As the industry grapples with ongoing challenges from the chronic oversupply situation and lackluster economic growth levels, carriers will continue drilling further down their way to better cost management and operational efficiency. That may be through investing in more fuel efficient fleets, upgrading IT support systems, or building greater synergies with business partners and alliances to explore new and innovative areas for cooperation.
The commoditization in the industry is also pushing carriers to double their efforts to deliver service quality, reliability and product differentiation to remain competitive. In that process, working more closely with all the stakeholders in the supply chain, such as terminals, intermodal operators and logistics service providers, is vitally important.
On the macro level, understanding how the global supply chain is evolving around the growing forces of e-commerce and China’s new economic landscape will also be important. With the rapidly rising number of affluent Chinese consumers, manufacturing industries moving up the value chain, and building infrastructure to keep up with the pace of urbanization and development, China will continue to have a significant impact on global trade patterns; monitoring where and how the goods and raw materials are moving will be key to capturing opportunities.
On the policy front, there has been some progress through such initiatives as the Trans-Pacific Partnership and China’s Belt and Road initiative to advance objectives to stimulate the economy and boost market demand at a time when the industry needs it most. In the months ahead, new policies or trade deals between the participating countries through those initiatives are expected to emerge; everyone will be keeping very close watch of them in 2016.
Paul Devine, President, OOCL (USA)