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Top financial performing customs brokers and freight forwarders are almost twice as likely (40% vs. 23%) to have larger percentage increases in their IT investments compared to poorer financial performing companies, according to a new Descartes study.
“Investing in technology continues to be the top strategy for brokers and forwarders to address continuous economic and industry changes,” says Chris Jones, EVP industry at Descartes. “Top performing forwarders and brokers are much more aggressive in their IT strategies (see Figure 2) and investments to help sustain their competitive advantage and enhance profitability.”
Top financial performing customs brokers and freight forwarders are almost twice as likely (40% vs. 23%) to have larger percentage increases in their IT investments compared to poorer financial performing companies, according to a new Descartes study.
“Investing in technology continues to be the top strategy for brokers and forwarders to address continuous economic and industry changes,” says Chris Jones, EVP industry at Descartes. “Top performing forwarders and brokers are much more aggressive in their IT strategies (see Figure 2) and investments to help sustain their competitive advantage and enhance profitability.”
From Descartes Systems Group:
- This year is seeing the highest percentage of respondents offering customs brokerage services – 21% higher than 2022’s study.
- Global instability remained on top in 2022 (50%) and a new answer option, inflation, was second (36%).
- Pricing pressure remained the No. 1 industry challenge (51%) while real-time visibility moved up to No. 2 (36%).
- Pricing pressure was less important to Top Performers (44%), but customers wanting more data in real-time was most important (46%), while Bottom Performers had an opposing view (64% and 23%, respectively).
- More real-time tracking and automated business processes (49%) was the top overall choice in 4 of the last 5 years.
- Digital customer self-service (43%) remained No. 1 overall, but decreased by 8% in 2023.
- Investing in technology (70%) has been the top and dominant overall strategy for all 8 years, but down 7% vs. 2022.
- Large volume respondents (64%) are more actively pursuing e-commerce investment and business changes.
- Technology as a fundamental part of the growth strategy was 1.7 times more important for Large volume (48%) vs. Small volume (28%) respondents.
- Automating carrier status updates was a new choice in 2023 and started out as the second highest at 35%.
