In the future, supply chains will not be driven by products and processes, but by customer needs; they will not rely on capital-intensive fixed assets and linear flows, but on modular capability ecosystems, delivered through a reliable third-party network, which can be scaled and recombined as needed; operators will become managers; new skills will be required and new work roles will be created. Tomorrow's supply chains will be autonomous and self-optimized.
Latin America as a region must project itself and generate economic growth by enhancing productive activities that are organized in more efficient supply chains from the design of a product or service, to its delivery or delivery to consumers or end markets. These activities are carried out by different actors, including suppliers of inputs and services, manufacturers, transporters and providers of logistics solutions, wholesale distributors, retailers that must articulate and offer an efficient integration to improve the management indicators of the entire logistics sector in the region, because in the near future the competitiveness of an economy will no longer depend on the actions of a company at an individual level, but on the efficient performance of all the actors and processes that make up the supply chain.
The evolution of supply chains will also be subject to changes in consumer habits, further driven by the emergence and growing acceptance of e-commerce and the "new" demands for courier and parcel companies, so logistics chains and services will tend to be more flexible and adapted to the trends of new consumers in the different countries of the region, which implies investigating markets very well to detect both challenges and opportunities to develop total solutions in logistics that promote an articulated and integrated regional logistics sector.
On the other hand, and to carry out this vision, in the future strategic alliances between logistics companies will set the tone for the exchange of innovations to add value in the supply chain, in order to improve the total services in logistics provided, and adopt and integrate the latest in technological solutions. In this way, logistics represents a great area of opportunity, growth and innovation in Latin American companies, regardless of the economic sector to which the logistics operation belongs, it should always focus on providing value for its businesses.
The future of logistics requires strategic actions to develop more integrated logistics platforms throughout Latin America, boosting the logistics sector from the local context, but thinking about impacting the regional and global context because in the coming years supply chain management will no longer have the focus of reducing costs: it will focus on differentiating services, increasing market share and even generating revenue as a growing number of customers buy premium value-added fulfillment options. The distinctions between traditional front, middle, and back office functions are blurring as the supply chain now reaches marketing on the one hand and customer service on the other.
The logistics future of Latin America requires comprehensive solutions.
Latin America urgently needs a better logistics infrastructure, with deeper regional integration and greater rule of law, to take a key role in global value supply chains.
To advance in this area, Latin American countries could greatly increase the number of their exports and achieve a better infrastructure in the processes, as long as the necessary measures are taken to become reliable partners in the supply chains valued at a globallevel, reliability that is determined by the Logistics Performance Index the quantamide the efficiency of supply chains through 6 components: (1) The performance of Customs, (2) Infrastructure, (3) International Shipments, (4) Competition of LogisticsServices, (5) Tracking and Tracking, (6) Punctuality.
This perhaps seems to be a complicated challenge, which would only be possible depending on the economic aid of each specific country, but this strategy can be developed in local industry, without requiring countries to have to build entire supply chains throughout the territory.
An example of advances in terms of infrastructure and development occurred in Brazil, where for reasons of the Football World Cup held in 2014 and the Olympic Games developed in 2016, the best excuse was generated to optimize the quality of many services that to this day are maintained.
The various logistical problems that are years old have prevented many Latin American countries from taking advantage of their conventions, thus weakening the ties that have been consolidated with so much effort.
One of the key factors for the logistics sector in Latin America is the development and prospection of technologies to advance along with the leading regions in which digital platforms must be incorporated which offer all those involved in the supply chain a world of new possibilities with digital interfaces that allow to have an end-to-end visibility of all logistics processes integrated from the point of origin to the destination or final consumer.
This article presents the vision and the future panorama or logistics of Latin America, in the next strategic axis we will address the vision from technology as a fundamental piece in the transformation that Latin American logistics will need in the coming years if it wants to raise its global competitiveness index and become a top-tier player at stake in international logistics.
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