It's been a remarkable 40 years since the first edition of our magazine rolled off the presses. Back then, the emphasis was on the rulings of the Interstate Commerce Commission and the other regulatory agencies that controlled the lives of traffic managers and the carriers that served them.

The people responsible for moving the freight were valued within the organization, but largely for what they did not do, such as raising transportation costs or violating the regulations. The thought that a transportation manager could actually add value to any business activity, let alone be a source of competitive market advantage, never entered anyone's mind.

Well, things change. And far more often than not, things in our profession have changed for the better.

Our special 40th Anniversary Report inside chronicles the most significant of those changes since Traffic Management (our original name) was launched four decades ago. Anniversaries, of course, are time-honored occasions for looking back. Our staff enjoyed researching the key developments of the past 40 years and coming up with the timeline and our take on the "Top 10" events of the period.

But anniversaries also offer the perfect opportunity to look ahead—which is just as fun as writing the retrospective but a little more risky. Does anyone really know what will happen 40 years from now? Of course not, but over a shorter-term horizon, we predict that logistics people will almost certainly face three emerging challenges:

• Managing outside relationships. The outsourcing of logistics functions continues unabated across all industries and companies of all sizes. Although that means someone else is now doing the work, all of these third-party relationships need to be managed just as comprehensively as do the in-house departments. Those managers who know how to put in place the systems and control mechanisms to make these outside relationships successful are tomorrow's rising stars.
• Understanding financial measures. Until now, logistics managers could get by with a casual familiarity with the basics of financial accounting and analysis. Going forward, that won't be enough. Tomorrow's logistics executives will need to understand the financial component of every activity they manage—internal or external. And for any hoped-for investment in resources (human, technological or otherwise), they had better be able to provide hard numbers on the expected return.
• Excelling in the global arena. We all know the clichés: The world is getting smaller, we're in a global economy and so on. As with most good clichés, these are largely grounded in truth. Yet all too many logistics managers still seem to be stuck in the domestic mindset. To stand out, they need to figure out how they can more effectively support—and in some cases, even initiate—international growth.
• To all of our readers, good luck in this exciting new world of logistics—whether you've got one or 40 more years ahead of you.