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Urbantz supports the French Red Cross

March 27, 2020

This week the French Red Cross launched ‘Red Cross at Your Place’, an initiative to respond to the coronavirus pandemic and aiming to provide support to people isolated. Urbantz is supporting the solidary deliveries network with our delivery management software and expertise.

The French Red Cross supports people in isolation

The ‘Red Cross at Your Place’ addresses people confined at home who can’t rely on a caregiver to provide them with groceries and medication. The initiative has two components, support via the phone and a network of solidary deliveries. People throughout France, who are facing a situation of isolation and vulnerability aggravated by the pandemic, are able now to call a dedicated line and request for counselling and psychological support, but also order basic necessities goods to be delivered by Red Cross’s volunteers into their homes. In addition, while the recipients purchase their food and medications, the French Red Cross covers the delivery cost. The ambitious initiative will be launched across all France and counts with over 60,000 volunteers.

A call for help

In the first week of stricter quarantine measures, the French Red Cross made a call for help, inviting businesses to support their response efforts. Urbantz was one of the first to respond and to provide its service for the management and optimisation of the solidary delivery network.

It is the first time the French organisation implements such a complex response mechanism. The initiative offers essential goods to be selected amongst 15 predefined kits that include pantry supplies and hygienic products, as well as medication.

After five days of operations, the “Red Cross at Your Place” received nearly 1000 requests for home deliveries of the kits, medicine, and visits in the departments where the delivery network is already running. But the forecast is for the number of requests to increase with the rollout to the remaining territory and more people hearing about the initiative. This model will be replicated across all the French territories, including overseas, with a central team coordinating the response and a solidary delivery network supported by 10,000 volunteers.

How is Urbantz helping?

Together with the French Red Cross, Urbantz’s experts looked for the most optimal way of managing such a large scale process with the multilevel delivery operations and the voluntarist nature of the people involved in the network.

Just in a week, Urbantz’s Customer Success team managed to set up the technical aspect of the network including the central management platform and 100 sub-platforms for the departments’ managers, supported with custom video-tutorials for staff and volunteers training. Congrats to everyone involved!

In the upcoming weeks, Urbantz will continue to provide technical support and expertise to the French Red Cross, having set up a dedicated team ready to accompany the efforts and to ensure that the organisation has control and visibility of all the delivery operations.

Want to talk about your business continuity plans around coronavirus? Get in touch today. Based on our experience with the recent events in Europe, we can help you plan and optimise your delivery operations with a rapid setup.