Logistics companies defy the crisis

The logistics industry in Germany is surprisingly well with the pandemic. Many companies are even pointing to growth. However, challenges also await.

By Thomas Pösl, BR Border controls and tough lockdowns in Europe: 2020 began with a burden for logistics groups. The drastic drop in consumption quickly spread to the forwarding, transport and logistics sector, said Frank Huster, General Manager of the Federal Association of Freight Forwarding and Logistics, DSLV. After the initial shock, however, things went up rapidly. Losses and slumps that companies experienced a year ago were more than overcompensated just a few months later, according to Huster. Example: the logistics company Dachser in the Allgäu. The Kempten-based company also went up economically in the second half of the year.

Dachser’s sales almost constant in the corona year

The Bavarian family company Dachser with 30,000 employees worldwide has adapted to the situation and has largely been able to avert economic damage. At the annual press conference – it is already the second that has to be held purely virtually – CEO Burkhard Eling now presented figures. According to Eling, sales fell by just under one percent to 5.6 billion euros. He is very satisfied with this: “It was a demanding and extraordinary year in every respect, which was shaped by the corona pandemic and its effects on the international supply chains.” Eling, who has been CEO of Dachser since this year, speaks of “overall positive indicators”.

Air and sea freight are the profit makers

In the corona year 2020, logisticians initially felt the pain of the production stops in industry. Because, among other things, the production lines at the car manufacturers were at a standstill, many trucks also stayed at the loading yards. According to Dachser, however, air and sea freight later turned out to be profitable. According to CEO Eling, the company was able to increase sales by 5.2 percent to 1.2 billion euros. Dachser also recorded an increase of almost two percent in the area of ​​food logistics. The annual turnover here is 982 million euros. The Allgäu family company does not provide any information on the profits.

Logistician facing “Herculean task”

The effects of Corona remain a constant burden for logisticians like Dachser. According to the Allgäu company, the signs point to growth. The Federal Association of Freight Forwarders also expects an increase this year compared to 2020, according to DSLV General Manager Huster. Because of the pandemic, a forecast is still difficult. According to Huster, the German logisticians have proven their efficiency in the pandemic. With the overcoming of the Corona crisis, the switch to alternative drives and a continuing shortage of skilled workers, the logistics industry now has three Herculean tasks to cope with at the same time. In the long term, investments should fuel sales. The Allgäu logistics company Dachser will also take money into their hands, it said. This year, 190 million euros are to flow into the areas of machine learning and artificial intelligence, among other things. For example, incoming goods shipments should be better predicted. In the end, that saves costs again.