The dot.com earthquake – the end of Iogistics as we know it?

Citation

(2001), "The dot.com earthquake – the end of Iogistics as we know it?", International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, Vol. 29 No. 9. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijrdm.2001.08929iab.001

The dot.com earthquake – the end of Iogistics as we know it?

The dot.com earthquake – the end of Iogistics as we know it?

Aftershocks from the dot.com earthquake will be felt for a long time to come and companies will have little choice but to accept that change will continue to be both fast and unpredictable. This was the message from the ILT Annual Logistics Debate.

An audience of logistics directors, supply chain and operations managers, consultants and software vendors agreed that initiatives such as Internet trading exchanges, while still in their early days, already had changed industry thinking on contracts, pricing, partnerships and loading.

Conference chairman and director of Industry Alliances for eLogistics, Jan Szymankiewicz, said:

We will all have to radically change our thinking on centralised warehouses, just in time delivery, supply chain structures and partnerships. The logistics industry can adapt but it will be tough.

However, to adapt, transport companies will have to enter into partnerships with other players in the supply chain. Szymankiewicz continued:

The partnerships that companies make in today's e-world will be different from those of yesteryear, but they will be just as critical to their future.

Speakers were in no doubt as to the challenges. Mark Knowles, corporate development manager for Boots Internet Ventures, said:

There is no doubt that our systems are designed for what we do today, so there is a massive systems integration job ahead for both Boots and its logisticians.

John Wiltshire, strategy development manager at Guinness Limited, said that more alliances would be needed between companies. He said:

We need to keep our existing businesses running as well as embrace new ways of doing things, but we can't do it all ourselves. How many companies have partnership managers, I wonder?

Manolis Priniotakis, senior fulfilment manager for eToys UK, talked about the challenges for e-tailers and how logistics suppliers needed to adapt:

We have to improve service, fulfil faster and with greater accuracy, handle logistics for people who have no computers or credit cards, as well as deal with returns. Suppliers have to keep up and some of them are just not used to it.

David Kirkwood, managing director of Tibbett & Britten's European Technology Logistics Division, countered by saying that logistics companies had always had to deal with the challenge of change but admitted that the current situation would strike fear into many hearts:

We have to change quickly, even if much of what has to be done is unforeseen. We have to keep the heritage, but without the baggage – and the two key differentiators are razor-sharp customer focus and excellent fulfilment.

Delegates were concerned that the partnerships envisaged through trading exchanges would throw the baby out with the bath water. One said:

Auctions give no guarantees. Companies want the certainty they get from contracts.

Another said:

We can't wait to make up efficient loads. We have to get on and deliver on time to our customers.

Szymankiewicz concluded the conference by saying:

Everyone has woken up to the Internet and virtually every company now has an e-strategy, but we have only just begun. Some aftershocks have been felt already, but there are many more to come. The next one is, surely, just around the corner.

For further information, contact Matthew Edmondson, MIA. Tel: 01233 645560; Fax: 01233 647348.