The 4 Factors Rerouting Shipping and Transportation
Peter Poulsen | Denmark
Deep operational experience will underpin leadership, not define it.
The shipping and transportation industry is increasingly integrated, technically sophisticated – and structurally volatile. Executives must be able to translate four factors into a coherent strategy and mobilize complex organizations behind it.
1. Disruption is a structural characteristic
Geopolitical tensions, tariffs, and erratic trade flows. Port congestion and infrastructure constraints. A host of factors are forcing a supply chain rethink. For the customers of shipping and transportation firms, transportation capacity at a competitive price is no longer enough.
The new imperatives are continuity, routing optionality, and fast responses to network disruption.
In response, shipping and transportation leaders are shifting their commercial proposition. The emphasis is now on resilience, reliability and flexibility. All have been promoted from operational performance indicators to products in their own right. Predictability is a new watchword.
Danish Maersk is a clear example. Even as it raised its full-year profit outlook this August, it signaled “a new era of heightened volatility,” reporting increased congestion and disruption across multiple geographies, from ports to inland transportation. Maersk’s focus is on helping customers respond quickly to changing conditions and maintain the integrity of their supply chains.1
CMA CGM, with its complementary strengths of shipping, terminals, air freight and logistics, is positioned for flexibility. Meanwhile, Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd have joined forces to develop the Gemini network, differentiating ocean transportation via more reliable and predictable scheduling.
2. Scale and consolidation will rise
Large networks like these have power in numbers. They have access to capacity procurement and infrastructure, the resources to invest in technology (and the data that feeds it), expansive customer coverage and sophisticated asset utilization.
MSC is pursuing scale through an extensive, independently controlled, ocean network. CMA CGM is integrating shipping, terminals, air cargo and CEVA Logistics. DSV’s €14.3 billion acquisition of Schenker in 2025 has bolstered its position across the spectrum of forwarding, road transportation and contract logistics.
However, even scale will not suffice. The decisive question is whether shipping and transportation players can translate a big wingspan into lower unit costs, and assure that trio of resilience, reliability and flexibility. Sprawling organizations that fail to integrate different businesses or simplify their operating models risk accumulating more complexity than value.
3. The old boundaries are falling – integrated is beating standalone
In this new normal, customers are less interested in an isolated ocean, air or road product. They want coordination across a visible supply chain. This is placing firms across the value chain into direct competition. From shipping lines, to freight forwarders and terminal operators. From contract-logistics providers, to parcel companies and technology platforms.
Despite their different origins and asset models, Maersk, CMA CGM, DSV, DHL and Kuehne+Nagel now occupy the same lane. But the development has also spawned opportunities for infrastructure-led players such as DP World, and for new entrants from different industries.
Consider Amazon. It has grown a substantial logistics network spanning international freight, aircraft, trailers, intermodal capacity, warehousing, fulfilment and final-mile delivery. By opening more of this enviable infrastructure to external customers, it can position logistics as a platform business. It has evolved a sophisticated combination of infrastructure, technology, vast traffic flows and correspondingly detailed demand data.
Amazon may not become another MSC or Maersk, but it could become a significant logistics orchestrator, placing even more pressure on parcel companies, forwarders and contract-logistics providers.
4. Technology has two faces – disruption and predictability
In a turbulent environment, data analytics, automation and AI could be seen as more disruptors. Risks persist around data quality and cybersecurity. Implementation remains complex, including the need to redesign underlying processes and organization. It is too often underestimated.
Yet these factors are set to boost industry economics.
Correctly deployed, technology supports reliability and flexibility in a sector whose customer journey is filled with burdensome administration and coordination. From quotations and bookings, to route selection, customs information, exception management and tracking, and finally invoicing – all are candidates for automation.
But AI can do more than document. It can enhance predictability via demand forecasting, inventory positioning, warehousing and network planning. In today’s fluid environment, it can assure accurate and real-time customer communication – the visibility that clients demand.
This is another domain where leading players benefit from large-scale proprietary data, transactions and financial muscle. Kuehne+Nagel are eyeing the operational deployment of AI agents. DHL, DSV and Amazon are already investing heavily in automation and network optimization.
AI will not only improve the customer interface, but it could also elevate the entire business - materially changing productivity, organizational structures and revenue per employee.
Stuck in the middle
A tough market for mid-sized generalists
Companies without global scale, distinctive technology, privileged infrastructure or specialist capabilities risk being squeezed between large integrated platforms and focused niche providers. They will probably need to specialize in specific industries or complex services, consolidate with other players or become part of a larger integrated organization.
Greater bandwidth, the leadership profile for What’s Next
Many senior leaders in the industry have built their careers through deep expertise in a particular mode, geography or operational discipline.
That verticality remains important. But it is no longer enough.
The premium is now shifting towards bandwidth; CXOs and CEOs who can move seamlessly between operations, customers, technology, capital allocation and transformation and think across the enterprise.
This leads to 7 core competences:
- Lead through volatility: decide under uncertainty and change course fast when the network is disrupted.
- Think enterprise, not silo: optimize across business units, regions and modes, not just within them.
- Put technology and AI to work: reshape the business model, cost base and customer offer.
- Connect reliability to customer value: link operational performance to customers’ inventory and working capital.
- Integrate and align: lead mergers, partnerships and transformations, and build cohesion across functions, cultures and organizations while keeping daily operations running.
- Build the organization for What’s Next: attract and develop new talent, bring in innovative approaches, and unite people from merged businesses behind one culture.
- Balance cost and investment: keep financial discipline while investing in networks and future capabilities.
Disruption. Scale and consolidation. Falling boundaries and technology. These four game changers provide rich opportunities for transformation.
The executives who thrive will still need deep operational experience. But this will be the foundation for a senior leadership role, rather than fully defining it.
1Georgiou, G., “Maersk rides 'new era of volatility' to higher profitability, lifts 2026 guidance.” 13 August 2026, Riviera.
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