In the same way that “digital marketing” is now simply called “marketing,” I think the “digital” prefix is going to become redundant in 2024. Increasingly, differentiation between forwarders won’t be driven by whether they’re digital; they’re all digital to some extent.
Winners and losers in forwarding will be characterized by how open they are — philosophically and practically — to adapting their businesses to a rapidly changing digital landscape, not just once, but on an ongoing basis. Introducing technology into a forwarding business isn’t a one-shot thing. It’s an infinite game.
What that means is that CTOs and more digitally savvy managers are likely to play an increasingly important role in the C-suite of freight forwarders from now on, as the center of gravity moves away from operations payroll towards software and engineering payroll. While this trend will be seen across many industries, in a heavily human-centric industry like freight forwarding, a significant shift in perspective will be necessary.
For years, forwarders’ processes have been centered on human effort as the driving force behind managing the millions of shipments the industry works with, but 2024 may be the turning point as forwarders increasingly adopt automation as the central force behind a shipment, with people promoted to managing the exceptions and, most importantly, the relationships with customers and suppliers.
Digital forwarders have certainly played an important role in this shift, leading the way in raising the bar for shippers’ service expectations in a new digital era. But as the rest of the industry has caught up, it remains to be seen whether this momentum will persist in the years ahead.
Incumbents are now better positioned to take advantage of both worlds: technology from best-in-class digital service providers, merged with their well-established operational best practices. This union holds the potential to shape the future trajectory of the industry and perhaps truly define the concept of what it means to be a modern forwarder, with or without the “digital” qualifier.