Takeaways From Study of Logistics & Transportation Trends

The findings from the “26th Annual Study of Logistics and Transportation Trends,” conducted by Logistics Management, have been released. We pulled some of the key takeaways for you. The survey polled 406 domestic and global logistics, transportation, and supply chain professionals across 17 industries.

One major takeaway from the study is that, overall, “while a majority of companies strongly agree that transportation is a strategically important function, a significant percentage of them have not organizationally aligned transportation in a manner that supports their goals.

For example, companies that reported a cost leadership focus strongly agreed that transportation is strategically important to them. However, there is not this same level of strong agreement for elements that would provide the supporting organizational structure, such as working together with transportation service providers to be successful or spending time with those providers to learn more about various aspects of their business.

The study results show that the top five challenges being faced by companies today include (in rank order): 1) supply chain analytics to gain necessary insights; 2) lead time to customers (speed of order fulfillment); tied for 3/4) system wide inventory management and control; 3/4) demand uncertainty across all distribution channels; and 5) cost to serve using an omni-channel approach. Transportation directly influences a company’s ability to meet several of these challenges—most notably the service and cost factors.”

The survey also showed a notable increase in spend for private fleet/dedicated transportation services (23.8% in 2017 versus 20.8% in 2016). “This was the largest shift in transportation modal spend YOY,” according to Logistics Management. Clearly, a transformation has begun.

Companies’ supply chain capabilities are being transformed by technology, enabling them to serve a much wider set of customers. The article wrapped up stating, “We believe the future will belong to companies that utilize their supply chains—and principally transportation—to turn the impossible into possible.”