With an increasing number of logistics leaders reporting directly to the C-suite, priorities are being elevated to impact customer experience, increase digitalisation, and automate physical tasks, according to a new survey by Gartner.
Attendees at this year’s Gartner Supply Chain Symposium/Xpo in Barcelona learned that the broadening in ambition of logistics leaders’ long-term objectives is driven in part by heightened attention and reporting levels to the C-suite, to whom 90% of these leaders report to, including 30% answering to the CEO.
“Logistics leaders are raising the ambition of their objectives, looking beyond solely cost-optimisation and aligning with leadership’s goals for sustainable business growth,” says David Gonzalez, VP analyst in Gartner’s Supply Chain practice. “The time has come to reframe the future of logistics around customer value, increasing productivity, championing growth, and developing the right talent.”
Gartner’s survey of 306 logistics leaders completed in December 2024 focused on their top priorities through the year 2030. Improving customer experience through more service offerings was the top-ranked initiative, closely followed by increasing digitalisation of processes and offerings, and automation of physical execution.
To follow through on these ambitions, logistics leaders must overcome challenges including:
- Internal Challenges from Entrenched Practices: Often stemming from institutional practices that prioritise cost optimisation over innovation and value creation, many leaders face internal metrics reinforcing conventional behaviours, lack of infrastructure investment, and insufficient autonomy to implement change.
- Lack of External Investment: Many must contend with inadequate public investment in infrastructure which hampers efforts to adopt automation and digitalisation. Collaboration with local authorities and industry partners will be crucial to expand logistics capacity and overcome these hurdles.
Gonzalez highlights the importance of emphasising innovation alongside cost optimisation in creating balanced logistics scorecards. Additionally, collaboration with local authorities, real estate developers, and third-party logistics (3PL) service providers on infrastructure investment opportunities is important to expand logistics capacity.
Fifty percent of high-performing logistics leaders ranked automating and mechanising physical handling tasks as being the most important future value-creating activity for logistics functions. For all survey respondents, the by-product of taking a longer-term and more strategic approach to logistics value and investments is to increase logistics productivity, which is a more sustainable and robust approach to cost optimisation.
Logistics leaders’ focus on digitalisation and automation will also require an enhanced strategy towards talent acquisition and upskilling. Nearly 70% of leaders agree that future logistics functions will be populated by data analysts and automation engineers. In the next five years, logistics talent must adopt different skill sets benefiting from and complemented by machines.
“It is indisputable that the digitalisation of logistics will fundamentally change the skill sets needed,” adds Gonzalez. “To increasingly provide strategic value to the business, logistics leaders must invest in new skills and competencies around data analysis and automation engineering. Additionally, new roles and job profiles will need to be developed to attract employees with the requisite diagnostic and data visualisation skills.”