Drones, Cloud, IoT, Blockchain Driving APAC Logistics Industry: HERE Study

The transport and logistics (T&L) industry plays an important role in the global supply chain network. In Asia Pacific, the T&L industry is very dynamic. It is driven by economic growth, evolving customer demands and rapid technological advances. After the pandemic, T&L companies are going through a transition phase, changing customer expectations, and there is new competition from start-ups and customer-competing logistics operators.

HERE Technologies, the location data and technology platform, published a first study, APAC On The Move. The report provides insights from transportation and logistics professionals across Asia Pacific (APAC) on the current technology trends and practices shaping supply chain, fleet and logistics management.

The report’s findings are the extent to which end-to-end asset tracking and shipment visibility are still a challenge for logistics companies three years after the outbreak of the pandemic. Nearly 90% of APAC logistics companies surveyed cited technology implementation challenges as their biggest barrier to achieving real-time end-to-end supply chain visibility, despite motivations to improve customer satisfaction and operational efficiency.

Major challenge: technology partnerships and implementations

More than half of the companies surveyed (52%) cited the challenge of identifying the right partners or suppliers as their biggest barrier to technology implementation. In mature economies such as Australia and Singapore, concerns about potential disruption to existing processes and services ranked high. In India and Malaysia, where the logistics industry is fragmented, knowing where to start with technology implementation is a concern.

The surveyed logistics companies want turnkey solutions that are easy to implement, less expensive, less time-consuming and minimally labor-intensive system overhauls. According to the study by HERE, software integration challenges with existing infrastructure (52%), lack of time to implement the solutions (39%) and high implementation costs (39%) are the main obstacles to adopting logistics asset tracking and shipment/cargo monitoring solutions.

Still rely on manual tracking

The pandemic has revealed the vulnerabilities of manual interventions in the global supply chain. Yet, according to the survey, approximately 45% of APAC logistics firms use asset tracking and shipment monitoring software in combination with manual inputs to track assets, shipments and cargo.

Manual processes have a greater chance of creating gaps and vulnerabilities in supply chains, and this shows that a large number of companies still do not have a robust infrastructure in place. Real-time and automated tracking solutions, on the other hand, provide opportunities to accelerate innovation and deal with disruption quickly.

Across APAC, the Japanese logistics industry leads the way with 70% of companies surveyed moving to real-time asset tracking without manual input. Japan’s logistics sector faces the looming “2024 problem” as stricter regulations – limiting truck drivers to a total of 960 hours of annual overtime work – start from April 1, 2024. As the industry prepares for this impending crisis, real-time tracking of assets is a critical step to address and alleviate labor shortages in Japan.

Technical investments motivated by customers first and financial benefits a close second

With increasing competition and rising customer expectations in the region, the logistics sector wants to improve basic business performance indicators. The strongest motivation for adopting logistics asset tracking solutions is to increase customer satisfaction (48%).

On the other hand, APAC logistics companies also prioritize financial benefits, such as increasing revenue (47%) and gaining a competitive edge in the market (41%), when purchasing logistics asset tracking solutions.

Investment in future technologies and opportunities

The study confirms that most logistics companies in APAC already use some form of Internet of Things (IoT) technology. IoT applications for warehouse management (63%), warehouse management (61%) and order management (50%) are the most popular among logistics companies in the region.

Looking ahead, more than a quarter of logistics companies in APAC plan to invest in drones (33%), robotics (30%), artificial learning and machine learning (29%). These technologies have been identified by the logistics sector to seize opportunities and create lasting competitive advantage (41%), improve operational efficiency (40%) and increase customer satisfaction (39%).

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