A Conversation with iMile's Cathy Huang: Winning at Cross-Border Logistics Through Systems | Dark Tide World View

"From the Middle East to the World."

By Qian Ren

Edited by Zhiyan Chen

As Mexico's annual online shopping extravaganza, Hot Sale offers an ideal window into this fastest-growing new frontier of global e-commerce. The 2025 numbers are in: 42.7 billion Mexican pesos (approximately $2.5 billion) in sales, a new record with 23.7% year-over-year growth.

With multiple leading e-commerce platforms hitting all-time highs in transaction volume, parcel processing surged 81.82% year-over-year. This posed a fresh round of challenges for "foreign companies" operating in Mexico, such as iMile and J&T Express.

Dark Waves previously covered the collective warehouse overflow crisis among major courier companies in 2023 in "J&T Express in Mexico" — at the time, forecasts and preparations for e-commerce growth couldn't keep pace with market expansion, delivery fulfillment descended into chaos, and logistics firms took a heavy beating.

Since then, J&T focused on fixing supply chain issues, specifically the logic of network-building: delivery capacity at individual outlets and planned product transit times. iMile, meanwhile, adopted a full-chain operations strategy backed by deep optimization across its entire transportation network and technology systems, ultimately improving average delivery time by 25% year-over-year, with over 90% of parcels delivered within six days.

Chinese experience on the ground in Mexico amounts to a kind of "dimensional reduction attack." Historically, courier services in Mexico were dominated by self-built warehousing and logistics arms of e-commerce platforms like Mercado Libre and Amazon, traditional international giants FedEx, DHL, and UPS, and local brands Estafeta and Redpack — expensive, slow, and with virtually no service products tailored for small e-commerce parcels. Over the past three years, Chinese-backed companies have been reshaping the logistics industry there, from transit times to pricing.

Founded by Rita Huang in 2017 and headquartered in Dubai, iMile was originally created to solve last-mile delivery problems for e-commerce in the Middle East. Today, iMile has achieved 100% coverage across Middle Eastern countries, over 95% coverage in core Latin American markets including Mexico and Brazil, and is expanding into Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. In eight years, it has grown from the UAE to 30 countries.

Courier services are fundamentally a scale business — you need size to have a market, but global replication is anything but easy. The key iMile found is "technology" and "localization," carried by a carefully woven web: systems.

No longer stopping at last-mile delivery, iMile recently upgraded its strategy. It formally launched a "1+5+X" logistics product system covering all e-commerce scenarios and the full chain: "1" is local e-commerce dedicated delivery; "5" covers e-commerce returns, time-definite express, e-commerce customs clearance and delivery, cross-border direct mail dedicated delivery, and local bulk freight; value-added services form the flexible "X" layer, including POD proof of delivery, COD cash on delivery, customized delivery attempts, and NDR services.

"iMile is growing up." Against this backdrop of strategic upgrade, Rita Huang sat down with Dark Waves for a conversation. As the leader of a massive organization with nearly 4,000 employees globally, Huang's thinking has become more systematic. On the localization issues that most concern Chinese logistics companies, iMile's strategy is to build the network first, then deepen it: rapidly achieve full coverage, then use standardization and systematization to weave the network tighter — "process is the business."

The conversation follows —

Part 01

The Pioneer's Choice

Dark Waves: This year's Mexico Hot Sale saw your parcel processing volume up 81.82% year-over-year. In 2023, you were still dealing with warehouse overflow. How did things change so dramatically in two years?

Rita Huang: In 2023, leading e-commerce platforms simultaneously pushed hard into the Mexican market. The surge in commercial flow delivered a massive shock to the entire logistics market's capacity. The industry spent months without fully recovering from the chain reaction triggered by that promotional event.

2024 was actually quite calm because Mexico entered an election year. Everyone was watching policy directions, and local commercial flow remained restrained. For us, this relatively "stable period" was a critical window. We used this time to make up for network gaps: from under 60% coverage in 2023 to over 95% now, with outlet numbers increasing fivefold, laying the groundwork for this year's steady growth.

Dark Waves: What specific actions drove this improvement?

Rita Huang: It can be broken into several steps. The first was adjusting network strategy. In the Middle East we relied mainly on self-operated models, but Mexico's labor market and culture are completely different: strong manufacturing sector, high driver turnover, strike risks. Self-operation alone couldn't enable rapid expansion. In the second half of 2023, we decisively introduced franchise partners on top of our self-operated system, allowing more people from inside and outside the industry to join the network and quickly complete the first step of resource construction.

