A fundamental shift in the way we communicate will create far-reaching change in the logistics industry, and the resulting experience for the users of tomorrow will be far more efficient than in the past. The disconnected emails and frantic phone calls of today will be gone. There will be no more fruitless searches through stale legacy systems for information that may be outdated. Users will have at their disposal the information they need regarding their goods, along with the ability to communicate that information in context, in real time, with the right people.
As a result, the idea of who is a user of logistics technology will expand to include not just logistics providers, but also sales representatives, customer service representatives, and the end-customers themselves.
It won’t be a specific type of technology like blockchain, machine learning, or APIs that will bring about this change. In the same way that the first iPhone brought together disparate and unconnected technologies to create a superior new user experience, we will see different technologies brought together in new services that will create a better experience around communication and collaboration throughout the supply chain.
Once communication is improved, a whole new ecosystem will flourish. What that will be is up to the entrepreneurs of the future and the newly expanded set of users whose needs will drive continuing change.