Kevin Higgins
Logistics/Transportation Executive
Recently Maersk announced the need to improve their services to prevent Amazon from becoming a competitor. If any of us see Amazon as only a customer, we are not giving them the credit they are due.
Amazon’s rise as a retail behemoth has been anything but traditional, so to expect their logistics needs and capabilities to resemble the status quo is, quite simply, naïve.
On the surface they resemble a retailer and a large customer to the logistics industry. But if you dive deeper, they are in reality, a logistics company. A really large, powerful, and innovative logistics company.
Amazon acquired their OTI (NVOCC) license last year. They own planes and have created an extensive partnership with USPS for final mile deliveries. In fact, Amazon also just recently announced their intent to develop their own delivery network. These efforts and investments are not without design.
We believe in the very near future, Amazon will take complete control of their supply chain. Not outsourcing to traditional logistics providers, but actually controlling it. We see Amazon managing smaller vessels with faster transit, thus allowing for quicker discharge of containers, potentially at their own container terminal. Then expeditiously transload into air containers, load into their planes headed to their fulfillment centers, and deliver on theirvehicles. This consolidation of services cements their custodial control of their shipments and eliminates much of the potential third-party disruption to their supply chain, resulting in providing their customers a worldwide, seamless and expedited end-to-end solution second to none.
Maersk sees the light, Amazon isn’t your customer, they are your competition.
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