The second step was resource concentration. In 2024, we directed the company's core resources toward Mexico, including dispatching experienced management and technical talent from other countries to drive nationwide network "densification" — both broad coverage and sufficient "thickness" to withstand peak season pressure.

The third step was empowerment and flexibility. Franchising means giving each regional head sufficient autonomy to build networks according to local conditions. Autonomy is a double-edged sword: management styles and rhythms may differ across regions, but this is an indispensable localization process for cross-regional replication. We allow these differences to exist while gradually integrating processes, unifying key financial, data, and management reporting systems.

The fourth step was data system rebuilding. In 2024, we invested enormous effort in reconstructing our big data platform, enabling all outlets to manage and operate under the same language. This way, whether at headquarters or in the regions, everyone can grasp capacity, costs, and service quality in real time and make rapid adjustments.

The fifth step was peak season project management. Taking this Hot Sale peak season as an example, preparation began right after Spring Festival: we pulled personnel from the operations network, defined resource needs and allocation rhythms based on commercial cycles and regional forecasts. Even if volume predictions were off, cross-regional coordination mechanisms allowed rapid redistribution to ensure peak season fulfillment.

This series of actions enabled us to achieve truly nationwide network coverage and operational resilience in 2024. I'd say from entering a new country to network stability probably takes about three years, and Mexico has borne this out.

Dark Waves: Moving from self-operation to such large-scale franchising — how do you prevent things from spinning out of control?

Rita Huang: Logistics is fundamentally about preparing resources (people and vehicles) and whether you can mobilize them effectively. Our strategy is to build the network first, then deepen it: use franchising to rapidly achieve full coverage, then use standardization and systematization to weave the network tighter.

Mexico's ecosystem was immature early on — many franchisees had never even touched logistics. First, we helped them understand the business logic: how revenue and costs match per order, how to build driver teams, roughly how much they could earn monthly. Only when the math is clear will they truly commit. Then came hands-on SOP training — from functional zoning at outlets to inbound scanning, sorting, and outbound dispatch, every step had documentation, system screen recordings, and live demonstrations. We also conduct surprise inspections to see if they're using the system according to standards.

The key is making process their daily routine. We combine past experience with local conditions, refine it, then固化进系统, making "process the business." This way, even as franchisees expand and personnel turnover occurs, systematized processes ensure stable business rhythm.

This is also the fundamental reason we maintain resilience during peak season — systems and processes have become the business itself; external disruptions are hard to break through.

Dark Waves: Entering the Mexican market in 2021 was iMile's first step into Latin America. Looking back, that decision was clearly correct. But Mexico is a place of both opportunity and challenge. How was that decision made at the time?

Rita Huang: We evaluate new markets against several indicators. First is e-commerce penetration rate, which directly determines a market's total order volume and order density. Looking at the six major global regions, the truly large incremental markets are Latin America (besides the Middle East). Southeast Asia is already relatively mature; Europe and America have excessive compliance costs.

The choice of first country in a major region is also very deliberate. Whether the business environment is relatively friendly, whether licenses can be obtained quickly — these most basic elements are why we chose Mexico. We initially wanted to go to Chile, but research revealed a major bottleneck: only 17 million people, a small population base with limited imagination space.

Another key factor was the expansion rhythm of leading Chinese e-commerce companies. In 2021, we judged the window had arrived and moved quickly.

Dark Waves: Among logistics companies, you seem especially cautious.

Rita Huang: This relates to our DNA. When entering any new market, we prioritize getting the network, team, and systems solid before talking about rapid scale expansion. Whether in capital investment or resource deployment, we want every step to support healthy future development.

Dark Waves: As the two major logistics companies that entered Mexico at roughly the same time, people inevitably compare iMile and J&T Express. Where do you see the differentiation?

Rita Huang: Every company chooses strategies based on its own characteristics. iMile's characteristic is insisting on technology-driven development and self-built systems from the very beginning.

Our technical personnel now account for half of our Chinese employees. The scale may not be the largest, but everything from platform architecture to business processes is self-built and self-managed, allowing deep coupling between our systems and operations. For example, when the business side has new requirements, the technical team can start iterating the same day without being constrained by project schedules or other factors.

