7 Global future logistics trends

2019 is here and I’m very excited about what possibilities the new year will bring. We are in a highly transformative era and what in general is called the 4th Industrial Revolution. Changes will take time, but they are going to occur at a more rapid pace than before. In this blog post, I have summarised what I view are 7 global logistics trends we can expect in the next few years.

1. Environmental footprint and sustainable solutions will be top focus

The impact and potential impact on mother earth from the way we work, live and play as humans will receive higher awareness, unity and attention across the globe. From being something that to a degree has been on a piece of paper, companies will have to walk the talk and show focus and progress.

The transportation industry is a big part of greenhouse gas contributions. Having a sustainable agenda and bringing insight and solutions to assist customers in lowering their ecological footprint will move from a “selling point” to a must in order to remain relevant. The increasing sustainability focus will drive development on contributing areas such as emerging technologies, alternative fuels, alternative supply chains via increased 3D printing, and cradle-to-cradle thinking in product development.

2. Automation, robotization, and AI has high impact on logistics

Automation, robotization, and AI (artificial intelligence) are rapidly emerging technologies that are receiving more traction and use cases. Everything that we can automate and digitalize will become automated and digitalized. Robotics is a huge part of this trend with a large focus on machine learning. Robots are becoming more intelligent not only in terms of pattern recognition and performing tasks but also in learning from data, making decisions, and adapting independently. The latter part around machine learning is very fascinating and enables people and machines to cooperate from traditionally more coexisting.

The intelligence aspect of machine learning is an important tool for the transport industry as it heavily relies on predictability and efficient logistics flows. There is no doubt that the growth of automation, robotization, and AI will have a dramatic influence on the transport industry and change the very nature of freight forwarding.

Read the full blog post to find out what the other 5 trends are.