The Future of the Logistics Industry

The trick to seeing the future... is knowing where to look for it. PwC's future in sight series brings together insights and perspectives on the disruptive forces that will have a transformative impact on the future.

Logistics companies are facing an era of unprecedented change as digitisation takes hold and customer expectations evolve. New technologies are enabling greater efficiency and more collaborative operating models; they’re also re-shaping the marketplace in ways that are only just beginning to become apparent. New entrants, whether they be start-ups or the industry’s own customers and suppliers, are also shaking up the sector.

The race is on to define the industry’s future. And with an estimated US$4.6 trillion of revenues at stake, companies can’t afford to sit back and watch; they need to adapt to changing markets proactively. We’ve developed a transformation framework to describe how mega trends affect a given industry, taking into account the key disrupting forces that create uncertainties for every organisation in the sector. Based on these uncertainties, we outline distinct scenarios to explore possible futures for the sector. This framework will help you plan for this uncertain and volatile future.

For the logistics industry, we start by taking a closer look at some of the key disrupting factors:

1. Changing customer expectations

2. Technological breakthroughs

3. New entrants to the industry

4. New ways to compete or collaborate

These disruptions have very different implications for individual companies, depending on which segments they operate in, their type of ownership, and where they are located. They also don’t exist in a vacuum: in each case, the interactions between them are equally, if not more, important. Government intervention and trade flows between regions and territories are influencing the industry too, but very much depend on national politics and geography.

DISRUPTION AND UNCERTAINTY

CHANGING CUSTOMER EXPECTATIONS