The COVID-19 years have been all about handling operational difficulties — a lot of that experience is nice to have going forward but not something that will be put to use to a large extent as disruptive obstacles are removed (fingers crossed). Not many groundbreaking developments have surfaced that have irrevocably changed the business. The essential need to stay on top of market developments and have crucial insights and data readily available has become crystal-clear — from being a nice-to-have to becoming a must-have.
Singling one aspect out, though: ocean carriers’ purchase of aircraft and acquisitions of logistics companies that can help them expand their business vertically going forward. This has allowed them to offer more complex services, combining ocean with air, and extend the current port-to-port offering with something that is closer to the offering that we see from freight forwarders today.
The biggest challenge facing container shippers and transport providers in 2023 will be bringing back reliability and predictability to the global supply chains. What’s needed is to restore order in the market, normalizing the flow of goods and making the final decision whether to substitute/change any supply chains that have been broken during the COVID years with just-in-case supply chains or more expensive reshoring/nearshoring manufacturing.
Transport providers — asset and non-asset — are injecting value into containerized supply chains by offering the service to customers that they have dearly missed for years now. They are doing this by normalizing measures taken to expedite full and empty container movements — including detention/demurrage and free time given to clients, which have been widely cut — and by offering green solutions to those beneficial cargo owners (BCOs) and shippers that want to reduce the carbon footprint for their transport needs. Finally, they are making use of the windfall profits made during the COVID years to fix past problems and develop more seamless multimodal solutions.