How Australia’s Logistics Industry Should Prepare for Growth
21/08/2017
The modern logistics landscape has come a long way in the past decade. Technology has dramatically disrupted and remodelled many industries, especially retail, and has significantly altered the way the logistics industry operates. Productivity and investment into the Australian freight and logistics industry reached an all-time high in 2016, with considerable growth expected well into the future. So how should Australia’s logistics industry be preparing for growth?
- Understand and embrace Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP)
Sales and Operations Planning goes beyond Sales and Operations. When done correctly, S&OP integrates all aspects of sales, marketing, customer service, product management, warehousing, procurement, finance, and transport in a face-to-face meeting, where all stakeholders within the company meet to align their goals and values. The pace of change across all industries is rapid, and a strong S&OP strategy will ensure your logistics team is all working in the same direction, thereby enabling a faster response and cohesiveness when new technology or external events disrupt supply chains.
- Start adopting agile management and supply chain principles
Having a strong S&OP practice is essential for many reasons, with one of them being to enable the adoption of agile management and supply chain principles. As supply chains grow more and more complex each day thanks to digitisation and technological advances, logistics managers need to adopt agile management principles to enable more flexible, responsive and competitive operations. In contrast to lean-supply chains, agile supply chain and management uses real-time data and updated information to manage stock, transport, demand forecasting and more.
- Practice demand-driven logistics
With a strong S&OP strategy and agile management practices in play, logistics companies are better placed to adapt to market needs and move toward demand-driven logistics. By moving to an inbound or demand-driven model, companies begin to not only cut transportation costs, but also improve customer service.
- Keep ahead with innovation and technology
As much as technology and digitisation is remodelling external stakeholders, the rapidly advancing technology available for the logistics industry is creating huge change to warehouse management and design. To stay competitive and move into market leadership during the next phase of growth, the logistics industry needs to stay up-to-date and be continuously updating warehouse, logistics and customer service technology. Learn more about the
technology reshaping the logistics industry.
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