The past years have featured a whole collection of disruption from pandemic-related lockdowns to a sudden exit from markets due to the war in Ukraine. While the bottlenecks are easing, supply chain logistics are no longer perceived as a mere cost factor to be minimized, but as an important business enabler and potential source of competitive advantage when set up correctly. Setting them up correctly means adding resilience, visibility, and sustainability.
During the pandemic, many containers have been slowed down, accelerated, redirected, or switched to alternative modes of transport. Thus, flexibility and agility have become main ingredients to increasing the resiliency of supply chains. For the sake of resilience, we also see new ways of contracting with a stronger focus on long-term partnerships, a smaller number of selected partners, and a deeper level of integration. These partnerships will be driven by trust as well as tangible KPIs, which are defined by the customer, while the logistics providers deliver on them.
A big issue during the disruptive past has been the painful lack of visibility. This will be solved by increasingly digitizing logistics and creating a single source of truth by bundling the data of all logistics providers of a cargo owner.
However, perhaps the most challenging resiliency tests are yet to come. In this decade, supply chain design must be made compatible with environmental, social, and governance (ESG) commitments to ensure products are manufactured, sourced, and delivered in a sustainable and socially acceptable manner. This process will be driven by future demands of customers, regulators, and net-zero commitments.
For a company such as Hamburg Süd — known for its personal, local service — the most important factor is our employees and their dedication to quality. Securing talents and providing them prospects and a robust career path will continue to be critical. It defines our ability to deliver the level of customer service that our customers expect from us.