TalkTalk Business’s transport and logistics research reveals ITDMs and frontline workers agree that the next two decades will see AIs, robots and driverless vehicles come to dominate the industry. Businesses are set to continue taking advantage of AI’s benefits and applications, such as reducing operational costs by automating inventory and service-level management.
TalkTalk Business, proudly the clear industry leader across connectivity, customer service and control, has released a whitepaper surveying senior IT decision-makers (ITDMs) and frontline workers on the future of transport and logistics. Respondents – drawn from organisations with 1,000-5,000 or more employees – were asked how technologies that already have a foothold in the sector, such as AI and automation, are expected to evolve and expand.
The transport and logistics paper finds the majority of frontline workers believe that, eventually, warehousing tasks will “mostly” or “almost entirely” be performed by robots. This is unlikely to shock the industry, but confirms the trajectory they’ve long observed of warehouse workers manning supply chains alongside their non-human counterparts. TalkTalk Business’s research underscores how robots’ ability to work efficiently can bolster the UK’s reputation for some of the most advanced logistics in the world.
The entire supply chain is set to feel the benefit of new technology, according to the new transport and logistics whitepaper. AI’s unrivalled data-processing ability – an unignorable asset for the industry – isn’t lost on ITDMs, with most anticipating it will become the main supply-chain strategist for their organisation in the next decade.
The paper also highlights differing views among the industry’s workforce – one area being driverless lorries. While almost all frontline workers predict that driverless lorries will play a key role in delivery fleets, the number of ITDMs who believe these machines will become an integral part of the supply chain is closer to 50%. These ITDMs will likely be keeping a close eye on the more commonplace smaller autonomous vehicles laying the groundwork for wider roll-out of driverless technology.
As well as looking ahead at the new technologies emerging and existing opportunities evolving, the paper also explores what businesses can do now to make the most of both. Read TalkTalk Business’s future of logistics whitepaper, ‘AI, Automation and Where Logistics Goes Next’, to find out how organisations can prepare with the right network infrastructure.
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