Qiming Venture Partners | iMile CEO Rita Huang: Winning Cross-Border Logistics Through Systems
iMile aims to become a truly global logistics technology company. Not through simple business expansion, but by leveraging technology to rapidly integrate with local ecosystems in every market and deliver standardized, high-quality services.
Editor's Note: As a company deeply rooted in global logistics technology, iMile — a Qiming Venture Partners portfolio company — has continuously refined its worldwide network and localized operations since its founding. Its self-developed smart logistics algorithms support end-to-end seamless tracking and intelligent dispatching, delivering stable and reliable service to customers. iMile's operations now cover the Middle East and 30 countries and regions including Brazil, Mexico, Spain, and Hungary. Behind these results lie clear market strategies and systematic support.
Recently, iMile CEO Rita Huang spoke with 36Kr, further unpacking the company's practical path and core logic. She detailed the five moves that enabled iMile to achieve truly nationwide network coverage in Mexico, the fundamental reasons for its resilience during peak seasons, and shared that iMile's core playbook is an integrated system where frontline operations and back-end technology are deeply intertwined. On entering new markets, she emphasized iMile's focus on standardized management language and operational systems, while balancing standardization with localization — ensuring management efficiency while adapting to local conditions. Looking ahead, she stated that iMile aims to become a truly global logistics technology enterprise: not simply expanding operations, but using technology to rapidly integrate with local ecosystems in every market and deliver standardized, high-quality service.
Reprinted with authorization from the Qiming Venture Partners WeChat official account.
Rita Huang, CEO of iMile
As Mexico's annual online shopping extravaganza, Hot Sale offers an ideal window into this fastest-growing new frontier of global e-commerce. The latest 2025 data: sales hit 42.7 billion Mexican pesos (approximately $2.5 billion), setting 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, including iMile.
36Kr previously reported on the collective warehouse overflow incidents of 2023 — when predictions and preparations for e-commerce growth couldn't keep pace with market expansion, delivery fulfillment descended into chaos, and logistics companies took a heavy hit.
iMile adopted an end-to-end operational strategy, backed by deep optimization across its entire capacity network and technology systems. The result: average delivery time improved by 25% compared to last year, with over 90% of parcels delivered within six days.
Chinese experience effectively amounts to "dimensional reduction" in the local Mexican context. Previously, express delivery in Mexico was dominated by e-commerce platforms with self-built warehousing and logistics like Mercado Libre and Amazon, traditional international giants FedEx, DHL, and UPS, and local brands Estafeta and Redpack — high prices, slow delivery, and virtually no services tailored for small e-commerce parcels. Over the past three years, Chinese-backed companies have been reshaping the logistics industry there, from delivery speed to pricing.
Founded by Rita Huang in 2017 and headquartered in Dubai, iMile initially set out to solve last-mile delivery for e-commerce in the Middle East. Huang previously worked at Alibaba and Huawei. 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 and regions.
Express delivery is fundamentally a scale business — you need volume to matter — but global replication is no easy feat. iMile's key is "technology" and "localization," carried by a carefully woven web: its systems.
No longer confined to last-mile delivery, iMile recently upgraded its strategy, formally launching a "1+5+X" logistics product system covering all e-commerce scenarios and the full chain. "1" is standard e-commerce delivery; "5" covers e-commerce returns, time-definite express, e-commerce customs clearance and delivery, cross-border direct mail, and standard large-item freight; value-added services form the flexible "X" layer, including POD proof, COD cash-on-delivery, customized delivery attempts, and NDR services.
"iMile is coming of age." Against this strategic upgrade backdrop, Huang sat down with 36Kr. As the leader of a massive organization with nearly 4,000 employees worldwide, her thinking has become more systematic. On the regional localization issues most critical for Chinese logistics companies, iMile's strategy is "network first, then depth": rapidly achieve full coverage, then use standardization and systematization to "weave" the network tighter. "Process is the business."
Below is an edited transcript of the conversation.
01/
The Pioneer's Choice
36Kr: This year's Mexico Hot Sale saw your parcel processing volume jump 81.82% year-over-year. In 2023, warehouses were overflowing. How did things change so dramatically in just two years?
Rita Huang: In 2023, leading e-commerce platforms simultaneously pushed 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 resolving the chain reaction of issues from 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 ground on our network: from under 60% coverage in 2023 to over 95% now, with network points increasing fivefold — laying the foundation for this year's robust growth.
36Kr: What specific moves drove this improvement?
Rita Huang: It can be broken into several steps. First, network strategy adjustment. In the Middle East we had relied primarily 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.
