00:00Welcome back to Viva Tech News.
00:02It's now 10.30 a.m. in Paris.
00:04I'm Upton Saidi, and I'll be hosting today's morning show, Tech Early Birds.
00:10Thousands of people have already began ascending on to Porte de Versailles here in Paris,
00:15where it's a very exciting lineup.
00:17So yesterday we had French president Emmanuel Macron,
00:19today we have LVMH CEO and chairman Bernard Arnault joining us,
00:24hosting the LVMH Innovation Awards just behind me.
00:27Very exciting time.
00:29And then tomorrow, Elon Musk will be joining,
00:31the man behind SpaceX, Twitter, now Twitter, and of course Tesla.
00:35So this is all the live action is happening here at Viva Tech.
00:39I'm excited now to be joined by a few guests.
00:42So Ascendia plays a key role in bridging the gap between different markets
00:46and also facilitating international trade.
00:50ESW is a leading global direct-to-consumer e-commerce company,
00:54an expert in e-commerce technology.
00:56Now recently, Ascendia and ESW joined forces to become key players in the e-shop world.
01:03I'm now excited to be joined by Marc Ponnet, CEO at Ascendia,
01:08a world leader in international commerce,
01:10as well as by Alan Clark, chief commercial officer at ESW.
01:14Gentlemen, welcome to Viva Tech News.
01:17Good morning.
01:18Good morning.
01:18Good morning.
01:19So Marc, can you tell us about the collaboration between Ascendia and ESW?
01:23How did the partnership come about and what are its key objectives?
01:27Ascendia is a joint venture between La Post Group and Swiss Post.
01:30We are specialized in solutions for cross-border parcels, small packets and mail.
01:37And the story began 10 years ago.
01:40In the US, we had an RFP from our largest customer, Victoria's Secret,
01:46not only for their solution for cross-border parcels,
01:49but they needed to improve the customer journey from the checkout to the distribution.
01:56We didn't have these skills and we were looking for a partner.
02:01So ESW was a startup at this time.
02:03We decided to onboard them and reply to the RFP.
02:07We won.
02:08And thanks to this win, we decided to become shareholder, minority, then majority.
02:13And now we own 100% the company.
02:15This is how it began.
02:17Incredible.
02:17Alan, how does ESW service benefit retailers?
02:23And I want to know what specific value-added services or solutions you provide to support retailers.
02:28Yeah, when I speak to retailers and brands, almost all of them want to grow their business.
02:34They want to grow their sales and grow their customer base.
02:38And for many of them, the best way to do that is to expand into international markets and new territories.
02:46However, there's a lot of considerations when taking a brand or taking a retail service into a new market.
02:52There's all kinds of considerations for the brands in terms of localizing their services, local language, local payment methods, local
03:01compliance and regulations that they've got to adhere to.
03:05Not to mention that the global kind of service network that they need to put behind that.
03:11And this is where Ascendia and ESW comes in.
03:15We provide a full end-to-end service that takes care of every step of the consumer journey.
03:21And that means that we kind of design, build and run websites.
03:25We provide fully localized checkouts with the local payment methods that customers would expect, local delivery options that customers would
03:33expect.
03:33And we also take care of, like, all of the trade, compliance, duties, taxes.
03:38And this is where, like, we have the benefit of the Ascendia relationship when it comes to our global fulfillment
03:43network.
03:44So we service over 200 countries from first mile to last mile.
03:49So we provide a very tailored, very bespoke fulfillment services for all of our partners and brands.
03:55Mark, when you think about sustainability, it's a growing concern for many businesses and consumers alike.
04:00What are Ascendia's and ESW's sustainability commitments?
04:05And how do you integrate these practices into your regular operations?
04:08Well, we already do a lot.
04:11We are a frontrunner because we have a program and we fully compensate our emissions.
04:17And we are not so many to do that.
04:19And it's not greenwashing because, you know, it helps funding initiatives that are very important for climate transition.
04:27So we already do a lot, but we want to do more.
04:31So what does it mean doing more?
04:33It means creating a path to reduce our carbon emission.
04:38It's not only compensation, it's reduction.
04:41And here, the best way is to do something that will be binding.
04:46It has to be a commitment, and our intention is to commit vis-à-vis ESBTI to prepare this trajectory
04:56and to set science-based targets.
05:00And the scope will be broad because it will include all the emissions, including those of our transport partners.
05:09Alan, the e-commerce landscape constantly evolving.
05:13How does Ascendia and ESW stay ahead of the industry trends?
05:16Any examples?
05:18Yeah, absolutely.
05:19You know, there's two main factors for us when we think about how do we stay ahead of trends.
05:24So the first one is that we've got a track record of constant investment in technology and innovation.
05:30Always looking for how can we improve our solutions, how can we improve our offering for the benefit of our
05:35customers and our retail partners.
05:37The second thing we take into consideration is feedback and insights from our actual customers, from our retail partners.
05:44Like just understanding what their pain points are, what their challenges are, and what the opportunities they're pursuing are.
05:51So a great recent example of how we worked with Ascendia and ESW is on our relaunched global returns platform.
06:01So this is a full end-to-end returns portal, and really it's addressing the problem space for retailers and
06:08customers alike all around the returns experience.
06:11Because, you know, a bad return experience can lead to loss of sales for retailers.
06:16It can also lead to issues with, like, customer retention, for example.
06:20So with this portal, we enable our customers to have multiple drop-off points for the items that they want
06:31to return.
06:32They can track them live on the portal so they can track progress.
06:36The benefit of that for retailers is it very much reduces the customer service contacts and drives cost efficiencies for
06:43them.
06:43And whilst, you know, customers understand exactly where their return is, when they're going to get refunded their money as
06:49well, which is a really important factor.
06:51So the benefit is that, you know, by addressing and improving our returns portal, we've solved a lot of problems
07:00for the retailers and the end customer as well.
07:03Absolutely fascinating.
07:04Alan, Mark, thank you so much for joining.
07:06We'll see you out in the main floor.
07:08Thank you.
07:08Thank you.
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