To stand still is to regress; dare to change

Whether it’s a major income decrease or a growth in business that you can barely live up to, the corona crisis has caused drastic changes in the entire logistics branch. However, change itself is nothing new. Growing competition, a higher demand for information from your customers, new technologies; change is, whether we like it or not, a continuous process. Most of these changes we have seen coming from afar. Even disruptive developments by international players as Amazon, Uber and Tesla – which can flip the entire market at once with the help of new technologies and concepts – can already be foreseen long before they happen. Yet, no one could have foreseen the forced changes as a result of the corona crisis. No slow or predictable innovations, but instant and extensive developments in which you as a logistics service provider must find your way. Whether you like it or not.

For example, recently I talked to a logistics service provider who is, among other things, active in the mink business. I’m sure I do not have to explain his perspective, considering the corona infections in his field. Another logistics service provider provides transportation to southern European countries. The impact of corona on his business? An 80% decrease in volume. Furthermore, the ocean freight business has sunk to the bottom, while prices for air transportation go sky high. Whether in a positive or negative context, these developments force you to act. You are forced to be quick on your feet as an organization. Only then, you can stay in business and prevent your organization from losing sight of the peloton. Therefore, you need to be agile.

Becoming an agile organization as a logistics service provider

One of the most important questions is; how to deal with changes? This is important now, but also 10 years ago. For that reason, our philosophy starts and ends with this and our promises are based on how to coop with changes. In 2010, we asked ourselves; in what way can we be of value by providing logistics service providers a solution that can handle change. A solution that can grow along with new technologies and can make our customers IT driven and agile organizations.

Change is necessary, now more than ever

To be able to change continuously, or in other words, to be an agile organization, multiple things are important. Now more than ever.

IT as the standard mindset for logistics

Tech Intensity is a term used by Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s CEO, to express the importance of IT for companies in a digital world. In short: for organizations, it becomes more and more important to be IT-minded. Most companies understand that IT is a necessary condition to run your business. Doing your job offline and without any other parties hasn’t been possible for quite some time now. Nevertheless, I regularly bump into organizations that see it as a necessary evil. Some say it out loud, others just think it. When this is the case, you will only change when you have to, in other words reactive. Chances are that with the speed change finds us these days, there comes a moment you will be too late. A moment you will find yourself in the back of the peloton and can’t keep up the pace. That is why you as a logistics service provider must become more IT-minded. That there are people in your organization, who have affinity with IT and continuously search for ways to use IT to optimize your processes.

Meet your customers’ wishes

When you do that, you will lay the basis to deal with forced changes, you can meet the wishes of your (new) customers in a better way and you can make your company more efficient. The result? An agile organization that can anticipate change, improves its services to customers, and experience an increased profit.

The next step

Having the right mindset is a great start, but it is not all. The next step is to act accordingly and to do so you need to make the right decisions. Do you want to learn what choices I’m talking about? In this blog, I share what choices influence how agile your organization is and how you can deal with forced changes in the aftermath of the corona crisis.