Collaboration in Other Industries

In the previous chapter we have discussed a few recent logistics developments that impact collaboration in the logistics industry. Most often, these developments are aimed at improving efficiency and as a result they reduce the negative impact of transport on our climate. In the end, transport is not a goal in itself. It enables consumption, it does not generally improve it. A product is produced at location A and will be consumed at location B, all transport in between should in principle be minimized. It is therefore understandable that there is a tendency to foster collaboration to make this possible. However, as we will see in later chapters, collaboration in logistics proves to be cumbersome. Enthusiastic pilot projects are often discontinued when external funding or internal collaboration champions disappear. There are success stories of collaboration, but it goes too far to say that the logistics industry went through a major paradigm shift and has broadly switched from competition to collaboration.