Logistics Firms Staying Flexible for the Future
[Stay on top of transportation news: .]
In a complex and ever-changing world, successful logistics operations increasingly hinge on the ability to adapt.
Logistics companies are prioritizing flexibility and resilience at a time when global trade patterns are shifting, freight market conditions remain challenging, technology is advancing rapidly and the next supply chain disruption may be right around the corner.
While navigating the uncertainty and potential business fallout from ongoing trade disputes and potential tariffs, shippers and their logistics providers can apply the lessons they learned during the coronavirus pandemic at the beginning of this decade.
“The big thing the pandemic taught most companies that survived — and thrived — through that event is how to be flexible,” said , chief scientist at and senior research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Center for Transportation & Logistics.
Responding quickly to changing business conditions can give third-party logistics providers an edge against their competitors.
“If you want to be as successful and resilient as possible and stand the test of time throughout these volatility cycles, you have to be fast,” said , director of global supply chain at the Inventory Management Solutions division of multinational logistics company DSV.
Love agreed that the logistics industry has sharpened its focus on supply chain resilience and adaptability in recent years to better contend with unknowns and disruptions.
“The problem is people don’t know how to do it,” he said.
In addition to nimble decision-making, Love emphasized the value of diligent risk planning.
►Top 100 3PLs Face Slow Growth, Trade Uncertainty
►Logistics Firms Staying Flexible for the Future
►Map: Where the Top 100 Are
►Armstrong: A Time of Uncertainty for Logistics Providers
►3PLs Face Mixed Results Across Segments in 2024
Sector Rankings
Freight Brokerage | Dedicated
Dry Storage Warehousing
Refrigerated Warehousing
Ocean Freight | Airfreight
To better position themselves for the future, companies should understand the factors that are truly driving demand, as well as the constraints in their supply networks, along with the potential likelihood, severity and frequency of potential risks and the associated costs.
“That is how you become resilient in my mind,” Love said. “You think about it intentionally. You discuss it overtly. You plan for it. And you put cost to it.”
DSV’s IMS business provides inventory management optimization combined with supply chain finance services and a sourcing network to help companies keep production flowing through industry disruptions and supply shortages, said Love, who joined DSV after nearly two decades at Intel in the semiconductor company’s supply chain operations.
DSV ranks No. 11 on the 2025 Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest logistics companies in North America.
Trade Tensions and Tariffs
International trade policies have been in a state of flux this year as the second Trump administration has been announcing, enacting and sometimes adjusting or rolling back new tariffs on imported goods, especially those from Canada, Mexico and China.
These rapidly shifting tariff policies, aimed in part at inducing businesses to shift manufacturing back to the United States, have sparked counter-tariffs from other countries while creating uncertainty for global supply chains.
Many U.S. companies have been moving production out of China for years, DAT’s Caplice said, but tariffs on Mexico could loom as a larger issue given the recent nearshoring trend that has been boosting manufacturing in that country and driving cross-border freight demand.
, CEO of DHL Supply Chain North America, pointed out that these types of trade tensions have flared up before. He specifically referenced tariffs that former President Ronald Reagan imposed on Japan in the 1980s.
DHL's Patrick Kelleher outlining supply chain trends at the Manifest 2025 conference in Las Vegas. (Seth Clevenger/Transport Topics)
“The things we’re hearing today about tariffs are not new, and are not going to go away,” Kelleher said during a presentation at the Manifest 2025 logistics technology conference in February in Las Vegas.
“As an industry, we need to focus on how we’re adapting to that as a variable in trade, and making sure we’re finding the best path for our customers as we’re moving forward,” he said.
Even with tariff disputes creating uncertainty, Kelleher said global trade will continue to grow, especially in certain fast-growing sectors such as the pharmaceutical industry.
He also noted that supply chains are growing longer and more complex. For example, products partially manufactured in China and then finished in Vietnam or Thailand may be shipped to Mexico before finally entering the United States.
“Those handoffs create a lot of complexity and that’s where mistakes can happen,” Kelleher said.
As a result, technology-enabled freight visibility is becoming increasingly important, he added.
DHL Supply Chain’s North American operations rank No. 13 on the TT Top 100 list of 3PLs.
Managing Complexity
The types of services offered by logistics firms have continued to evolve as supply chains have become more sophisticated.
Increasingly, global manufacturers need help navigating vast networks of suppliers and experts in an economy where companies have become increasingly specialized, DSV’s Love said.
“The reality is our world has become so complex… it is almost overbearing,” he said. “You can’t even figure out where to start.”
If you want to be as successful and resilient as possible and stand the test of time throughout these volatility cycles, you have to be fast.
Stuart Love, DSV
Image
Love described DSV’s IMS business as a fifth-party logistics provider that manages not only the logistics and inventory needs of its customers but also connects with broader supply networks and specialists.
The role of the 5PL, Love said, is “consolidating all those very specialized kinds of disciplines into a single entity that can manage it for you.”
