Outlook UK Logistics
Future tense? P
redictions for the future: fraught with danger and yet somehow irresistible. But let’s take it as a giv- en that no-one really knows what is going to happen in our stumbling economy
“The outcome of the coming year depends on a bit of investment, shrewd decision-making and a sustained effort to develop the UK in emergent international trade”
over the next year or so, let alone the industry specific knowledge that all logistics, haulage and manufacturing companies want to hear. That said, those within the industry, myself included, do perhaps have cause to put forward our take on what may happen throughout the rest of the year. So, with Spring in full bloom, I am going to give you my take on how logistics (and the associated industries) can take a genuine step forward by drawing on both experience of the industry as a whole and Hellmann’s analysis of company facts and figures.
HIGH STREET, LOW CONFIDENCE
Having already pre-empted that many high street retailers would slip into administration off the back of a dismal Christmas trading period, due to revealingly poor figures last August (whereas prices at that time of year commonly increase by up to 50%, last year they fell by 20-30%, belying the dismal confidence of European retailers), the future of the high street does, at present, look grim. We’ve said a fond farewell to Peacocks, Blacks and Pumpkin Patch, and even a herit- age brand such as Kodak has announced it will cease trading. All of this is bad news for retailers, but also the network of subsidiary industries that get the products into the shops. An unhealthy high street puts a huge amount of pressure on the logistics and manufacturing
18 May 2012 Storage Handling Distribution
www.shdlogistics.com
ma- laise
is down to confi-
dence, or a critical lack of.
Suppliers and retailers do not believe that they will sell goods in the quantities that they did a dec- ade ago. Manufacturers do not believe that suppliers will buy in quantities that they once did, while logistics and freight forwarding operators are the skinny meat in the sand- wich, transporting ever-decreasing cargos. Air and ocean freight import volumes have
Matthew Marriott, commercial director of Hellmann Worldwide Logistics UK – one of the largest privately-owned and family-run logistical global networks – peers into his crystal ball to predict the future for the UK logistics industry.
industries beneath it, reducing what would normally be a primary source of revenue. There are, however, a few ways that the industry can perhaps contribute to creating a more productive and profitable economic environment; and for a com- plex business, most are strangely simple. For example, a great deal of the current
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