Most texts about logistics trends for 2025 that you’ll read will follow similar lines to each other. If I had to guess, I’d say they’ll talk about data, artificial intelligence, and sustainability. I prefer to start from a different premise: one of the main freight transport trends for 2025 is the ongoing change in how many companies currently view logistics.
Those who haven’t understood this new vision are already starting to fall behind. Although it may seem utopian, planning logistics strategy from now on requires imagining a future where all trucks in the fleet serving your company will always travel full. When making a delivery, they’ll have another scheduled, adding intelligence to cargo selection. No kilometer will be wasted. Every driver will be able to deliver more using fewer resources. This is the new standard.
Although no one has yet achieved the desired 100% utilization rate, this type of vision is at least a good compass. Yes, it’s a new Road. The vision of always running with full trucks is driven by teams with deep knowledge about transport routines, who use their experience to innovate, restructure freight according to new times, and make digitalization one of their high-performance tools.
Of course there are obstacles. According to estimates from the Brazilian market, trucks still run empty on average between 30% and 40% of their time. However, organizations have realized that there’s no alternative to remaining competitive in the market other than embracing a new vision of logistics. The difference between companies stuck in analog and those that have incorporated changes to leap forward in service level, agility, and cost reduction has become more evident.
That’s why I don’t like saying technology is a trend for 2025. Year after year, technology fits into this category – it’s nothing new. According to McKinsey consultancy, only 13% of Brazilian organizations that have digitalized part of their supply chains fully utilize the potential of what they’ve implemented. So, technology has arrived – and what was the consequence?
Even if in many cases the results of technological resources haven’t yet peaked, I observe within companies a greater awareness about the need to organize to expand the effects of innovation.
There’s an awareness that we need to involve freight expertise, review and simplify processes, train people, reassume freight transport strategy within organizations and, with a systemic vision, encompass everything that can generate operational efficiency in logistics. In other words: never lose sight of the possibility of always running with full trucks.
The new vision of logistics is what helps us better understand the role of sustainability on the Road too. Encouraging sustainable intelligence with solutions born with reduced impacts, helping consume less fuel, generate fewer harmful gases for the environment, and improve the quality of life for logistics professionals. More than sustainability itself, the new logistics vision that can’t exist without these principles is the true trend.
What about your company? Have you already changed your view on logistics?
