NEWS

How important for the country of Luxembourg to organize such logistics and supply chain summit? Why?

Over the past decade, Luxembourg has continuously improved its positioning as a leading intercontinental and multimodal hub in Europe for added-value supply chain and logistics activities. Today, it is clear that new digital technologies will reshape the functioning of entire supply chains and how all involved supply chain and logistics stakeholders will interact. As in this new digital era, collaboration will be a key element, it is important to provide them with an open dialogue platform for exchanging ideas and challenges related to the implementation of these new digital technologies. An event such as Digital Supply Chain Europe is thus a great occasion for Luxembourg as it will bring numerous supply chains and logistics stakeholders together in order to share innovation best practices, discover new digital solutions and network with potential future partners.

What are the latest logistics trends? Which one is the most promising, why?

Digitalization, e-Commerce, Industry 4.0. and sustainability are key trends expected to reshape entire supply chains and their related logistics business models. Data generated by the interactions amongst the numerous stakeholders involved in supply chain networks needs to be processed efficiently and shared seamlessly in order to turn them into smart and insightful information. Therefore, we believe that big data coupled with artificial intelligence, IoT sensors and automation represent a huge potential for the logistics and sup­ply chain management sector. This is in particular the case when process efficiency is concerned as well as demand forecasting, inventory man­agement, real-time end-to-end transparency, route planning optimization and when it comes to designing more environmental friendly operations.

How can Luxembourg maintain its position as a main logistics hub in Europe?

The above-mentioned key trends will of course transform how supply chains are managed in the future as well as reshape the operations and business models of logistics services providers. Therefore, in order to further ensure a sustainable growth of Luxembourg’s logistics hub, it is our ambition to support Luxembourg-based stakeholders involved in logistics and supply chain management to consistently incorpo­rate new digital technologies as well as to offer a favorable ecosystem to startups that aim at developing innovative supply chain and logistics services out of Luxembourg.

What are the ambitions of the Ministry of the Economy in terms of logistics and supply chain management in the months to come?

The disruptions in supply chains caused by COVID-19 have tested their resiliency in an unprecedented way and enhanced the need for greater end-to-end supply chain visibility. In order to improve the competiveness of Luxembourg-based supply chain and logistics’ actors, the Ministry of the Economy will notably support them in their endeavor to further digitalize their processes in order to increase operational agility and efficiency. In addition, supply chain risk management has proven to be key to identify potential risks and evaluate, based on scenario planning, their impact on business continuity in order to give effective responses. As companies start to plan for recovery, we also intend to help them to re-assess their supply chain resilience in order to identify potential vulnerabilities and make adjustments where needed as uncertainty is likely to persist for some time. Finally, with the surge of e-commerce sales, omni-channel retailing will further develop, creating the need for new innovative and environmental friendly last mile delivery solutions. For tackling these challenges, the Ministry of the Economy has set up, in partnership with Luxinnovation, Luxembourg’s innovation agency, various dedicated supporting schemes that we believe will further reinforce Luxembourg’s supply chain and logistics ecosystem.