Along with changing customer expectations, sustainability and digitalisation, the industry sectors that we operate in have been going through a major shift this year. These many shifts in the industries we serve mean that our sectors of supply chain, logistics and transport have gained significance, voice, and strategic importance at the board level that we have never seen before. As a result, as practitioners, we will need to evolve ourselves and our teams at scale and speed.
Chair at CILT (UK)
Looking ahead to next year, here are some of the themes to keep an eye on in 2024.
1. Learning approach
We will need to commit to developing, upskilling and reskilling CILT as individuals as well as in teams. This commitment will need to be activated through a continuous and structured learning framework.
2. Context (especially for resilience)
Given the set of complexities, understanding the context becomes more important than ever before to ensure we have resilient operations to best serve our customers.
3. Technology
(i) Digitisation – Getting the data right is key and to do that, we need the right infrastructure. Understanding the details around Cloud, SaaS, combining OT (Operational Technologies e.g. sensors) and IT (Information Technology) and how best to go about automating the entire business process to efficiently get the right data are some of the areas we’ll focus on next year.
(ii) Analytics (especially incorporating external data) – Data-born decision making is now the norm. Knowing how much of what to move where and when requires a certain level of analytics skill to do the job.
(iii)Gen AI – How will Gen AI add value to our respective jobs? The trick here is to look beyond consumer-focused use cases and understand it from a business perspective.
4. Sustainability
The sustainability space is moving at pace, and a lot of technical skill is required to unpick this broad topic to both set and deliver on publicly set goals. A recent Raconteur study highlights that just one in eight British workers possess skills such as climate action planning or sustainable design. That’s less than both Germany and France and only a nose above the EU average. The study also highlights that you don’t just need to be a technical expert on sustainability and ESG but a whole host of other skills as well – data literacy, how to navigate large businesses, and how to bring people along on the journey. Sustainability and ESG goals are set to be even more important in 2024.
CILT
01536 740100
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