According to BVL, logistics is leveraging the crisis and preparing for the future

How the logistics sector is taking off in the new decade was shared with participants of the German Logistics Congress 2020 by BVL. Uncertainties, national solo efforts, and a pandemic: The question arises repeatedly how these challenges affect supply chain security. To ensure that supply is always guaranteed, logistics is using the crisis to position itself even more powerfully for the future.

(Bremen/Berlin) The Covid-19 pandemic particularly shows: “The supply chains are functioning.” This is how Jens Graefe, CEO of the pharmaceutical wholesaler AEP, summarized the situation. And even more: The daily proven supply security has cast logistics in a new light. More than ever, it is seen as systemically relevant. The population increasingly recognizes that logistics fulfills a societal mandate. This “Licence to Operate,” as Karl Gernandt from Kühne Holding puts it, is changing: People are questioning whether the supply chains can continue to hold up. Globalization is no longer understood as a guarantee of prosperity but as a risk to supply security. At the same time, the ongoing sustainability debate is increasingly focusing on resource consumption – also in logistics. According to Gernandt, it is time to further optimize existing supply chains in accordance with this societal demand to be able to offer powerful, secure, and sustainable logistics in the future.

Supply chains are becoming more resilient

Times of crisis demand maximum flexibility from logistics providers – to cope with fluctuations in required storage space or to resort to alternatives when transportation means are unavailable. Experts agree that for such contingency scenarios to be possible, supply chains must become more resilient.

Digitalization as an enabler of resilience

“If the Corona crisis had occurred ten years ago, we would have looked outdated,” emphasized Günther Jocher, board member of the logistics service provider Group7. This applies not only to the technological prerequisites available today for working from home. It would also have been difficult to use the crisis as a digitalization boost to identify risks in the supply chain and to design future-proof and resilient supply chains. An example of such digital risk management is the tool “MightyGate,” currently in testing, which Prof. Dr. Yvonne Ziegler from the Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences presented. Specifically designed for the requirements of pharmaceutical companies and logistics providers, “MightyGate” can digitally highlight potential risks along the supply chain. Companies can then best avoid these risks. The program “Climate Excellence” from the auditing firm PwC also utilizes the evaluation of comprehensive data to create forecasts. It illustrates the future situation of a company while considering various scenarios of global warming. This way, challenges and opportunity drivers can be planned into the corporate strategy early on. “The pandemic is an accelerator for digitalization initiatives. And digitalization is a prerequisite for resilient supply chains,” summarized Dr. Hans Christoph Dönges, board member of SALT Solutions AG.

No rejection of globalization

However, the crisis also made it clear how much German companies are partially dependent on markets like China and India – for example, in protective clothing or pharmaceutical products. Should production sites therefore be brought back to Germany to escape this dependency? Dr.-Ing. Christoph Beumer, CEO of Beumer Group, believes it is important to question global value chains. After all, it is still uncertain whether globalization, as we know it today, is future-proof due to the changing political climate worldwide. Thomas Panzer, Head of Supply Chain Management for pharmaceutical products at Bayer AG, is also observing this development. For his company, “supply security (…) is the top priority. This does not exclude regional production sites.” However, he considers relocating everything to be the wrong approach, as regional supply chains are also vulnerable. He sees the better solution in expanding strong international networks.Christoph Bornschein, CEO of TLGG Group and also a keynote speaker at the congress, shares a similar view. He expects a development towards hybrid supply chains and concepts with backup systems, from which the most cost-effective solution can then be chosen, as well as more warehousing and more value creation in Germany – as he revealed in a video interview: https://youtu.be/x0dPFTJHOfQFor the participants of the logistics congress, it is clear: The challenges of the crisis are not national. They affect supply chain participants worldwide. Hildegard Müller, president of the VDA, also believes that solo efforts are the wrong way. “Mobility and flowing goods streams are vital for our society. We must not close the borders again.”
Photo: © BVL / Image caption: Dr. Hans Christoph Dönges, board member, Salt Solutions AG (center) in conversation with Christian Grotemeier, BVL.digital
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