We are only a couple of days into 2023: a year full of new beginnings. Looking back, 2022 is characterized as a year full of challenges: from the aftermath of the pandemic to capacity shortages and robotization. But we see that the logistics industry is constantly evolving. And for 2023, the expectations are that it will be filled with trends varying from old to new.

1. Digitalization is here to stay

Digitalization has sped up during the pandemic but will continue to evolve throughout 2023.
According to the Digital Container Shipping Association, if 50 percent of the container shipping industry adopted electronic bills of lading, the collective global savings would be around £3.6 billion a year.
This is just one example of digitalization to support your business. There are endless ways of digitalization within the logistics industry. It helps you to simplify work on your own terms. Will 2023 be the year that we finally say goodbye to doing any work on paper?

2. The talent challenge

The war for talent continues in 2023. And it will even intensify even more. If we are looking at the driver shortage alone, the demand skyrocketed throughout 2022 and will continue for the upcoming years.
In the Netherlands, there is currently a shortage of 12,000 drivers and there are over 14,000 open vacancies for logistics employees. On top of these shortages, the pension outflow doesn’t stop either.

3. Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence (AI) will continue its march in 2023. AI tries to recreate characteristics of human intelligence. It has the potential to learn on its own so it will eventually be able to complete more difficult and complex tasks. This means a lot of tasks can be automated in the future, which connects to the previous talent trend.
Artificial Intelligence is disrupting the logistics supply chain. Not just the warehousing, picking, and sorting functions. In an industry where the flow of goods and demand forecasts is often difficult to predict due to multiple factors, it is crucial to gain responsiveness by having flexibility.

4. Automation

The trend that goes hand in hand with Artificial Intelligence, and indirectly also with the talent challenge, is automation. To fill up the labor shortage, we need to work smarter. And not harder. This gap can be filled up by your automatic colleague: a mobile robot, a shelf robot, or a drone for inventory. All these automated tools are supporting your daily business in the warehouse. In 2023 we will not yet see automated trucks, but who knows what the future will hold for this innovation.

5. Integration and cloud systems

In 2023 we will be up in the cloud together. The continued development allows organizations to streamline their workflows and exchange information even quicker. On top of this, the information is sent with more control and more security. This new trend ensures that a business saves time and money by having more efficient internal processes in place.

Want to know more?

We can see that the logistics trends for 2023 remain quite similar to the trends of previous years. However, the trends themselves have developed and will make the industry more efficient and serve as a way to face the challenges of today’s economy.

Would you like to know how we can help you tackle this year’s challenges? Reach out to us via info@elevate-it.be, we are happy to help you out.