Second, resource concentration. In 2024, we directed core company resources toward Mexico, including dispatching experienced management and technical talent from other countries to drive network "densification" nationwide — both broad coverage and sufficient "depth" to withstand peak season pressure.
Third, 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 while gradually integrating processes and unifying key financial, data, and management reporting systems.
Fourth, data system rebuilding. In 2024, we invested heavily in rebuilding our big data platform, enabling all network points to manage and operate under a single unified language. This way, whether at headquarters or in the regions, we can monitor capacity, costs, and service quality in real time and make rapid adjustments.
Fifth, peak season project management. For this Hot Sale peak season, for example, preparation began right after Chinese New Year: we pulled personnel from operations, defined resource requirements and deployment rhythms based on commercial cycles and regional forecasts. Even if volume predictions were off, cross-regional coordination mechanisms allowed rapid reallocation to ensure peak season fulfillment.
This series of moves enabled us to achieve truly nationwide network coverage and operational resilience in 2024. I'd say from entering a new market to network stability probably takes about three years, and Mexico has validated exactly that.
36Kr: Moving from self-operation to such large-scale franchising — how do you prevent losing control?
Rita Huang: Logistics is fundamentally about preparing resources (people and vehicles) and whether you can mobilize them effectively. Our strategy is network first, then depth: 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 a single order's revenue matches costs, how to build a driver team, roughly how much they could earn monthly. Once they did the math, they'd truly commit. Then came hands-on SOP training — from functional zoning at network points to inbound scanning, sorting, and outbound dispatch, every step had documentation, system screen recordings, and on-site demonstrations. We'd also conduct surprise inspections to verify whether they were using systems according to standards.
The key is making process their daily routine. We combined past experience with local conditions, refined it, then固化进系统 (solidified it into the system), making "process is 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 seasons — systems and processes have become the business itself, and external disruptions are hard to break through.
36Kr: Entering the Mexican market in 2021 was iMile's first step into Latin America. Looking back, this decision was clearly correct. But Mexico is a place of both opportunity and challenge. How was this decision made at the time?
Rita Huang: We evaluate new markets using several metrics. First, e-commerce penetration rate — this directly determines a market's total order volume and order density. Looking at the world's six major regions, the truly large incremental markets are Latin America (besides the Middle East). Southeast Asia is relatively mature; Europe and the U.S. 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 upside.
Another key factor was the expansion rhythm of leading Chinese e-commerce companies. In 2021, we judged the window had arrived and moved quickly.
36Kr: Among logistics companies, you seem particularly cautious.
Rita Huang: This relates to our DNA. When entering any new market, we prioritize solidifying the network, team, and systems before talking about rapid scale expansion. Whether in capital investment or resource deployment, we want every step to support healthy future development.
36Kr: As two major logistics companies that entered Mexico almost simultaneously, people inevitably compare J&T Express and iMile. 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 staff 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, enabling deep coupling between our systems and operations. For example, when the business side has new requirements, the technical team can begin iterating the same day without being constrained by project scheduling or other factors.
The benefit of this self-developed system is that on one hand, we can respond quickly when business proposes new requirements; 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.
36Kr: So "putting process and business into the system" is iMile's core playbook?
Rita Huang: You could say that. The reason we've been able to maintain long-term stability isn't reliance on any single tool or team, but on an integrated system where frontline operations and back-end systems are deeply intertwined. This system is the accumulation of 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 seasons, we can ensure stability in core metrics like delivery success rate and on-time rate.
E-commerce logistics peak seasons can sometimes account for 40% of annual volume. Any 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.
02/
Building Networks Overseas
36Kr: For a cross-border logistics company, what's the core methodology for building capacity networks?
Rita Huang: For us, "building a network" is never simply about putting up 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 standard e-commerce delivery network. Only with a stable network do subsequent time-definite services, large items, 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 on three aspects most.
First, a unified global management system. From day one in a new market, the management foundation must be solid: finance, compliance, and operations monitoring must all be online, and the system must automatically generate three core reports — a complete P&L statement, market budget model, and network point operations model. Only when all three reports run smoothly can headquarters truly manage operations, budgets, and resources with data-driven decisions.
Second, sufficient local empowerment. We give country teams full trust and authority — they understand local commercial flow density, urban structure, and legal environment best. For example, during peak seasons, local teams can directly decide warehouse network expansion rhythm without waiting for headquarters directives.
Third, long-term investment and patience. Building a network 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.
36Kr: But demand differences across markets are substantial.
