VANCOUVER, Canada — 

Two years of logistics data captured by the CartonCloud Logistics Industry (CCLI) Report show continued optimism across warehousing, third-party logistics, and transport industries, almost in spite of recession fears— with a growth mindset remaining across operations and regions.

The Q1 2023 CCLI report marks two years of industry data tracking, capturing changes in sentiment for growth and hiring over time.

While the industry remains overall optimistic, business expectations for growth have declined this year in comparison to previous years, reflecting global recession fears.

This year; logistics companies are focusing on meeting growing customer expectations by increasing capacity, optimizing operations, and offering new services — while battling against rising operational costs. Drawing on data from over 1,800 industry members, the report explores optimism for growth and hiring, the current economic climate, as well as company technology adoption, key tactics for growth, and major concerns impacting the logistics industry today.

“We’re seeing an industry-wide focus on increasing efficiency and utilization of existing resources while leaning on strong networks to maximize their own services” explained CartonCloud COO/Head of North America Shaun Hagen.

“Logistics companies of all sizes are adopting more sophisticated planning and data use and building stronger partnerships across the industry to increase opportunities for growth,” he said.

“Building partnerships to outsource services was highlighted as one of the top tactics for meeting demand and capitalizing on growth in the coming year — alongside more traditional growth strategies like increasing operational hours, and optimizing fleet and storage resources.”

The Q1 report data highlights how logistics companies are moving forward, relying on partnerships, data sharing, and outsourcing to enable them to give more to their customers without the overheads.

“It’s a trend we’ve seen increasing over time. The Q3 Report last year highlighted a change in 3PL culture, moving toward the services of 4PLs by providing greater oversight and management of client logistics and relying on partners to outsource certain services or logistics legs where needed,” Mr Hagen said.

“Warehouse management and transport management software has enabled smaller players to achieve massive gains, and enhanced integration functions allow secure and fast data transfer between industry partners.”

Significant growth in technology innovation across the supply chain in recent years has allowed service providers to increase accuracy, share data, increase speed, and enhance transparency.

This continued focus is also reflected in results outlining technological adoption and investment attitudes by the Q1 2023 CCLI Report.

The report showed a significant industry appetite for technological innovation and adoption, with the majority of respondents reporting their company currently uses 3-5 software systems daily.

The report also showed respondents had a high likelihood to invest in new technology such as AI and machine learning, robotics, and 3D planning software.

With the increase of niche and specialized technology and software, logistics operators will be looking to the functionality of their mission-critical warehouse management systems and transport management systems, to ensure integration capability and feature updates support partnership data-sharing and new system plug-and-play options.