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Industry Map: A Digital Ecosystem for Transport and Logistics

Discover new digitalization opportunities for Transport and Logistics industry

February 10 2021Sandip Dalvi

Transportation & Logistics industry has witnessed tremendous changes in recent years, it has completely altered its outlook by adopting ever evolving technology innovation-trends and disruptions. Some of the external reasons driving these changes are new age consumers’ expectations, sustainability, high dependency on downstream industries.

Historically logistics is a low margin business and recently has been challenged by disruptive challengers from the high-tech industry such as major platform economies who are bringing forth path breaking technology innovations. In addition to this, customer expectations have changed over a period and the logistics companies are expected to be more agile, bring more transparency across the supply chain and generally provide excellent services. The growth of retail and e-commerce industries in the last decade added more stress on the last mile or distribution network, forcing logistics companies to get rid of old planning methods and related legacy tools and technologies and adopt the digital route. 

Some of the challenges & trends that will influence the Logistics Industry in coming years are:

Storage rack with parcels
  • Growing parcels volume and dynamic consumer demand patterns lead to volatile order situation
  • Environment sustainability e.g. demonstrating CO2-neutral transportation
  • Tech backed and heavily funded platform competitors targeting every segment of logistics 
  • Driver shortage and skilled manpower shortage in logistics 
  • Digitization & Automation with emerging technologies e.g. Cloud based infra, Agile IT using AI/ML, Blockchain and Big Data/Analytics. 

How can digitalization help logistics companies sail through these challenges? What options are available for companies to strategically reposition themselves and remain relevant by adding value?

To answer these questions and provide related solutions we are introducing our “Industry map for Travel, Transport and Logistics (TTL)”. This simple and helpful tool can help logistics companies to navigate to the different areas within logistics and get answers to their business problems and engage with experts to build concreate solutions. 

The “TTL Industry Map” visualizes relevant industry specific solutions with four strategic key areas such as Intra-logistics, Freight logistics, Supply chain management and Distribution logistics. The included solutions are built to support logistics companies by selecting the right technology that will enable them to stay ahead of the competition. Let's explore how certain challenges in each of these areas can be addressed using our solutions.

Intra-logistics: How technology adoption helps warehouse operators reduce order fulfilment time within Yards and Warehouses? 

A warehouse is a facility where goods are stored for periods of time, while a distribution center tends to store goods for short periods of time as orders are fulfilled. More often warehouse managers find themselves hamstrung by challenges such as inventory inaccuracy, redundant processes, poor warehouse layout, erratic demands, labor costs and picking optimization. We, as an IT partner, can help warehouse operators managing inventory with Advanced analytics-based solutions like Smart Parts, predictive maintenance would help them be well informed and do their jobs efficiently through quicker and accurate decisions. Logistics companies are empowering their intra-logistics workforce by heavily investing in futuristic solutions. We have a range of solutions including blockchain based complete traceability to avoid tampering and monitor goods across supply chain and stocktaking drones for inventory monitoring in large storage spaces. 

Freight logistics: How digitalization simplifies the complex Freight logistics business for logisticians? 

A bird's eye view of lorries lined up in a row

Freight logistics is the physical process of transporting commodities and merchandise goods through land, water and airways. The current challenges for the modern freight logistics are, altering customer expectations, supply chain integration, environmental sustainability including carbon emission, usage of paper and finally evolving digital requirements. Our advanced technology IoT based solutions like dynamic slot booking, arrival time prediction and asset tracking or shipment monitoring in Hubs / Yards, makes container handling operations easy in seaports. For land transport, accurate fleet and cargo technologies provide complete transparency efficiency regarding vehicles, sensitive cargo/goods and employees. T-System’s patented system Low Carbon Mobility Management (LCMM) helps fleet operators to optimally monitor and control logistics fleets operations and reduce carbon emission.

Supply chain management: How advanced technology tools help supply chain managers to do their job efficiently? 

Supply chain management (SCM) enables logistics companies to source the raw materials or components, to entities that create a product or service and deliver those to the end customers. Today logistics managers are expected to get real-time insights to respond faster to an ever-changing world. Additionally, logistics companies aim to build a smarter supply chain network and be resilient when there is disruption. Hence to equip supply chain managers with the advanced tools and technologies and help better optimise resources across the supply chain, we offer advanced solutions like Supply chain control towers, Data analytics for logistics and Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to automate supply chain.

Distribution logistics: How technology solves core problems of last-mile delivery? 

Distribution logistics is more related to the actual physical placement of the goods to customers, Customers are either end consumers, distributors or processors. Every logistics company involved in distribution logistics and last mile delivery operations understands that cracking the inefficient last-mile delivery is quite a challenging task. Some prominent challenges include, improving routing efficiency, unpredictability in transit and correct delivery allocation & address location. To advance distribution logistics we offer new age solutions like alternate delivery locations, proof of identity using blockchain technology and route optimization solutions. 

Why should you get in touch with us?

For small or large logistics companies embracing change and digital innovations isn’t a choice anymore it’s a mandate to adopt relevant digital practices as early as possible.

We invite you to take a quick look. Each process consists of more than one solution to address specific concerns for logistics companies. You can also find more details in the form of a one-pager, solution videos, presentations, reference flyers, whitepapers depicting relevant experiences, functionalities and business benefits. We look forward to your feedback.

About the author
Sandip Dalvi – Industry Marketing Experte für Travel, Transport & Logistics

Sandip Dalvi

Industry Marketing Expert for Travel, Transportation & Logistics vertical, T-Systems International GmbH

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