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The Logistics Company That Treated Crisis as a Systems Test — and Won
Inside the logistics overhaul that helped iMile survive Mexico’s 2023 collapse and emerge as one of the fastest-scaling delivery networks in LATAM
Peeyush Jain
November 30, 2025
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The Logistics Company That Treated Crisis as a Systems Test — and Won
There’s a certain kind of chaos that only logistics companies truly understand — the kind where parcels pile up like small mountains, scanners blink angrily, and warehouse workers move with the resigned urgency of people who know the system has already broken. Mexico saw a version of that in 2023. Hot Sale — the country’s biggest annual online shopping event — produced a tidal wave of orders that overwhelmed every major courier. It wasn’t a blip; it was a breakdown. A stress test that revealed how quickly demand can outrun infrastructure, and how brutally a market punishes anyone who underestimates its velocity.
Two years later, during Hot Sale 2025, the numbers look almost unreal. Sales hit MXN 42.7 billion (about USD 2.3 billion), up 23.7% from last year. Parcel volume surged 81.82%. The kind of surge that historically buckles networks.
Except this time, one company didn’t buckle.
iMile, a Dubai-based logistics firm founded by Rita Huang, managed to do what most global operators in Mexico couldn’t: stay upright, keep pace, and deliver more than 90% of parcels within six days. For a market that had become synonymous with overpromising and delayed deliveries, this wasn’t just operational competence. It was a plot twist.
How did a company that entered Mexico only in 2021 go from “another foreign entrant” to a case study in resilience? The answer begins, as these things often do, with failure.
In 2023, Mexico’s e-commerce boom outpaced everyone’s capacity planning. Amazon, Mercado Libre, Chinese cross-border sellers — all poured demand into a logistics infrastructure that simply wasn’t ready. iMile was no exception. The company’s coverage was weak. Its network shallow. Its capacity forecasts blown to pieces.
Most firms reacted the way global logistics giants usually do: patch the holes, hope the next sale season is kinder.
iMile chose the harder route — rebuild the machine while it was still running. The 2024 slowdown (an election year, a cautious consumer, a quieter retail climate) became a blessing. It gave the company a window to rethink its entire strategy.
By 2025, its coverage in Mexico jumped from under 60% to over 95%. Its number of service sites multiplied fivefold. Delivery time improved 25%. None of this happened by accident.
Build Wide First, Then Build Deep
Every logistics operator claims to understand localization; very few live it. Huang’s approach was unusual for a global logistics CEO: she didn’t try to replicate iMile’s Middle East model in Mexico. She adapted to the market’s temperament.
Mexico’s labor system is nothing like the Middle East’s. High driver turnover. Strike risks. A manufacturing-heavy workforce that doesn’t want rigid, top-down frameworks.
A pure self-operated model — iMile’s strength in the Middle East — was never going to scale here.
So Huang introduced a franchise layer on top of the company’s self-operated network. A hybrid structure. Local entrepreneurs bought into the system; iMile gave them the process DNA.
Then came the more counterintuitive move: the company shifted some of its best managers, engineers, and data leads from other regions into Mexico. For a global firm, this is expensive and disruptive. But it signaled something important — Mexico wasn’t an experiment. It was a priority market.
That’s when the systems work began.
When Data Becomes the Operating System
Most logistics companies treat data as an analytics function. iMile treats it as oxygen.
In 2024, the company rebuilt its entire data platform — from warehouse scans to cost controls to delivery routes — ensuring that every warehouse, every franchisee, every regional manager spoke the same digital language. Headquarters could see performance in real time. Franchise partners could see their unit economics instantly.
The process wasn’t glamorous, but it was transformative.
When this year’s Hot Sale arrived, the company didn’t guess. It modeled. It forecasted. It pre-allocated. It prepared for failure points before they arrived. When volumes deviated from predictions, cross-region support kicked in automatically.
The result: no warehouse paralysis. No meltdown. Just flow.
Process as a Competitive Moat
When iMile onboards franchise partners — many of whom have never run a logistics business — it doesn’t start with software or incentives. It starts with the math: per-order revenue, cost structures, expected profit. Then it layers in standard operating procedures: warehouse zoning, scan discipline, route tracking, sorting flows.
Screen recordings. Documentation. Spot audits. Everything repeatable, everything measurable. This isn’t bureaucracy; it’s the plumbing that makes scale possible.
The payoff shows up during peak season. When a single bad week can ruin a full year’s financial performance, the most valuable asset isn’t speed — it’s predictability. Stability. Repeatability.
In a business where every mis-scan or route deviation compounds into cost and chaos, iMile’s strength isn’t magical. It’s mechanical.
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The 70/30 Rule of Global Expansion
Huang’s worldview can be summed up in one principle: 70% standardization, 30% localization. The 70% is mandatory — unified financial systems, automated P&Ls, budget models, compliance frameworks. The backbone.
The 30% is where new markets breathe. Mexico prefers autonomy and improvisation; the Middle East prioritizes structure and efficiency. Italy, surprisingly, wanted progress bars instead of checklists — so iMile redesigned the interface.
It sounds trivial until you realize these small adaptations are what make networks function across cultures.
The model works because decision-making is delegated. Country heads control more than 90% of local decisions. Headquarters intervenes only on exceptions. Mature markets can run without a weekly call from Dubai — but with complete visibility through system dashboards. This is what a global company actually looks like: standardized nerves, localized muscle.
The Road to 100 Countries
Eight years after launch, iMile now operates in 30 countries with nearly 4,000 employees, excluding contractors. Its ambition: reach 100 countries in five years.
Ambitious? Yes. Reckless? No.
Unlike some global logistics entrants, iMile isn’t trying to buy market share. It’s trying to replicate a system — a rhythm — that has been refined in the Middle East, tuned in LATAM, and adapted in Europe.
Huang describes the company’s next chapter not as expansion but as evolution: a unified, tech-driven logistics network that adapts to each local economy while maintaining a consistent standard of service.
The goal isn’t size. It’s resilience.
When a Crisis Becomes an Operating Manual
What happened in Mexico in 2023 was a warning: growth without systems is fragility in disguise. The market exposed every inefficiency and punished every assumption.
iMile’s response — rebuild, redesign, re-engineer — is rare in global logistics. And the result is a company that treats every new market not as a gamble or land grab, but as a systems challenge.
In a world where cross-border e-commerce is only growing, the firms that endure won’t be the ones with the most trucks or warehouses. They’ll be the ones with the clearest operating logic.
Huang’s lesson is simple but profound: if you build the system right, peak seasons stop being a crisis. They become your proof of work.
Interested in learning more about logistics? Check out our previous coverage here:
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