Toronto is enforcing towing laws. Bad news for couriers other than the ones on bikes, and every company that delivers something. How to deal with it? Some people suggest having deliveries during off hours. For Toronto and most major North American season the ‘off hours’ would be between 1am and 6am. Hardly anybody’s favorite working hours. And yet, maybe a chance to rethink how we do business.
There are 2 types of deliveries. Stuff that you can or could deliver via internet, such as bills, briefs and forms and stuff that you cannot, office essentials such as coffee, tea and photo copiers. Using Google drive allows sharing of most types of documents. Use their Excel or MS Excel and share the doc on drive. Not sure why anybody needs a photo copier other than old habit. That leaves the coffee.
How about making fewer people come to work every day. Less traffic and congestion, fewer coffee deliveries. Maybe the company will pay for your Keurig at home. Fewer deliveries to downtown eateries, but more in the suburbs, since we all still have to eat. Not a solution for everybody or for every job, but doable for many jobs that involve a keyboard. I once worked for a company in the Bahamans, but never went there. For a company in Akron, Ohio and went there once a month.
You can e-sign documents. There are many products for e-meetings. Canada Post already changed the way they deliver downtown. Whatever that means. There is nothing that Canada Post delivers that could not be done via internet, other than non-mail packages and junk mail. The issue is one of business model. If parking your delivery truck on a downtown street during rush hour or relying on delivery during rush hour is no longer an option, then change the business model (Business Model Generation, Osterwalder and Pigneur is the classic). It reminds me of the time when managers lost their secretaries and had to acquaint themselves with a keyboard. Quite the culture shock. Rethinking delivery options of goods, documents and employment is something worth doing. It may just be worth it, even if you are not affected by John Tory getting tough on illegally parked delivery vehicles.