E-commerce and its relevance to the logistics market in the Middle East 

The Logistics industry has traditionally been focusing on B2B rather than on the B2C segment. But with the rapid growth of e-commerce globally and, in particular, in the Middle East where it is estimated to reach $28 billion by 2022, the sector entails huge business opportunities for the logistics industry. That’s why logistics companies realize that they need to catch up and adopt to the speedy e-commerce logistics requirements quickly by using tools such as technology.

“Demand and supply in the B2B2C model is definitely an issue. The problem with forecasting is that its invariably incorrect and the role of companies like ours is to bridge those gaps in resource management, vehicles, manpower and storage to manage the peaks re-actively. This doesn’t of course enable companies to provide more efficiency and cost reduction in the supply chain, but this is where we have been trying to develop integration capability with as many partners as possible to utilize technology to be more organized in the downstream because the more information you have the more you can plan. Planning is a delicate problem, this year for example we over-estimated the demands of the market for our partners. So the need to get that reactionary and proactive management to work in tandem is extremely important.”, Abhishek pointed out.

This year’s Leaders in Logistics Summit again brought together the best of the region’s supply chain community discussing the most pertinent issues affecting the industry, next areas of growth, and how industry players can position themselves to capitalise on this growth. It was an honor to be an active part of it!