The German Logistics Association (BVL) together with partners from academia, on the occasion of the BVL Supply Chain CX 2025 in Berlin, presented a current edition of the study “Trends and Strategies in Logistics and Supply Chain Management.” As the BVL announced, the current top trends in logistics and supply chain management are cybersecurity and digitization of business processes. The frontrunners have not changed compared to the previous study 2023. The topic of cost pressure was assessed as significantly more important and lands at number 3, a clear jump upward was also seen in the topics automation (number 4, +5 places compared to 2023), Business Analytics (number 5, +6) and Artificial Intelligence (number 12, +7). Dramatically, the topics shortage of personnel (number 15, -12), sustainability (number 16, -9) and New Work (number 20, -5) lost relevance in comparison.
The Chairman of the BVL Board of Directors, Kai Althoff:
“Significantly risen in relevance are the topics of automation and artificial intelligence, which shows that the digital transformation is in full swing and will be the overarching topic currently and in the coming years. At the same time, skilled labor shortage and sustainability have lost much of their significance. This reflects, on the one hand, the current economic situation and, on the other hand, the changed societal and political focus, whereby it is to be expected that both topics will quickly regain importance with changed framework parameters.”
The scientific director of the study, Professor Wolfgang Kersten, member of the Scientific Advisory Board
of the BVL:
“The triple transformation of companies toward digitalization, sustainability, and resilience continues to advance. Notably, there is a strong rise in disruptions in the supply chain during times of multiple crises. More than half of the companies see a greater extent of disruptions compared with 2020 and expect a further increase by 2030. Accordingly, many companies have worked particularly intensively on the resilience of their supply chain.”
“In the current economically weak times, a lack of utilization due to insufficient volumes at the same (or partly increased) costs directly leads to increased margin pressure. This problem is currently evident in production, logistics and trade alike. The engagement with other strategic topics then quickly drops from the priority list of logistics and SCM decision-makers,” says Professor Martin Schwemmer from Heilbronn University.
The study “Trends and Strategies in Logistics and Supply Chain Management” by the BVL has been providing decision-makers since 1988 with insights into challenges and options for action in the field of logistics and supply chain management. Trends have a long-term and transformative influence on the management of value chains and thus form not only for logistics and SCM managers but also for policymakers, associations and research institutions a essential basis for strategic decisions. As a gauge, the relevance of the trends for the business environment as well as the degree of adaptation achieved to these trends serve as measures.
Sustainability loses support in view of current crises
The decline of the sustainability topic in the ranking aligns
with its perception in society – the climate crisis has moved into the background due to numerous geopolitical and economic challenges. Still 62 percent of companies perceive sustainability as a competitive opportunity – this, however, is down by 6.2 percentage points compared to 2023. Positive to note is that 80 percent of companies have now set concrete targets for reducing CO2 emissions – an increase of 17.7 percentage points compared to 2023 figures.
Also, the share of companies with a high to very high level of transformation implementation rose from 20.3 percent in 2023 to 28.2 percent in 2025. Kai Althoff:
“The sustainability topics currently have lower priority in society and in the economy as well, which is also typical for the current economic situation, because developments in this area require investments. In addition, the data show that many companies are becoming better in their transformation. Most have now set ambitious emission reduction targets that they must now achieve.”
Companies are most advanced in the topics of mobile data access for employees, descriptive analytics, predictive analytics, sensors for monitoring, and Robotic Process Automation (RPA). A comparatively low relevance is attributed to 3D printing and blockchain technologies. Artificial intelligence, however, has established itself as the trend technology. 68 percent of companies will work on the implementation and/or scaling of AI in the next five years, according to the study. 54 percent see the limited availability and quality of data as one of the biggest challenges in digital transformation.
Transformation level hardly
increased
Nevertheless, the transformation continues, with the median level of implementation increasing by 4.2 percentage points since 2023. 30.7 percent of companies report a high to very high level of implementation in digitalization themselves – in 2023 it was 29.9 percent. Kai Althoff:
“The degree of implementation of the transformation in digitalization has hardly risen. This is due to the rapid development of possibilities and requirements in this area. This gives the impression that the relative implementation in this topic has not risen much – despite very large investments.”
However, the study shows sobering results regarding cooperation between business and politics. Only six percent of the surveyed companies agree with the statement that the field of logistics and supply chain management is adequately represented by politics. 60 percent disagree, 34 percent are undecided.
Requirements for policy
In prioritizing topics on the political agenda, roughly 30 percent each advocate transport infrastructure and the reduction of bureaucracy as the most important tasks, followed by digitalization (20 percent), the energy transition (about ten percent), global trade (about six percent) and the recruitment and immigration of skilled workers (about six percent).
“From our perspective, these results also reflect that the logistics industry and the economy in general are currently asking whether policymakers are sufficiently aware of the gravity of the current situation. In this regard, there is great uncertainty,” said Althoff.
More than 200 companies from the sectors of production, logistics and retail had participated in the survey by the end of July 2025.
