However looking a bit further into the future, the frame of reference needs to be different. The industry will develop to a point where all information exchanges will be entirely digital. As long as the shipment proceeds as planned, there will be no human interaction. This also means that transportation providers must have this capability if they want to stay relevant to most customers. But being automated in this way is not something shippers will be willing to pay extra for. Instead, il will be taken for granted. However as any seasoned shipper knows, shipments do not always proceed according to plan. We will still have port strikes, typhoons, washed-out rail lines, trucks that are broken down and a myriad of similar incidents. And some shippers may have specific needs that do not fit the automated models. This means that in the long run, competition between freight providers will increasingly revolve around exception handling – or in another word: customer service. Now, we are getting closer to the crux of the question: Is there a future for freight forwarders? For shippers with relatively simple transactional needs, we might indeed see an increased share of this business go directly to the container carriers. This is no different than the old worn-out comparison with consumers buying their own flight tickets online. Clearly, some of them go directly to the airlines and as long as everything goes smoothly, this is unproblematic. The challenge then arises if the service provided by the airline is disrupted. The level of service varies dramatically across different airlines. If you need more than your flight ticket, such as a hotel, a wildlife safari and a trip in a hot-air balloon, most people end up opting for a travel agent. Even though these are all services which can also be arranged online by the consumers themselves, the increasing complexity also increases the risk that something will not go according to plan. The assessment of whether to book directly or use an agent then depends on whether the consumer is willing to take on the responsibility of managing the ripple effects of exceptions when the safari is suddenly a day late due to a washed-out road or the flight is cancelled due to COVID-19. The basic mechanism is the same for freight. Some carriers and forwarders are rapidly developing and deploying digital self-service tools. They can be considered early adopters of what will, within the span of a few years, be the baseline standard. Failure to adopt the same approach will, in the long term, be the end of the companies in question, irrespective of whether they are carriers or forwarders. It then boils down to the provision of exception handling – i.e. customer service. Carriers and forwarders have different advantages and disadvantages in this context. Carriers obviously control the physical network on the ocean and can leverage this directly towards the shippers and can, in a tight market, give certain customers higher priority than others. Forwarders, on the other hand, have the ability to shift cargo between different carriers giving them more options to come up with a 'plan B' than a carrier. Hence, there is clearly a future for forwarders in general, but there is a catch. To stay competitive, it is vital to develop and deploy well-functioning automated systems. It is important to have a wide array of options in order to provide the best possible customer service when there is an exception. It becomes vital to develop intelligent tools to predict when freight is unlikely to proceed according to plan and to proactively initiate a plan B. This inherently favours larger forwarders, as the cost of deploying such digital tools can be spread on more cargo, and with size comes stronger global access to different physical transportation options. All else being equal, this will favour larger forwarders competitively. At the other end of the scale, there are specific niches in freight handled exceptionally well by very small forwarders focused on niche markets. They may focus on specific cargo types, specific
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