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IT There logistics grows more and more and deals with issues and problems that are more complex and decisive every year for the success of the business, but providing prompt answers and with important results.
From this point of view, the effort of the supply chain can be considered an example for many sectors of theItalian economy, precisely in the country whose manufacture is the second most important in Europe after the German one.
It is here that logistics integrates with the many productive realities of the area, small and large, which thus manage to reach the rest of the continent in a short time, broadening the action plan and increasing turnover.
Of this and more – such as customer service management models, logistics solutions 4.0, the digital transformation – we talked Thursday 8 November in Milan, in the conference to present the results of the 2018 research by the Contract Logistics Observatory “Gino Marchet”, promoted by school of management of the Milan Polytechnic.
Logistics for e-commerce: the general numbers
That logistics runs fast is more or less clear to anyone who usually makes their own Online shopping (we are talking about millions of people in Italy and in the world), but to corroborate this feeling there are also the figures, clear and incontrovertible.
Also in 2018 the contract logistics (nothing but the outsourcing process of logistics activities and supply chain management to third-party companies specialized in a certain sector) confirms its growth, with a expected turnover of 82 billion euros and an increase of 0.6% compared to the previous year.
This figure confirms and consolidates the positive trend of the last five years (+1.3% in 2017, +1.7% in 2016, +0.7% in 2015 and +1.4% in 2014) in which a fundamental role the increase in gross domestic product also played a part.
A country machine that works, therefore, naturally conveys the benefits also in the sector of transport of goods.
It is important to underline how the sector is in continuous movement also from the point of view of mergers and acquisitions surveyed in the two-year period 2017-2018, even forty.
A plus sign also for the number of operating companies, a +2.2% influenced in particular by the significant growth in the courier and express courier sector (+11.6%) and warehouse managers (+3,4%).
Numbers that have received a strong boost from theecommerce, fromtechnological innovation, from the new ones startups and from attention to customer experience by businesses.
Logistics between innovation and technology
We are all connected, watch out for new technological trends, as well as the possibilities that the new frontiers of virtual development provides in everyday life.
Logistics "rides" this trend, so much so that the 4.0 market is the true great protagonist of the moment.
Thanks to the possibilities of automate some activities, from receiving and transmitting data through connected objects and decentralizing the decision-making process, almost one operator in two expects an increase in productivity.
More than one out of three (to be precise, the 37%) expects a greater one visibility on processes, more than one in four (the 27%) better traceability and the 23% a major one safety.
However, there are still some critical issues to face and overcome: the main ones are those related to the payback times of the investment in 4.0 technologies (the doubts are for the 35% of the operators), the complexity of communication between information systems (23%) and the lack of adequate skills (21%).
“Logistics 4.0 can move the boundaries in the outsourcing relationship – he says Marco Melacini, Scientific Manager of the Contract Logistics Observatory – To fully seize the opportunities, in the coming years it will be necessary to invest in tools that allow the integration of technological solutions based on different information systems and in the development of skills, insisting on training and attracting talent from other corporate functions and sectors”.
Start up and new logistics players
There are 319 les startups logistics financed in the last two years: these are realities that in the collective imagination belong to the distant Silicon Valley, but which are also establishing themselves as important innovators in our country.
There are a total of 5 billion investments collected for these newborn companies, concentrated for the majority (2.7 billion) for all those realities that propose themselves as new logistics players, often on a business model on the fusion between the offer of a logistics service and the development of a cloud software to support it.
Another important category of start-ups (we are talking about 1.6 billion euros in funding) are those that work on the ability to matching between supply and demand for logistics services, which put companies that have to ship goods in contact with those that have empty trucks to put at their disposal. Finally, a final area of innovation is that of the development of software and hardware to support transport and warehouse activities.
In the first case, the solution with the most attention is that of fleet management, closely followed by those whose protagonist is the supply chain visibility, i TMS software advanced, the data analysis and the order management And inventory.
Among the hardware solutions, those that use automatic machines in the collection and management of packages inside warehouses are the most popular, but also those of smart vehicles, wereable devices and packaging solutions.
An overview of logistics management
In a sea of innovation, logistics 4.0 and technology, however, there is a long way to go in terms of customer service.
Suffice it to say that almost one interaction out of two (the 45%) concerns requests for information and documents and the 86% of communications still takes place via e-mail, telephone and even fax.
Furthermore, the customer service of the logistics service provider mainly interacts with the customer (76% of the relationships) and only in 38% of the cases does it communicate directly with the end customer, making everything a little too cumbersome.
Improving the supplier's proactivity in communications, greater speed of updating and accessing information and documents and the possibility of using machine learning and data mining tools are the needs of most players in this field.
To pull the strings of the speech, logistics is continuing to pursue aoptimization of operations which, even given the excellent results, is bearing fruit.
There is still a long way to go to achieve maximum efficiency from a technological point of view and simplification, but the management, as certified by the Contract Logistics Observatory "Gino Marchet“, seems to be the right one.