Question

In your post, discuss what you believe will be one of the biggest challenges for operations and transportation professionals in the next 10 to 20 years. Whether it is achieving sustainability, a shift in the marketplace, or the demand for even more service at a lower cost, articulate what you believe we must be ready to tackle.

Answer 1

The biggest challenge for transportation professionals in the next 10-20 years will be providing value to the customers.

Let us look at the current landscape. The way people use transportation services nowadays is to deliver goods and move from one place to another. Here, we are talking about passenger transportation and cargo transportation. While passenger transportation will likely remain as it is today, the cargo transportation landscape could change drastically.

Currently, with the boom of e-commerce, many organizations depend heavily on the logistics and transportation vendors. However, you need to keep in mind that in spite of these, the landscape is about to get automated even more. The way we use addresses and geolocations are constantly improving. Amazon has been trying to implement drone delivery system for some time now. In all likelihood, delivery of goods through the likes of drone or automated systems will become a reality in the next 10-20 years. When that happens, the current logistics companies (such as DHL, FedEx) need to find new ways to provide value to their customers.

The larger cargos such as international shipment of goods and supplies will likely continue in a similar manner. However, the last mile delivery and transportation may be completely revamped. The operations of the companies at that point of time could also be revamped to suit the new delivery system.

As a transportation or operations professional, one must be ready to provide additional value to the customers. For example, FedEx could become a logistics consultant. They could integrate with larger corporations such as Apple, IBM, Walmart, and provide consultation and logistics services for these organization. At the same time they could handle the end-to-end operation of these organization’s transportation and logistics needs. Apart from consultation services, these organization could possibly diversify their business portfolio into passenger transportation system. With their already built network across the globe, such venture could prove to be a new avenue for these companies.

So in the futures, the main challenge for operations and transportation professionals is to provide value to their customers by staying relevant. The competition is not going to be other players from the industry but he competition is going to be automation and the client itself.