Three years after the recession of 2008-2009, the third-party logistics (3PL) market in North America is showing clear signs of recovery. According to Armstrong & Associates, in 2010 the market's gross revenue exceeded 2008 to reach $127.3 billion, a 19-percent increase over 2009. In 2011 and 2012, the 3PL industry has so far delivered 6-percent annual growth—two to three times overall economic growth, demonstrating the strength of demand and the leverage that the major 3PL service providers hold.
The industry's operating income has recovered even more strongly and in 2010 exceeded 2008 levels. The positive outlooks for both gross revenues and operating income, shown in Figure 1, have been sustained by strong performance in volume and pricing.
Impact of the recession
The 3PL sector includes outsourced logistics services both basic (warehousing, truck brokerage, intermodal, ocean and airfreight forwarding, and customs clearance) and customized (transportation management, load optimization, fulfillment, light assembly, and returns management).
Growth in the North American 3PL market in the past few years has been driven by supply and demand dynamics that grew out of the recession. These dynamics have transformed the market in ways that will keep paying dividends for third-party logistics service providers in the coming years.
Consider supply dynamics, for example. Significant capacity rationalization has resulted in rising rates. Low demand during the downturn led to a decrease in market capacity for most resources and assets (truck drivers, ocean and air capacity, tractors, trailers, railcars, containers, and warehousing space). Asset owners made a conscious effort to bring capacity back online slowly as they continued to enhance their cost structures, maintain pricing, and adjust to new regulations that constrained their hours of operation. This capacity adjustment led to higher rates, a situation that is expected to continue in the coming years as supply operates closer to demand.
Demand dynamics have changed, too. Shippers have been under pressure to optimize their logistics costs while finding the capacity to serve their customers. As a result, they have been forced to become more innovative and open-minded to implementing new transportation solutions, such as intermodal services, collaborative networks, and continuous moves. These new demands have made providers of 3PL services more essential to running shippers' supply chains.
Given this context, it's not surprising that 3PLs have reinforced their position as shippers' strategic service providers. Shippers have relied on them to find solutions, either by optimizing capacity in a rapidly evolving market, or by designing and offering new supply chain solutions that engage multiple transportation modes or shippers. Third-party providers bring a set of unique capabilities to the table that are not easily replicated by asset owners. These include technology infrastructure encompassing multiple providers; best-in-class track-and-trace and reporting capabilities; supply chain design and management skills; and the flexibility to establish the optimal carrier base to serve a shipper's specific needs.
Challenges to overcome
Despite the positive results and strengthened market position of the past few years, 3PLs must adapt in order to overcome such challenges as:
Changing demand patterns that have led to more complex and global supply chains
An evolving customer base, caused by new customers from emerging economies entering the market and traditional customers aggressively seeking ways to reduce costs
Difficulty establishing strategic relationships with shippers as some parts of the offering become commoditized and the cost of switching providers is reduced
"Green" mandates from shippers reflecting differing regulations around the world
Third-party providers will have to revise their service offerings and business models over time to meet these new market demands. By provoking a shift in the competitive landscape, these new demands can represent opportunities for both newcomers and existing players to gain market share.
In our view, the 3PL market will continue to be strong over the medium to long term. Shippers will continue to actively seek creative ways to optimize supply chains, a service that 3PLs are uniquely suited to provide, especially in markets with tight capacity. As long as 3PL providers can keep pace with customers' demands, the market will remain attractive.
The practice consists of 5,000 professionals from Accenture and from Avanade—the consulting firm’s joint venture with Microsoft. They will be supported by Microsoft product specialists who will work closely with the Accenture Center for Advanced AI. Together, that group will collaborate on AI and Copilot agent templates, extensions, plugins, and connectors to help organizations leverage their data and gen AI to reduce costs, improve efficiencies and drive growth, they said on Thursday.