The benefit of this self-developed system is that on one hand, we can respond quickly when business proposes new needs; on the other, it facilitates copying mature products and operational logic to other countries. In the high-intensity, fast-paced environment of cross-border e-commerce logistics, this efficiency and stability form genuine long-term competitiveness.

Dark Waves: So "putting process and business into the system" is iMile's core secret?

Rita Huang: You could say that. The reason we've been able to maintain long-term stability isn't dependence on any single tool or team, but on an entire system where frontline operations and back-end systems are deeply integrated. This system was built up through eight years of continuous operation and iteration — not something that can be copied overnight.

Our thinking is: every link has clear standardized processes, managed systematically, making it truly part of the business. This way, whether in normal times or peak season, we can ensure stability of core metrics like delivery success rate and on-time rate.

E-commerce logistics peak season volume can sometimes account for 40% of annual total. A single week's mistake could affect partners' full-year performance. Therefore, upstream clients highly value this long-term stability when choosing partners — it's one of our most important competitive advantages.

Part 02

Building Networks Overseas

Dark Waves: For a cross-border logistics company, what's the core method for building transportation capacity networks?

Rita Huang: For us, "network building" is never simply about laying warehouses and buying vehicles — it's a systematic project. Entering a new market, we must first establish rhythm and priorities: the first step is stabilizing the foundation — the local e-commerce dedicated delivery network. Only with network stability do subsequent time-definite products, bulk freight, and value-added services make sense.

On this foundation, we build networks based on standardized operations and technology-driven logic. In this process, I focus most on three aspects.

First is unified global management systems. From day one in a new country, the management foundation must be solid: finance, compliance, and operational monitoring must all be online, with systems automatically generating three core reports — complete P&L statements, country budget models, and outlet operation models. Only when all three reports run smoothly can headquarters truly manage operations, budgets, and resources with decision-making grounded in data.

Second is sufficient local empowerment. We give country teams full trust and authority — they best understand local commercial flow density, urban structure, and legal environments. For example, during peak season, local teams can directly decide warehouse network expansion pace without waiting for headquarters directives.

Third is long-term investment and patience. Network building is a marathon, not a sprint. In Saudi Arabia, we spent three years reducing average per-order delivery time from 15 minutes to 5 minutes, going through countless process iterations and peak season stress tests — all requiring time to accumulate.

Dark Waves: But demand differences across markets are substantial.

Rita Huang: Indeed. Our solution can be summarized as "70% replicable + 30% localized." The 70% refers to globally universal management language, operational systems, and technical frameworks; the 30% must respect local culture and business customs.

Take our internal team management as an example. Our initial management portal used a to-do elimination approach, but in Italy we found local teams cared deeply about visual progress — system interfaces with percentages and progress bars gave employees greater sense of accomplishment. In the Middle East, simple to-do task clearing satisfied team needs without extra interface elements. Such details can only be discovered through frontline immersion, and only by respecting differences can networks truly run stably.

Dark Waves: Does your smart logistics algorithm produce remarkable results in new markets?

Rita Huang: The "smart logistics" algorithm has worked best in Australia, because standalone houses are more common there, delivery density is low, and each driver needs to cover large delivery areas. In this situation, whether efficient route planning can be done directly affects how many orders a driver can deliver that day.

So our thinking in Australia was: from the first parcel, which route connecting to other parcels is shortest and most time-efficient? To date, "smart logistics" has been continuously optimized in Australia for two years, now achieving 20-30% time savings through route planning at the same order volume scale.

But this approach isn't necessarily useful in Latin America and the Middle East, because local realities differ. Our technical team makes adjustments based on local conditions on top of the standardized engine. All changes aim to help drivers save more time.

Dark Waves: Entering any new country, what's the universal "network-building formula"?

Rita Huang: There are several key elements. First, unified management language and standardized SOPs — standardization lets us advance across multiple countries without losing control. Second, data-driven assurance of efficient resource allocation — three layers of data logic (operations, business, management) must be visually available in real time. Third, localization adaptation, mainly operational process detail optimization and system interface usage habit matching. Finally, reasonable distribution of decision authority — over 90% delegated to country teams, with only matters exceeding threshold values requiring headquarters decisions.

The core of this formula is balancing standardization and localization, ensuring management efficiency while adapting to local environments.

Dark Waves: In this formula, what's the non-negotiable part?