This approach is more comprehensive than individual 3PL services or even the holistic supply chain management offered by a fourth-party logistics provider.
Workforce development is another long-term concern for the logistics field.
In addition to meeting a need for more engineering and data analytics skills, the supply chain industry must bring in a younger generation of workers with different expectations and priorities for their careers.
DHL’s Kelleher said company culture will play an important role in attracting the very best talent.
“The No. 1 ingredient, in our view, in creating a competitive supply chain — and making your supply chain a competitive weapon — is to have the very best people working together in a culture that supports innovation, allows failures and makes sure that people love what they’re doing, and love being part of making the supply chain run every day,” he said.
Freight Market Outlook
For the past few years, transportation providers have been enduring a period of prolonged weakness in freight rates due to an oversupply of truck capacity relative to demand.
Deepti Yenireddy of Boon.ai explores how artificial intelligence is transforming workflows in the trucking industry. Tune in above or by going to .
The freight market has been slowly recovering from a sharp downturn that began in 2022, but growth has been gradual as the industry climbs out of that deep trough, said DAT’s Caplice, who described the scenario as an “L-shaped” recovery.
, DAT’s chief product and technology officer, added that the load board operator and analytics firm is “cautiously optimistic” that freight market conditions are improving but continues to plan for a “relatively flat recovery until we see otherwise.”
“I think that’s pretty good advice for anyone who’s in the freight industry right now — cautious optimism but plan for it being a slog,” Gill said.
As the freight market recovers, DAT is working to make it more secure.
The company recently introduced new carrier identity authentication tools for users of its DAT One load board to help mitigate freight fraud, a growing concern for companies across the supply chain.
“Nearly all fraud — well into the 95% range — starts with some sort of identity fraud,” Gill said. “Somebody is masquerading as someone they are not.”
DAT also is enabling freight brokers to post loads only to carriers that meet their specific criteria rather than any user on the platform, while also providing guidance to carriers on how they can become more visible in the marketplace by, for example, updating their insurance information.
“We think we’re going to be able to help both sides of the network with this,” Gill said.
How AI Could Transform Freight Operations
As logistics companies contend with shifting trade policies and a challenging freight environment, they also face a fast-changing technology landscape.
DAT’s Gill noted that Chinese AI firm DeepSeek has changed perceptions about the time and cost required to build foundational AI models. The startup company attracted widespread attention earlier this year with its cost-effective approach to training AI models, potentially paving the way for other developers.
Warehousing providers like DSV are increasingly looking to AI to boost efficiency and improve processes. (DSV)
Now it is increasingly feasible for companies in the freight transportation industry to build custom AI models trained on massive amounts of data — not a decade from now, but in the next couple years, Gill said.
“It’s acceleration,” he said. “I think these changes are coming a lot faster than people thought.”
, group director for product development and innovation at Ryder Supply Chain Solutions, predicted that many AI-enabled functions soon will become widely used in the freight transportation industry.
Ryder, for one, is using AI to help unlock the value of unstructured data — the underutilized information that resides in various formats, such as emails and documents, that make it difficult to extract and feed into data analytics.
“We’re really focusing on how we bring it all together and leverage all of it in ways we haven’t been able to do in the past,” Yoder said.
Ryder has been automating business processes for years, but now the company is exploring opportunities to implement agentic AI platforms to continue raising the bar for efficiency.
“A lot of those agentic capabilities we’re looking at are behind the scenes, and it just makes that human being that much more powerful essentially,” Yoder said. “The key is understanding which components of a workflow to automate and which components you specifically don’t automate.”
During the past few years, Ryder has embraced a “data first” approach within its dedicated fleet operations to standardize its business processes and ultimately enhance customer service and improve cost efficiency, he said. That effort has helped the fleet navigate the soft freight market conditions that have squeezed the industry.
Ryder Supply Chain Solutions is a business unit of truck leasing and logistics provider Ryder System.
’s logistics operations rank No. 7 on the logistics TT100.
Want more news? Listen to today's daily briefing above or go here for more info
Shippers also are embracing technology to enhance their supply chains.
Consumer packaged goods giant Unilever, for instance, has been investing in digitization and process automation to drive efficiency and flexibility, said , executive vice president and chief supply chain officer for the company’s ice cream division.
During a session at Manifest 2025, he recommended that companies establish digital models of their supply chain operations to improve scenario planning and enable nimbler decision-making.
“Creating a digital twin of your supply chain is the biggest advice I would give anyone, no matter how big or small your supply chain is,” he said.
This approach can pay dividends during major disruptions to global commerce, whether they be new tariffs or events like the Suez Canal obstruction that redirected ocean freight in 2021.
Desai said that modeling those types of disruptions in a digital twin environment allows businesses to quickly understand the ramifications of those events so they can respond swiftly and appropriately.
“Ultimately, this is about faster decisions and better decisions,” he said.
