Logistics roles are no longer just about managing and tracking – foresight is key

I’m guessing that when most of us think of careers in logistics visions of transport jobs and packing tracking come to mind. Simplified views of the industry focus on getting goods from one place to another. Even though, to a big degree, this still holds true, the HOW of logistics processes has changed greatly in the past half-decade and that has impacted the types of skills needed for evolving industry roles. Increasingly, businesses are seeking more specialised talent for operations and process management and to plan future service viability.

So what specialised skills are need? Tech, tech, tech

Top of mind are tech-related skills. This involves, as you likely guessed, an understanding of working with AI-driven tools, understanding how AI simplifies and expedites processes. At the same time, candidates seeking employment in logistics also need what I call conductor skills. These are roles that involve skills in machine operations for robots brought in as pickers and warehouse transport drivers – in much of logistics today understanding of robotic process automation (RPA) and how to programme, oversee and maintain or service warehouse robots is a critical skill for ensuring operational flows run smoothly. Then on top of the intelligence and machine elements in modern logistics set-ups, you also need the data workers. These are the visionaries and mappers who take care of the foresight element mentioned in the title to this article. For any worker who thrives on analysing big amounts of data to spot and interpret trends, you will be worth your weight in gold for modern logistics centres. This is because the past few years have taught us that change is the only constant in our world of business. So in order to expect the unexpected and decide what that means for ensuring operations without massive bottlenecks, the data analyst or data scientist is going to be the hire that provides guidance for keeping operations on the right path.

Sustainable logistics is a thing

Within the past year or so, I have been seeing more articles pop up about the role of sustainability specialists in the Logistics sector. These experts essentially monitor and assess processes to measure environmental impact and regulatory compliance and then put forward proposals for ensuring business operations are healthy while meeting obligations in terms of carbon footprint reduction, minimising fuel consumption, limiting waste, etc. This role runs hand in hand with activities carried out by the data scientists mentioned above, for sustainability specialists will focus on lean operations and risk mitigation. Together with a logistics company’s executive team and its financial department, the sustainability specialist will deliver strategies that both minimise cost margins and ensure commitment to stakeholder obligations; whether it’s through shorter transport routes, fuel-efficient vehicle fleets or conscientious resource planning and usage.

Don’t forget the Soft Skills

In our current push to modernise and innovate, there is a risk that we forget to train workers how to integrate their valuable human skills with newly automated and AI-driven processes. Still across the logistics operating chain people power will remain critically relevant. And as people, we want to be acknowledged and understood as we work with tech-driven operations. This means that logistics businesses cannot afford to neglect the need for good communications and other soft skills that sit on top of logistics service delivery. If any glitches or supply chain bottlenecks occur, you need managerial and process oversight talent that has high-level communications, EQ and SQ skills. These are prized workers who can talk both fellow employees and customers through temporary operations issues and ensure all problems are resolved to conclusions satisfactory for all sides. While machine-driven processes will boost simplicity and efficiency, people skills will remain vital to helping all actors in logistics processes work through hiccups and/or misunderstandings and ensure goods get where they need to be when they need to be there.

There are lots of interesting and exciting opportunities coming down the pipeline for candidates interested in Logistics careers. Those applicants who can cleverly manage people-machine collaboration, process foresight and long-term sustainability will be poised to shine in future industry roles.