Rita Huang: Indeed. Our solution can be summarized as "70% replicable + 30% localized." 70% refers to globally applicable management language, operational systems, and technical frameworks; 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 when we reached Italy, we found the local team cared deeply about visual progress — system interfaces with percentages and progress bars gave employees greater sense of accomplishment. Yet in the Middle East, simple to-do task clearing satisfied team needs without extra interface elements. Such details can only be discovered by going deep to the front lines, and only by respecting differences can networks truly run stably.
36Kr: Does your smart logistics algorithm have remarkable effects in new markets?
Rita Huang: The "smart logistics" algorithm has achieved the best results in Australia, because standalone houses are more common there, delivery density is low, and each driver needs to cover large areas. In this situation, whether efficient route planning can be done directly affects how many orders a driver can deliver today.
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, and can now save 20-30% in time 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 actual conditions differ. Our technical team makes adjustments based on local realities on top of the standardized engine. All changes aim to help drivers save more time.
36Kr: Entering any new market, 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 real-time and visualized. Third, localization adaptation, mainly operational process detail optimization and system interface usage habit matching. Finally, rational allocation of decision authority — over 90% is authorized to country teams; only matters exceeding threshold values require headquarters decisions.
The core of this formula is balancing standardization with localization, ensuring both management efficiency and local environmental adaptation.
36Kr: In this formula, what's the non-negotiable part?
Rita Huang: It has to be standardized management language and operational systems. Only with this 70% foundation solid can the 30% localization have genuine room to maneuver. Otherwise any cross-regional expansion is just a castle in the air.
36Kr: In globalization practice, which key capabilities best demonstrate iMile's advantages?
Rita Huang: First, global resource synergy. 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, 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 — making our Latin American expansion nearly twice as fast as originally expected.
Third, rhythm control. We began researching Europe in 2022, but only launched operations after fully satisfying GDPR and local labor law requirements. From preparation to launch in Italy took a full two years. This patience is a prerequisite for globalization success.
Cross-Cultural Management
36Kr: 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 results were poor; then heavily using expatriates, which created severe information disconnects; now a hybrid model works best.
The key is effective information transmission. Our country heads are Chinese or ethnic Chinese, but operations, HR, and finance heads are all locals. As long as we ensure these three core managers fully understand requirements, they can efficiently convey to their respective teams, ensuring execution quality.
36Kr: Where exactly is the crux of cross-cultural management?
Rita Huang: Mainly three levels. First, basic communication issues. In small-language markets like Latin America, grassroots managers often use Spanish or Portuguese, and communication sometimes requires translation — creating situations where "everyone thinks the other understood, but execution turns out completely different."
Second, sense of belonging. If senior management is entirely expatriate, local employees feel "we're just hired hands" without the responsibility to deeply understand the business.
Third, and most fatal, iteration information gaps. True operational experience needs to be formed by local teams, then transmitted to headquarters teams for iteration and back. In this process, cultural understanding gaps and distance-induced information gaps compound across multiple layers, affecting iteration efficiency.
36Kr: How is decision authority allocated?
Rita Huang: This is the second key issue — decision-making forward deployment. If decisions aren't pushed forward, overseas business can't succeed. Many companies going abroad encounter the problem of having to report everything, reporting daily. A country head encounters something small that could be quickly decided, but has to report to headquarters, and because headquarters doesn't understand the situation, the entire decision chain gets dragged out very long.
We implement over 90% local authorization; only a small number of matters exceeding authorization limits require 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 performing.
36Kr: In your view, what makes a truly successful global company?
Rita Huang: Internationalization and localization differ. A truly successful global company has talent resources that can flow across countries and regions. A Polish person can be assigned to work in Africa, and even without having been there, can seamlessly integrate because management language and decision processes are standardized and unified.
Second, decision-making forward deployment. Highly mature managers can receive nearly 100% authorization, but must have supporting oversight mechanisms — internal audit, external audit, and other supervisory systems must be complete.
Third, true localization. Let local high-end talent become part of decision-making.
36Kr: iMile now covers 30 countries and regions globally, with a team of over 4,000 (not counting warehouse temporary workers, drivers, and outsourced personnel). What's your next plan?
Rita Huang: Continue deepening technology and localization, covering 100 countries and regions in the next five years.
36Kr: 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 types: 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 development, rapidly integrating with local ecosystems in every market and delivering standardized high-quality service. 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 and regions, achieving true economies of scale.
Source | 36Kr
Author | Ren Qian
Editor | Chen Zhiyan
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Founded in 2006, Qiming Venture Partners currently manages 11 USD funds and 7 RMB funds, with total assets under management reaching $9.5 billion. Since its establishment, it has focused on investing in outstanding early and growth-stage companies in Technology and Healthcare innovation.
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