E-commerce is revolutionizing consumer shopping behavior in the United States and around the world. Retailers are quickly realizing they must either adapt to the new reality or perish. Next-day delivery, and now even same-day delivery, is becoming the expected norm. Increasingly, this applies not just to consumer goods, but also food and groceries, indeed everything we use in our daily lives. As a result, supply chains are being forced to rapidly change, shaking up the long-established ways of doing business.
The realization that distribution and fulfillment centers now have to be as close as possible to the customer is evidenced by the significant expansion of DC capacity taking place nearest to the nation’s largest and fastest-growing markets. This development brings the additional benefit of significantly reducing inland transportation costs as well as reducing carbon emissions, providing a more sustainable solution.
At the same time, recent experiences with delays and congestion along traditional established routes have underscored the importance of supply chain reliability. As a result, beneficial cargo owners, ocean carriers and others are being challenged to reroute their thinking and develop new ways to serve their customers. While these trends are most evident in the container sector, they are also underway in other cargo segments of the shipping industry, as the breakbulk, bulk and roll-on, roll-off carriers and traditional routes are being forced to adapt to new market realities impacting the construction and building industry, the energy sector, and the shipment of automobiles and perishables.
The U.S. Gulf region, with its strong population and economic growth, compared with other regions of the country, is poised to be a major beneficiary of these trends. Those ports, terminal operators and carriers that can provide more innovative ways to serve their customers through partnerships that can offer new cost-effective, speed-to-market solutions will continue to be the success stories of 2016 and beyond.
Paul Anderson, President and CEO, Port Tampa Bay