An increasing number of manufacturers and other suppliers are shipping consolidated container loads of products from point of origin to South Africa. Using a local logistics company, the shipment is then broken down into individual orders and delivered directly to customers, says distribution company TNT Express sales and marketing manager Shane de Beer.

De Beer explains that this speeds up delivery and removes the cost of warehousing, as well as the cost of transporting the goods to a warehouse before delivering them to the customer.

“We are receiving more and more requests for this, as customers look at the elements they can remove from the supply chain to increase efficiencies and reduce costs,” he says.

This is giving rise to supersized warehouses being built worldwide and smaller ones disappearing.

Further, there is an emergence of increasingly larger container ships, as more and more products are being moved around the world.

One of the driving factors behind this trend is that companies are becoming more ‘globally intelligent’ and are sourcing products in the smartest way possible, highlights De Beer.

Companies are sourcing more goods from the Far East as opposed to the US and Europe, as it is much cheaper and the additional cost of transport is far less than the difference in the margins.

Manufacturers that know their markets and understand their specific customers’ needs are attaching price tags before shipping, says De Beer.

“The overriding message here is that there is an increasing need for logistics companies to keep up with changing trends and understand the implications to enable them to be proactive regarding customer needs and the needs of customers’ customers,” he adds.

“We need to be constantly looking at what value we are giving our customers, compared with the value we could be providing them and have the agility and flexibility to change our business models accordingly,” notes De Beer.

Customers want to track the progress of their deliveries as they move through the supply chain. They also expect the logistics provider to have the technology in place to support automated processes, supply chain visibility, planning and forecasting, as well as smart routing capabilities.

“Customer expectations like these are having a marked impact on the market,” he says.

The challenge for logistics companies is not to change their business models for the sake of changing, which is a difficult decision to make when new trends are emerging at such a rapid rate.

An example of a major potential market disruptor is three-dimensional printing, which could radically change the way goods move around, as it promises to make it easy for anyone to produce components and finished products locally, cheaply and easily, instead of importing, he explains.

“In future, it may be possible to produce a new carburettor for a motorbike by just plugging in one of these devices and printing it,” comments De Beer.

Further, there are trends that have been almost unnoticed over the past 20 years in South Africa and that have impacted on the movement of goods to some extent.

These include the disappearance of thousands of corner cafes and the emergence of convenience stores in fuel station forecourts that are open all hours.

Another is large retail chains such as Pick n Pay and Woolworths selling franchises, which has resulted in smaller versions of their stores springing up all over the country.