Leaner and more regional supply chains will be the inevitable outcome of Cov id-19.And this would apply equally in the project sector, said James Hookham, secretary general of the Global Shippers’ Forum, during a recent online conference on what lies ahead for the logistics industry.“A lot of cargo buyers and importers found themselves very exposed and at risk during this crisis.
The prevailing geopolitical situation prior to the outbreak of Covid-19 should probably have suggested vulnerability on its own, but it didn’t,” he said, indicating that the industry still had some tough challenges to solve. “There has been some recovery, some lessons learnt, and many opportunities identified, but we are not out of the woods yet.”
He said the level of risk and exposure revealed by the pandemic was not only applicable to containerised cargo, but also the project sector.“In the early weeks after the crisis started the focus was on the continued movement of trade and all the attention was on essential supplies.”
This focus had since moved to non-essential containerised cargo, bulk and breakbulk volumes.“One of the good take-aways of this pandemic has been the realisation by governments of how essential supply chain logistics is to their economies and societies – not only for medicine and food, but to get critical infrastructure protected and to allow it to continue functioning.”
Hookham said another boon from the pandemic was the teamwork and unexpected cooperation seen between supply chain partners to get cargo around the world that would otherwise not have moved. “I believe there is hope across industry that this collaborative approach will endure in the f uture.”According to Hookham, the pandemic has provided logistic service providers in all industries with the opportunity to take an in-depth look at their supply chains and to remove costs.
“Digitalisation has been seen as a good place to start and the preferred time to do this is now. The end result is leaner and more regional supply chains. The process had already started prior to Covid-19 to a certain degree as there have been clear signs of the need to reduce sourcing from China. This trend has now been catalysed and accelerated and we will see it increase across cargo sec tors.”
He said going forward the best advice was to test and challenge some of the prices being quoted. “This is a very unique situation and no one knows the background or the costs we are quoting against. I think now more than ever we need to make sure that a fair and transparent price is being offered.”He said ultimately what could be expected was supply chains that were less dependent on any national circumstances.
