VERTICAL SPECIALIZATION: WHAT VERTICALS DO YOUR SOLUTIONS SERVE?
WHERE IS THE MOST DEMAND? Where do vendors see the greatest increase in demand for logistics IT solutions? Here’s a sampling of responses from the vendors responding to our survey: • We observe the greatest demand for yard management systems in North America and Europe, for transportation management systems mainly in North America, for terminal operating systems in the Americas, EMEA, and APAC, for container maintenance & repair in the Americas, EMEA, and APAC, and for intermodal container depots in the Americas, EMEA, and APAC. • We continue to see focus on middle-mile/final- mile logistics across verticals and transportation modes. Visibility into the supply chain and event-driven alerting to minimize disruption and improve service and eciency are top priorities for shippers and logistics service providers. • Global supply chains have become more dicult to manage. Things have become highly volatile, with last-minute cargo changes causing headaches for transportation specialists and challenges arising from unexpected changes in consumer buying patterns and expectations. • We observe several reasons for growing demand for new technology, including below- average productivity, labor shortages, high turnover, and an inability to meet service level agreements across all vertical markets. • We have had multiple customers go from only wanting to know that tracking is on their shipment, to being able to observe the tracking in real time, to having their own platform created by us so that they can see every detail going on with each shipment. • We’re seeing a lot of demand for logistics technology for asset management, inventory management, and overall digital transformation strategy.
Consumer packaged goods 72% Food & beverage 70% Automotive 65% Electronics 65% Healthcare/biomedical/pharma 64% Apparel & textiles 61% Ecommerce 60% Furniture 57% Chemicals 53% Grocery 51% Construction & infrastructure 44% Agriculture 42% Oil & gas 42% Aerospace 38% Energy 37% Military/government 25% No specialization (serves all) 15%
When logistics IT vendors target specific vertical markets, the most popular are consumer packaged goods—cited by 72% of respondents—and food and beverage—cited by 70%. Close behind are automotive and electronics (65% each) and healthcare/biomedical/ pharmaceuticals (64%). That number for the healthcare/biomedical/pharma sector has risen by several points since 2021, when it was 59%. Did the experience of the pandemic—with the rush to distribute everything from masks and gloves to newly developed vaccines—prompt more technology vendors to focus on this sector?
56 Inbound Logistics • April 2023
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