How can the digital generation help our industry?

Written by Marcos Hart

Business Optimisation and Transformation Director at Wincanton

28th April 2017

Watching my daughters grow up is a constant reminder of how much, and how quickly, our environment is changing. Our children seem to have devices in their hands from an early age and naturally embrace the digital world with ease. It’s a world with data at your fingertips and, it’s always on.

This world offers exciting opportunities and it’s creating new roles that haven’t existed before. It’s shifting how we consume and interact with the media and it’s changing the workplace, not least with the growth in start-ups and a more entrepreneurial culture. Industries and businesses like ours can’t stand still and watch.

To evolve and grow we need to embrace these new ways of working and the new ideas that it brings. This is why we’ve launched W² Labs, a programme for start-ups to pitch their ideas and potentially see them used in our business. It’s just one of our initiatives to embrace innovation and to keep Wincanton at the forefront of the logistics industry.

Start-ups and millennials have been born into the digital world and their thinking, expectations and business solutions will reflect their experiences. We must meet the demand of our customers, their consumers and our colleagues, and to do that our services must be of the highest standard and be effortless to consume. When a colleague comes to work they need to be seamlessly moving from one sphere of the digital landscape to another, where systems and applications are as easy to consume as they are in their personal life.

We believe working with start-ups via the W2 Labs programme will allow us to collaboratively define the future of the logistics industry by tapping into their passion, desire to succeed and creativity.

We’re focusing our attention on five key areas: better utilisation of our assets; brokering available space; connecting the cab and driver; data challenges and a wildcard category. I expect that ‘digital’ solutions will dominate the ideas we see, ideas that will challenge us but ones that could put us at the forefront of our industry.

It’s an exciting time for our business and our industry so keep watching our website and social media channels for all the latest project updates.