SALES: During your last measurement period, were sales up or down? By how much?
CUSTOMER BASE: During your last measurement period, did your customer base grow or shrink? By how much?
Down 10% or more 4 %
Down 5 % 5 %
Down 5 % 6 %
Up 15 % 7 %
Up 15 % 9 %
Up 5 % 38 %
Up 5 % 24 %
Up 20% 11 %
Down 10% or more 13 %
No change 17 %
Up 10% 19 %
Up 10% 21 %
Up 20% 13 %
No change 14 %
MOST IMPACTFUL TECHNOLOGIES Artificial intelligence 3PLs added new customers over the past year at a somewhat lower rate than in the year before. In 2024, 75% report some kind of increase, compared with 81% in 2023. And the gains that 3PLs enjoyed in 2023- 24 are smaller than they were the year before. For example, 11% of 3PLs reported in 2024 that their customer bases had increased by 20%; last year, 24% of 3PLs reported gains of that size. Most Impactful Technologies
Warehousing Crossdocking PROFITS: During your last measurement period, were profits up or down? By how much? While 67% of our 3PLs have seen sales increase by some amount since last year, that pales beside the 81% who were enjoying higher revenues in 2023. Meanwhile, 33% of this year’s respondents have seen revenues hold steady or fall, compared with 19% last year.
87 %
82 %
Driverless vehicles
Transloading
Down 5 % 4 %
44 %
Up 15 % 5 %
74 %
Pick/pack, subassembly
Internet of Things
Like much of the rest of the business world, most of our 3PL respondents, 87%, expect artificial intelligence to bring big changes to their operations. If they’re not already using AI to perform sophisticated analytics, and perhaps to automate some decision-making and interactions with customers or carriers, they could be doing that soon. Beyond AI, no single technology has thoroughly seized the imaginations of our 3PL respondents. But a healthy 44% expect driverless vehicles to make a big impact on the industry—exactly the same proportion of respondents who focused on that innovation last year. Several technologies are drawing somewhat less interest in 2024 than in 2023. For example, last year 40% of 3PLs said the internet of things (IoT) would make a major impact, compared with 32% this year. Interest in blockchain has also slipped. In 2023, 28% of 3PLs said it would upend the way companies manage their supply chains. In 2024, that number is 20%. ■
70 %
32 %
Up 20% 9 %
Fulfillment
Embedded sensors 24 % Wearable technology 24 % Blockchain 20 % Drones 18 % RFID 18 % 3D printing 4 % Virtual reality 3 %
67 %
Up 5 % 26 %
DC management
Down 10% or more 13 %
65 %
Vendor management inventory
64 %
No change 23 %
Ecommerce Up 10% 20 % Site selection
60 %
55 %
None While most 3PLs are making a profit, they’re probably not popping as many champagne corks over their results as in recent years. Sixty percent of the 3PL respondents who reported to us in 2024 saw profits increase over the past year, compared with 82% in the 2023 survey. 12 % Technology Transportation management system Among those companies that saw profits rise, only 9% saw them go up by 20%, while 5% saw them increase by 15%. The more typical gains were in the 5% to 10% range. Seventeen percent of respondents this year saw profits fall year-over-year, compared with 3% in last year’s survey.
92 %
88 Inbound Logistics • July 2024 Electronic data interchange
91 %
Visibility
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