Rita Huang: It has to be standardized management language and operational systems. Only by solidifying this 70% foundation does the 30% localization have real room. Otherwise any cross-regional expansion is just a castle in the air.

Dark Waves: In globalization practice, which key capabilities best demonstrate iMile's advantages?

Rita Huang: First is global resource coordination capability. Our compliance and digitalization experience accumulated in the Middle East directly supported expansion into Latin America and Europe. Mexico's legal and customer service systems can cover the entire Spanish-speaking region, enabling new projects in Colombia and El Salvador to launch in short timeframes.

Second is dynamic organizational structure adjustment. This year we formally established the Latin America regional division, giving country managers within the region higher decision-making authority while sharing talent, training, and technical resources — this has made our Latin American expansion nearly twice as fast as originally projected.

Third is rhythm control. We began researching Europe in 2022, but only launched operations after fully satisfying GDPR and local labor law requirements — from preparation to landing in Italy took a full two years. This patience is a prerequisite for globalization success.

Part 03

Cross-Cultural Management

Dark Waves: iMile now spans the Middle East, Latin America, Europe, and other markets. A cross-market, cross-cultural multinational must have taken some wrong turns amid cultural conflicts.

Rita Huang: This is indeed the core challenge of global enterprises. So-called cultural conflict is fundamentally about unwillingness to stand in each other's shoes and understand each other, losing basic respect.

We've gone through several stages: initially trying to use all locals, but management and execution were poor; then heavily using expatriates, which caused severe information disconnects; now a hybrid model works best.

The key lies in effective information transmission. Our country heads are Chinese or ethnic Chinese, but operations, HR, and finance heads are all locals. As long as these three core managers fully understand requirements, they can efficiently convey them to their respective teams, ensuring execution quality.

Dark Waves: Where specifically is the crux of cross-cultural management?

Rita Huang: Mainly three levels. First is basic communication issues. In small-language markets like Latin America, frontline managers mostly use Spanish or Portuguese, sometimes requiring translation — creating situations where "everyone thinks the other understood, but execution is completely different."

Second is belonging issues. If senior management is all expatriates, local employees feel "we're just hired hands," lacking the sense of responsibility to deeply understand the business.

Third, and most fatal, is iterative information gaps. True operational experience needs to be formed by local teams, then transmitted to headquarters teams for iteration back. In this process, cultural understanding gaps and distance-induced information gaps compound across multiple layers, affecting iteration efficiency.

Dark Waves: How is decision authority distributed?

Rita Huang: This is the second key issue — decision frontloading. If decisions aren't frontloaded, overseas business won't succeed. Many companies going abroad encounter the problem of reporting everything, reporting daily. A country head encounters something small that could be quickly decided, but having to report to headquarters — because headquarters doesn't understand the situation — drags the entire decision chain out very long.

We implement over 90% local authorization, with only a small number of matters exceeding authorization requiring group-level decisions. This enables rapid market response.

A mature country head might not need to communicate directly with me for a month, but through system data I know how they're doing.

Dark Waves: What do you think makes a truly successful global company?

Rita Huang: Internationalization and localization differ. A truly successfully globalized company has talent resources that can flow across countries and regions. A Polish person can be assigned to work in Africa, even without having been there, and seamlessly connect because management language and decision processes are standardized and unified.

Second is decision frontloading. Highly mature managers can receive nearly 100% authorization, but must have supporting oversight logic — internal audit, external audit, and other supervision mechanisms must be complete.

Third is true localization: making local high-end talent part of decision-making.

Dark Waves: iMile now covers 30 countries globally, with a team of over 4,000 (not counting warehouse temps, drivers, and outsourced personnel). What's your plan going forward?

Rita Huang: Continue deepening technology and localization, covering 100 countries in the next five years.

Dark Waves: What will be iMile's endgame?

Rita Huang: I think we've reached a critical stage — solidifying regional-level core competitiveness. On the foundation of existing advantages, we need to build relatively unique competitive advantages. Core competitiveness comes down to two things: either having unique advantages, or consistently staying half a step ahead in iteration speed.

We want to become a truly global logistics technology enterprise. Not simple business expansion, but through technology-driven integration, rapidly integrating with local ecosystems in each market, providing standardized high-quality services. In eight years, we've built this technical architecture and management system from zero. Now we need to let it create value in more countries, achieving true scale effects.

Image source: Provided by interviewee

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