DC Velocity - July 2019

Str at e gy LOG I S TI C S

ership capabilities, and transportation expertise is either “rarely available” or “not available” in the marketplace today.

This means that companies will have to devote significant time and resources to training and development. No longer can they rely on on-the-job training; instead, they must establish formal, structured leadership training programs, according to the report. But nearly all of the survey respondents agree that their current training programs are lacking, with 94 percent saying they will have to revise their development programs to better attract and retain talent. Indeed, fewer than 30 percent of companies currently have a formal, structured training program, although there are signs others are starting to fall in line. More than 55 percent of the respondents say they will likely have a formal transportation management talent-development program in place by 2030.

EXCEL WON’T DO

For companies looking to stormproof their operations,
developing a championship-caliber leadership team won’t
be enough, however. They also have to give their people
the right tools. “The more complex the freight market and
customer requirements become over the next decade, the
more companies will need strong technology to manage
transportation planning and operations,” Gibson says.
“Legal pads, maps, and Excel spreadsheets just won’t do in
the current and future transportation environment.”
For years, the “go-to” application for transportation
managers has been the transportation management system
(TMS), with its suite of planning, execution, and control
applications. Seventy percent of survey respondents use
TMS for carrier selection, cost analysis, performance mea-
surement, and visibility, while a smaller number use the
software for labor planning, event management, require-
ments forecasting, and analytics. In spite of the widespread
use, the software does not receive rave reviews, according
to the report. The majority of respondents rated their TMS
tools as only moderately or minimally effective for such
tasks as cost analysis. Those shortcomings notwithstanding,
survey respondents say they intend to expand their use of
all TMS capabilities.

At the same time, they’re keeping an eye on emerg-
ing technologies that promise to drive operational gains.
According to the survey, 87 percent of respondents think
next-gen technologies will fundamentally change transpor-
tation operations, although the timetables will vary. For
example, respondents believe that advanced analytics and
the Internet of Things (Io T) have a high potential to upend
transportation operations in the next three years, and that
blockchain and artificial intelligence (AI) have significant
“disruption potential” over the next five years. (See Exhibit
4.) On the other end of the spectrum, “Logistics 2030”
respondents are not convinced that driverless trucks are
coming in the near future, Gibson says. They predict it
will be 10 years or more before the market sees significant
implementations.

“That’s quite a departure from the hype that we’ve been hearing in the popular media over the last three to five years,” Gibson says.

While respondents were excited about the potential of emerging technology, their optimism was tempered by realism—and an awareness of the obstacles they face. For instance, 61 percent said they did not have adequate funding to support a major technology initiative, and 82 percent believe there’s a significant risk that heavily hyped technology will not deliver the promised benefits.

FIVE STEPS TO GET AHEAD

Transforming transportation management to meet the demands of a new world order will not be easy, but the report has five common-sense suggestions to help companies get there. They are as follows:

1. Establish coherent, data-driven plans. Managing transportation via intuition and a day-to-day firefighting approach will no longer cut it.

2. Strengthen key relationships. The balance of power currently lies in the hands of the carriers. To get reasonable rates and guaranteed capacity, shippers will have to don their sales hats and sell themselves to potential carriers and third-party logistics service providers.