I gave Amazon.com a key to go into my house and drop off packages when I'm not around. After two weeks, it turns out letting strangers in has been the least troubling part of the experience.

Challenge: For this agricultural spare parts distributor, each country was served by its own separate supply chain. While strategically placed near customers, it presented challenges with stock availability at each distribution center and in dynamically organizing and fulfilling across multiple distribution centers. In addition, the distributor's own organic growth and strategic acquisitions had left it with fragmented IT infrastructure that was hard to extend.

At Deutsche Post-DHL’s 2017 "Innovation Day" at its Bonn, Germany, Innovation Center, the winners of a series of technology "challenges" introduced new products, including autonomous warehouse robots, an online platform for package drop-offs and an internet of things (IoT) approach to online shopping, among other new logistics offerings.