria.

So I was surprised that I had to struggle for days to get the shipping price for a small item from California to Lagos. All the the major player's online platforms failed to give me a price quote. The sites were too slow, were not optimized for mobile (even though about 80% of traffic in Nigeria is mobile) and often gave me errors to a point where I gave up. The entire experience felt like 1990. I wondered what happened to snappy, slick responsive mobile sites like we see with modern tech startups.

So I called the FedEx licensee here in Nigeria and was told that to get a price quote they would e-mail me a form that I had to fill out and send back. Email a form? Wow, this really feels like 1990. I asked if there was perhaps just an online form I could fill and hit submit, but was told no. When I pressed the agent, it became obvious that she had no clue what "online" meant.
The last time I went into a DHL office in Lagos, I was asked to fill out a form on paper, which someone (who could not type) then typed it into a computer. How can a company that makes a living from logistics not have figured out the logistics of creating a new shipment for a new customer.
I just don't understand how you can operate a massive business in a massive market and not be using modern business tools. Even if you have legacy systems to deal with, integration between modern business tools is easier than having someone type each e-mail from each prospective customer into your legacy system.

The global package shipping industry is ripe for disruption, even if that disruption comes from someone who creates a better pan-provider front end and then sell your customers to you