Re-orientation: Transformation in Logistics

Published 27 July 2020

Sally Morris-Smith, a Logistics expert in our Real Estate team, considers some of the immediate and long term trends for the Logistics sector.

The COVID-19 pandemic will result in long term disruption and major change. The sector will be affected by reduced international trade, increased regionalisation and an accelerated move to on-line buying. Supply chains will alter, requiring a new approach to warehousing and logistics parks.

For organisations with risky, opaque or vulnerable supply chains, de-risking and even reshoring capacity to home markets will likely form an immediate priority. Yet being local does not necessarily imply improved resilience; risk concentration is shifted rather than eliminated. Eventually we may see a broad acceptance that supply chains reorient from aiming to be just-in-time to just-in-case, implying the end of ‘lean,’ and a reduction, but not elimination, of complex global supply chains.

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