Logistics Trend Radar

Throughout this series, we’ve discovered how the DHL Logistics Trend Radar (LTR) has identified the technologies and trends that are going to help shape our future. In this final episode, we find out how the LTR is used as a tool to help map opportunities and solve challenges for DHL’s Customers. We take a brief look inside DHL’s Innovation Centres, discover more about what it takes to put this forward-thinking document together, and just why DHL publishes the Logistics Trend Radar.

Even though our lives are more online and digital than ever, we still live in a physical world. But combining technology and data with that world means the objects we see and touch every day are being transferred into the digital realm. In this episode, we discuss how virtual versions of products and processes - also known as Digital Twins - is a business practice that is expanding in its scope and use.

Imagine if you never had to buy another lightbulb... Imagine instead that you could just pay for the light it emitted - and when it broke, someone sent you a new one, and again you paid just for the time that it was switched on. This is the concept behind servitisation. In this episode we look at how it’s changing the world of business, and what it means for companies and their customers.

It’s a topic that sci-fi creators and fans have been fascinated with for decades, and to most people, the idea that human strength and ability can be enhanced by machines remains in the realm of fantasy. But as we’ll find out in this episode, a symbiosis between humans and technology is already improving our daily lives at work and at home. More strength, added intelligence, and better speed: these are the superpowers delivered by bionic enhancement.

These days, the sound of a drone is no longer as otherworldly as it once was, thanks to the wide range of applications in which the technology finds itself. From military to farming, and from filmmaking to leisure, the drone has flown its way into our common experience. In this episode, we explore how drones are set to become an even bigger part of our lives, and the challenges faced by the technology. We chat about some of its lesser-known applications, and explore a few areas in which it may be landing in the near future.

Someone once called it “the final frontier” - and it’s a frontier into which we are taking our first tentative steps: space. In this episode, we go boldly into zero-gravity logistics, explore how interplanetary deliveries are shaping up, and discover how yesterday’s science fiction is now becoming a daily reality. This is the brave new world of space logistics.

The Internet of Things means you can switch on a light in your home, even if you’re on the other side of the world. It can deliver the power of the internet to even the most mundane everyday objects - and its network is expanding at an astonishing rate: by the end of 2021, it’s predicted that there will be 46 billion Internet of Things devices in use. Christopher Fuss heads DHL’s Internet of Things Smart Sensor team, and he explains what the technology is about in this episode.

Every day, we leave behind a long, detailed (and invisible) itinerary. The places we go, people we interact with, things we buy, when we browse the internet or use our mobile phones. This trail can reveal a lot about our daily routines. It’s the same for business - every transaction, product, service or operation can accurately provide insights into the health of the business and how best to develop it. In this episode we learn more about what exactly data analytics is - and isn’t - and how it’s shaping up to become an indispensable part of any business.

Robots have fascinated the human imagination for centuries, and while we don’t quite mingle with them on the streets or chat to them as they help out around the house - yet - they are very much a part of our lives, working to up the efficiency of facilities producing everything from toys to ships. In this episode, we delve deeper into the world of robotics and automation to find out just how they fit into logistics, how they’re evolving, the role they’ve played during the Covid pandemic, and what we can expect from them in the future.

Consider everything around you, and imagine how it got to you. It almost certainly used the not-so-hidden world of logistics to end up in your hands, and this world is easily impacted by technology, trends, geo-politics and global pandemics. It’s also a business that can’t survive by reacting... it has to predict. For the past five years, DHL has released an annual Trend Radar Report - a forecast of the things that will shape the world to come. In this podcast series, we’ll be exploring some of those trends, and finding out from DHL and their partners how the world is set to change - from self-driving cars and artificial intelligence, to the internet of things and space transport. In this episode, we take a broad look at the latest edition of the Trend Radar Report, and grab a sneak peek at some of the topics to be uncovered later in the series.

With the rapid advancement of technology, and the impact of a global pandemic being felt in every industry, the future workplace has become almost impossible to define. But there is a roadmap that provides markers to that future, and a series that covers them in detail: the DHL Logistics Trend Radar Podcast. DHL experts and senior management define and discuss the technologies, tools and business practices that will shape not only the logistics industry, but businesses and life in general in the years to come.