Since its inception six years ago, Home Delivery World has expanded into a global brand serving the world’s biggest retailers and most forward-thinking grocers. Returning for the sixth year to Atlanta, one of the country’s largest logistics hubs, Home Delivery World has grown into a dynamic marketplace attracting 1500-plus attendees, including such influential thought leaders as Ann-Marie Campbell, the president of Home Depot’s Southern Division, and Paul Misener, vice president of Amazon’s Global Innovation Policy.

In addition to Home Depot and Amazon, this year’s two-day conference is attracting such retail and e-commerce heavyweights as Walmart, Michael Kors, Wayfair and La-Z-Boy. Grocery majors include Lowes Foods, Giant Eagle, Ocado, FreshDirect, and HelloFresh. Among the innovators at this year’s conference are Google Express, Uber and Fetch Robotics.

The key to sustained innovation is being purposeful both in mission and process, according to Amazon’s Misener, one of the event’s keynote speakers. Success turns on understanding the four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus; passion for invention; commitment to operational excellence; and long-term thinking. Among other things, Misener walks attendees through Amazon’s approach to innovation, experimentation, and failure — and how they ultimately lead to great development.

With a particular focus on fulfillment operations and package deliveries, the presentation explores some of Amazon’s technological innovations and business innovations — some that employed existing internal expertise, others that required invention from scratch.

Amit Batra, director of last-mile delivery operations at Walmart, another keynote, discusses the current state of e-commerce and delivery in retail. His observations include how Walmart sees a spike in e-commerce developing over the next several years; the pros and cons of such options as pickup, third-party delivery and in-home delivery; and innovations within and beyond last-mile grocery delivery.

Other presenters include Jason Lepes, vice president and head of merchandising for FreshDirect. He addresses innovations within and beyond last-mile delivery in the grocery vertical. Among other things, he evaluates the current environment and profitability of grocery last-mile delivery. He also discusses drone delivery, and answers what will be the next massive improvements to service and convenience.

The topic for Madison Palermo, Senior E-Commerce Manager, Digital Technology, Harris Teeter, is implementing grocery delivery. She discusses the need to understand the components from product life cycle to third-party partnerships; exploiting product life cycle as the foundation for a successful integration of home delivery; understanding the ups and downs of implementing delivery and how it can make or break customer experience; and how to leverage third-party partnerships to achieve efficiency in grocery last mile.

A presentation on blockchain is ahead of the headlines. It addresses how the technology can help keep attendees’ products on shelves. The presenters include Paul Chang, Global Blockchain Industry Lead, Distribution & Industrial Markets, IBM; and Bob Wolpert, Corporate Senior Vice President and President, Quality Custom Distribution, Golden State Foods.

They discuss how to provide complete supply chain transparency from the point of origin to the end customer; providing quantitative and qualitative attributes for the products leveraging integrated Blockchain, IoT and Cognitive Technologies; ensuring and proving freshness and quality of products; and automating business processes and reducing manual intervention.

A panel discussion treats the evolution of meal kits and how they are reaching into brick and mortar and broadening their e-commerce brand. Moderated by Tim Lowe, President, Lowes Foods, the panel’s participants include executives from Hello Fresh, PeachDish, SunBasket, and Green Chef.

The explore the curatorial aspects of meal kits and how they have begun to extend from their culinary origins to

encompass a brand identity; expanding options and points of contact with customers — having meal kit versions in brick and mortar stores and other opportunities; and broadening the scope of the e-commerce brand by creating appropriate offerings for customers.

Major tracks at this year’s event include parcel, freight, supply chain innovation, grocery e-commerce and disruption in the last mile.

Executives from some of the most influential retail brands discuss innovative solutions in their parcel shipping operations. Topics of discussion include last-mile fulfillment and disruption, analyzing carrier networks and omnichannel done right.

The freight track brings heavyweight shippers from across the globe to address the unique challenges associated with freight shipping. Topics of discussion include ensuring complete trust throughout your final mile, in-house installation, exploring ways to work with LTL carriers, improving on-time delivery rates, and ocean freight.

The supply chain innovation track highlights some of the most innovative case studies from retailers who are revolutionizing their supply chains and transforming customer experience. Topics of discussion include implementing robots directly into the warehouse and maximizing performance, becoming your own developer and manufacturer, and the “uberization” of the freight industry.

The track devoted to grocery e-commerce sees the most influential grocers gather to address the ever-evolving landscape of the industry. Topics of discussion include evolving fulfillment strategy to optimize performance, in-store picking, expanding into e-commerce, embracing click & collect, and the evolution of meal kits.

Executives from Phrame, August Home and Starship Technologies showcase some of the most innovative technologies that will revolutionize the final mile.

Other highlights of this year’s conference include:

• Exploring outsourcing fulfillment with leading 3PLs, including SEKO Logistics and XPO Logistics

• Embracing the latest technology for picking, scanning and enhancing the grocery e-commerce customer experience with Honeywell and other exhibitors

• Gaining greater visibility into delivery operations and learning how to provide real-time tracking and route management from BluJay Solutions, Bringg and others

• Identifying ways to offer customers a consistent nationwide white glove experience with MXD Group, and

• Comparing methods of automating warehouse and material handling operations for both consumer goods and perishables with TGW Systems and Intelligrated.

Resources: Home Delivery World