Accenture and Avanade say they have already developed some AI tools for these applications. For example, a supplier discovery and risk agent can deliver real-time market insights, agile supply chain responses, and better vendor selection, which could result in up to 15% cost savings. And a procure-to-pay agent could improve efficiency by up to 40% and enhance vendor relations and satisfaction by addressing urgent payment requirements and avoiding disruptions of key services
Likewise, they have also built solutions for clients using Microsoft 365 Copilot technology. For example, they have created Copilots for a variety of industries and functions including finance, manufacturing, supply chain, retail, and consumer goods and healthcare.
Another part of the new practice will be educating clients how to use the technology, using an “Azure Generative AI Engineer Nanodegree program” to teach users how to design, build, and operationalize AI-driven applications on Azure, Microsoft’s cloud computing platform. The online classes will teach learners how to use AI models to solve real-world problems through automation, data insights, and generative AI solutions, the firms said.
“We are pleased to deepen our collaboration with Accenture to help our mutual customers develop AI-first business processes responsibly and securely, while helping them drive market differentiation,” Judson Althoff, executive vice president and chief commercial officer at Microsoft, said in a release. “By bringing together Copilots and human ambition, paired with the autonomous capabilities of an agent, we can accelerate AI transformation for organizations across industries and help them realize successful business outcomes through pragmatic innovation.”
That result came from the company’s “GEP Global Supply Chain Volatility Index,” an indicator tracking demand conditions, shortages, transportation costs, inventories, and backlogs based on a monthly survey of 27,000 businesses. The October index number was -0.39, which was up only slightly from its level of -0.43 in September.
Researchers found a steep rise in slack across North American supply chains due to declining factory activity in the U.S. In fact, purchasing managers at U.S. manufacturers made their strongest cutbacks to buying volumes in nearly a year and a half, indicating that factories in the world's largest economy are preparing for lower production volumes, GEP said.
Elsewhere, suppliers feeding Asia also reported spare capacity in October, albeit to a lesser degree than seen in Western markets. Europe's industrial plight remained a key feature of the data in October, as vendor capacity was significantly underutilized, reflecting a continuation of subdued demand in key manufacturing hubs across the continent.
"We're in a buyers' market. October is the fourth straight month that suppliers worldwide reported spare capacity, with notable contractions in factory demand across North America and Europe, underscoring the challenging outlook for Western manufacturers," Todd Bremer, vice president, GEP, said in a release. "President-elect Trump inherits U.S. manufacturers with plenty of spare capacity while in contrast, China's modest rebound and strong expansion in India demonstrate greater resilience in Asia."
Even as the e-commerce sector overall continues expanding toward a forecasted 41% of all retail sales by 2027, many small to medium e-commerce companies are struggling to find the investment funding they need to increase sales, according to a sector survey from online capital platform Stenn.
Global geopolitical instability and increasing inflation are causing e-commerce firms to face a liquidity crisis, which means companies may not be able to access the funds they need to grow, Stenn’s survey of 500 senior e-commerce leaders found. The research was conducted by Opinion Matters between August 29 and September 5.
Survey findings include:
61.8% of leaders who sought growth capital did so to invest in advanced technologies, such as AI and machine learning, to improve their businesses.
When asked which resources they wished they had more access to, 63.8% of respondents pointed to growth capital.
Women indicated a stronger need for business operations training (51.2%) and financial planning resources (48.8%) compared to men (30.8% and 15.4%).
40% of business owners are seeking external financial advice and mentorship at least once a week to help with business decisions.
Almost half (49.6%) of respondents are proactively forecasting their business activity 6-18 months ahead.
“As e-commerce continues to grow rapidly, driven by increasing online consumer demand and technological innovation, it’s important to remember that capital constraints and access to growth financing remain persistent hurdles for many e-commerce business leaders especially at small and medium-sized businesses,” Noel Hillman, Chief Commercial Officer at Stenn, said in a release. “In this competitive landscape, ensuring liquidity and optimizing supply chain processes are critical to sustaining growth and scaling operations.”
With six keynote and more than 100 educational sessions, CSCMP EDGE 2024 offered a wealth of content. Here are highlights from just some of the presentations.
