Published on the 04/09/2025 | Written by Heather Wright

Wave of change coming…

“You can have trucks and warehouses, good rates and good people, and they will all help you differentiate, but technology is a critical factor these days.”

So says Chris Spence, chief growth officer at Sandfield. It’s a message the logistics sector across Australia and New Zealand appear to be taking to heart, with new research from Origin, the supply chain division of Australasian software developer Sandfield, showing 65 percent of companies plan to be upgrading or replacing more than one system over the next 12 months.

That’s a figure that caught Spence by surprise.

“The penny has dropped,” he says, noting that most logistics companies now see themselves as technology companies, with more than 80 percent saying technology is important or critical for a competitive edge, rather than simply a back-end enabler.

“Getting data aligned is not as easy as it sounds.”

“Companies that are really good and innovative with their tech realise it is not a cost, it is an enabler to help them lower their cost to serve their customers. It’s a way to grow and scale their business efficiently,” Spence told iStart.

The inaugural report draws on insights from more than 85 operators, including 3PLs, freight forwarders, warehouse operators and transport carriers, across Australia and New Zealand (of which 66 percent were NZ based).

When it came to the systems being upgraded, transport management – the heartbeat of most logistics companies – was top, followed by customer portals to provide visibility à la Uber or Amazon to customers, then analytics and BI tools. Integration came fourth, with ERP and financial systems sixth with 20 percent of companies planning upgrades to those systems.

“Our view is the core stack is being rebuilt,” Spence says, noting that assets may have been sweated for many years.

Ninety-four percent of those surveyed plan to spend the same or more on technology, as they seek to reduce costs and provide customers with greater visibility of their supply chain.

“The customers are driving a lot of this and have got a bit of a sharp stick and pushing a lot of these logistics companies to invest in technology faster than they would otherwise have,” Spence says, noting demand from customers for more visibility of their deliveries – something that 62 percent of customers only have minimal or partial visibility of.

“If customers want great visibility – and they do – and a transport company can’t provide it, they will get it somewhere else.”

But while the report paints a rosy picture of booming tech investment in the sector – each system change is easily upwards of six figures – there’s an undercurrent of dissatisfaction from many. Just 28 percent of companies say they’re satisfied with the pace of technology change, with more than half of respondents ‘stuck in neutral’. (The kiwi contingent drags the figures down, with just 24 percent reporting being satisfied, versus 32 percent of Australian respondents). That’s matched by an ambivalence about measuring the impact of past investments – something only half of respondents are doing.

Those factors point to the drivers of satisfaction, Spence says. Among the four percent who say they’re very satisfied and the 24 percent who are satisfied there are some clear trends.

“Eighty-one percent of them have great integration. Integration is the enabler for everything else. And a really high proportion of those satisfied people measure the outcome of their technology. They have ways to record the ROI and play that back internally… If you can’t measure the good stuff, how are you going to get budget to do more?”

His advice: Start first with ensuring you capture the ‘before state’. Then keep up communications with user groups and get customer feedback.

“Just be curious and ask questions. That’s where you get the nuggets.”

Those who are satisfied also tend to have dedicated people working to bring in new technology and make it a success. Spence points to the creation of ‘transformation manager’ – a half IT, half business role.

Beneath it all, lies that bigger issue: Integration.

Spence says while data isn’t a problem in the sector, a lack of similarity in how data is structured across the different providers means it is ‘hard to line up and integrate’.

“Getting data aligned is not as easy as it sounds which is why 56 percent of companies say integration between systems is poor, very poor, or just adequate.

“If you can’t get your systems talking to each other you are never going to be able to provide the visibility customers expect.”

He urges companies to think through how their systems can talk to each other and (no surprises from a company which specialises in integration) call in integration experts if needed.

Spence is also keen for logistics companies to start using their technology in their pitches, saying too few talk tech with customers, when it can be a selling point – particularly that ability to provide visibility.

“It’s a lost opportunity,” he says of failure to pitch tech when trying to win new customers.

For the companies too, the benefits can be big. While Spence doesn’t have figures for financial benefits, he says customers who have transport management systems optimising routes for trucks have reported having vehicles return two to three hours earlier to base.

“That’s a direct improvement,” he says.

Others report being able to have their customer service teams be more proactive, calling customers who haven’t placed an order, or simply having time to chat to customers and build stronger relationships, now they’re not trying to find data buried in different systems when customer’s ring in with issues. The customers, of course, are now using self-service portals.

“That’s one of the things a clients said to us: They’re so relieved they can actually not just fight fires all the time,” he says.

Respondents were asked about AI. The responses, however, suggest that while most believe AI will be important for their business in the future, it’s no where close yet. Instead, for now at least, AI is doing mundane tasks like data entry, populating forms and automating some processes.

“It’s not very sexy at the moment,” he notes. “But I’m sure it will evolve.”