Executive Dinner: Collaboration Part 1

Guest speakers – Ian Quinton, Deputy Assistant Commissioner, Metropolitan Police and Simon Gilbert, Former Partner, KPMG

As an industry that frequently finds itself operating on wafer-thin margins, it is vital that logistics businesses optimise their efficiency to retain their profitability and competitiveness. With fuel and other costs rising, one area that is rapidly increasing in attractiveness is the prospect of logistics operators collaborating with each other. An obvious example is collaborating with another company to pick up a return load rather than sending out an HGV full only for it to return home empty. According to some commentators, this measure alone could help reduce the energy consumption of a vehicle’s round trip by around 40%.

Other measures could include sharing company data with trusted third parties; collaborating with other logistics providers on the provision of refuelling sites; and sharing warehousing space and fulfilment facilities. This dinner discussion will attempt to tease out all the existing barriers to collaboration among commercial competitors and seek to find workable solutions that will benefit all parties.