DHL report urges businesses to fully implement e-commerce strategies

Today, DHL released its report on “The E-Commerce Supply Chain: Overcoming Growing Pains,” calling on businesses to “urgently” solve their e-commerce supply chain challenges. In the report, DHL found that a majority of companies have failed to fully implement an e-commerce strategy, despite recognizing its importance.  

According to DHL, the evolving demands of e-commerce will compel over 50% of businesses to alter their distribution strategy. Of the 900 logistics supply chain management decision makers polled for the report,  70% rated e-commerce as of high importance to their business in terms of volume and revenue. However, the report also found that 70% of B2C companies and 60% of B2B companies are still working towards full implementation of their strategy. 

DHL identified major barriers to full strategy implementation, which include:  

• Changing customer expectations; 

• Pace of delivery; and 
• Limitations in existing infrastructure. 

Global e-commerce product lead at DHL Supply Chain, Nabil Malouli, said that “supply chains need to keep up with, and respond to new business models, service expectations and technological needs of customers in order to capture new ones and retain existing ones.” 

Ultimately, DHL found that while there is no single effective e-commerce distribution strategy, many companies are choosing to partner with third-party logistics companies (3PLs) to augment their in-house resources and capabilities and efficiently scale their operations to meet evolving consumer demand. 

As air cargo and logistics industry stakeholders worldwide prepare to support booming demand in e-commerce, only time will tell how businesses will respond to the market climate as it continues heating up.