2023 Viewpoint: Let’s turn the page

For my first 20 years of overseeing the editorial direction of Logistics Management, I took a firm stance against “year in review” issues. I thought that staying fixed in the present and understanding the current reality was of the utmost importance, so why use precious page space to rehash what was?

Then we got blindsided by 2020, and a host of logistics and supply chain disturbances threw everything off kilter at a blinding pace. We were left with our hands on our heads wondering: What just happened?

And while we’re all eager to turn the page on 2023, this month we do our best to put the year that was into perspective for LM readers so we can better prepare for what many are saying could be an equally uneven 2024.

As Winston Churchill told the British House of Commons in a 1948 speech: “Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Well then, let’s try get our arms around what just happened, because no one wants a repeat of 2023.

And there’s no one better to sum up the past year than long-time contributing editor Brooks Bentz. Over the past several decades, Bentz has had a front row seat on board tables across the freight transportation arena, early on as a senior railroad and trucking executive and then as a logistics and supply chain consultant to some of the most prominent organizations around the world.

“Well, despite all of the talk of agility and resilience that we were supposed to install post-pandemic, much of it proved illusory when stress occurred,” says Bentz. “My sources believe that, in many cases, logistics and supply chain operations overall were shown to be brittle and unable to respond in a timely fashion, resulting in mass frustration and excess cost among producers, sellers, logistics service providers, and, of course, consumers.”

Bentz collected a well-seasoned group of industry observers to record the happenings across all modes this past year to produce this history lesson that begins on page 12.

And as part of our year in review, our edit team collected the news stories and features that we believe deserve another read. As part of this effort, group news editor Jeff Berman has combed through countless news posts from over the past 12 months and offers us his list of the top 10 news stories that shaped 2023.

According to Berman, this list is not based on pure analytics, but on the stories he believes defined 2023 after hundreds of interviews and conversations with this year’s newsmakers. “Through these conversations you tend to get the story behind the story, and this list represents the news that will most likely shape the evolving environment we’ll be facing in 2024,” he says.

The editorial team has also selected the features from our pages this year that we believe deserve a second read before we shift gears into 2024. Based on the theme that logistics operations need to build in more agility and resilience, you’ll find that this year’s collection is heavy on putting more automation, software, and robotics to work as we’re once again being asked to “do more with less” in the midst of economic uncertainty and constant change.

And before you turn the page completely on 2023, make sure to attended our 2023 Supply Chain Outlook: Preparing for what’s next (supplychain247.com/virtual-2023/). This annual event puts today’s game-changing strategies and automated solutions into perspective and offers practical tips for evaluating, implementing and leveraging these tools in an effort to streamline operations, stay relevant, and “do more with less.” It’s now on-demand.