A great American story
Author and entrepreneur Fawn Weaver closed out the first day of the conference by telling the little-known story of Nathan “Nearest” Green, who was born into slavery, freed after the Civil War, and went on to become the first master distiller for the Jack Daniel’s Whiskey brand. Through extensive research and interviews with descendants of the Daniel and Green families, Weaver discovered what she describes as a positive American story.
She told the story in her best-selling book, Love & Whiskey: The Remarkable True Story of Jack Daniel, His Master Distiller Nearest Green, and the Improbable Rise of Uncle Nearest. That story also inspired her to create Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey.
Weaver discussed the barriers she encountered in bringing the brand to life, her vision for where it’s headed, and her take on the supply chain—which she views as both a necessary cost of doing business and an opportunity.
“[It’s] an opportunity if you can move quickly,” she said, pointing to a recent project in which the company was able to fast-track a new Uncle Nearest product thanks to close collaboration with its supply chain partners.
A two-pronged business transformation
We may be living in a world full of technology, but strategy and focus remain the top priorities when it comes to managing a business and its supply chains. So says Roberto Isaias, executive vice president and chief supply chain officer for toy manufacturing and entertainment company Mattel.
Isaias emphasized the point during his keynote on day two of EDGE 2024. He described how Mattel transformed itself amid surging demand for Barbie-branded items following the success of the Barbie movie.
That transformation, according to Isaias, came on two fronts: commercially and logistically. Today, Mattel is steadily moving beyond the toy aisle with two films and 13 TV series in production as well as 14 films and 35 shows in development. And as for those supply chain gains? The company has saved millions, increased productivity, and improved profit margins—even amid cost increases and inflation.
A framework for chasing excellence
Most of the time when CEOs present at an industry conference, they like to talk about their companies’ success stories. Not J.B. Hunt’s Shelley Simpson. Speaking at EDGE, the trucking company’s president and CEO led with a story about a time that the company lost a major customer.
According to Simpson, the company had a customer of their dedicated contract business in 2001 that was consistently making late shipments with no lead time. “We were working like crazy to try to satisfy them, and lost their business,” Simpson said.
When the team at J.B. Hunt later met with the customer’s chief supply chain officer and related all they had been doing, the customer responded, “You never shared everything you were doing for us.”
Out of that experience, came J.B. Hunt’s Customer Value Delivery framework. The framework consists of five steps: 1) understand customer needs, 2) deliver expectations, 3) measure results, 4) communicate performance, and 5) anticipate new value.
Next year’s CSCMP EDGE conference on October 5–8 in National Harbor, Md., promises to have a similarly deep lineup of keynote presentations. Register early at www.cscmpedge.org.
2024 was expected to be a bounce-back year for the logistics industry. We had the pandemic in the rearview mirror, and the economy was proving to be more resilient than expected, defying those prognosticators who believed a recession was imminent.
While most of the economy managed to stabilize in 2024, the logistics industry continued to see disruption and changes in international trade. World events conspired to drive much of the narrative surrounding the flow of goods worldwide. Additionally, a diminished reliance on China as a source for goods reduced some of the international trade flow from that manufacturing hub. Some of this trade diverted to other Asian nations, while nearshoring efforts brought some production back to North America, particularly Mexico.
Meanwhile trucking in the United States continued its 2-year recession, highlighted by weaker demand and excess capacity. Both contributed to a slow year, especially for truckload carriers that comprise about 90% of over-the-road shipments.
Labor issues were also front and center in 2024, as ports and rail companies dealt with threats of strikes, which resulted in new contracts and increased costs. Labor—and often a lack of it—continues to be an ongoing concern in the logistics industry.
In this annual issue, we bring a year-end perspective to these topics and more. Our issue is designed to complement CSCMP’s 35th Annual State of Logistics Report, which was released in June, and includes updates that were presented at the CSCMP EDGE conference held in October. In addition to this overview of the market, we have engaged top industry experts to dig into the status of key logistics sectors.
Hopefully as we move into 2025, logistics markets will build on an improving economy and strong consumer demand, while stabilizing those parts of the industry that could use some adrenaline, such as trucking. By this time next year, we hope to see a full recovery as the market fulfills its promise to deliver the needs of our very connected world.