Goedele Sannen looks ahead to the logistics challenges of the future.

The logistics sector is booming, but it also faces major challenges. Goedele Sannen, Senior Logistics & Mobility Advisor at Voka expects that companies in 2018 are also going to focus more on sustainability in addition to focussing on mobility and technology developments.

Mobility & sustainability

‘As the Logistics & Mobility Advisor, I come into contact with a host of different companies’, Goedele relates. ‘I've noticed that they all share a single key concern: the huge mobility issue. There’s one thing for certain: in 2018 that problem is only going to get bigger. This also makes the quest for sustainability an integral part of this issue. Flemish companies will increasingly continue to consider how their logistics processes can be made more efficient, which likely also means an increase in sustainability.’

Data sharing & confidentiality

According to Goedele, it's true that the new technologies on the horizon face the logistics sector with some major hurdles: ‘Everyone is involved in the new technological developments, which means that there’s an incredible range of options thanks to this upsurge in digitisation. However, is every company ready for this to the same degree? The perspective that these developments will result in benefits for the entire logistics supply chain is there, but many companies are left with questions about how to deal with data exchange, data confidentiality, and how to work with the competition, etc. In Goedele's opinion, finding a happy medium would be a good place to start: ‘While you can’t afford to miss the train, an analysis of what technological options are available for optimising in-house processes and a subsequent decision about how far and most importantly how quickly you want to take this track have to take place first.’

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