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Companies belonging to the wholesale sector will be affected directly and indirectly by a number of disruptive opportunities and challenges that will jeopardize their corporate longevity over the coming decades. While described in detail within Quantumrun’s special reports, these disruptive trends can be summarized along the following broad points:
- First off, the projected economic growth within the African and Asian continents over the next two decades, spurred largely by massive population and internet penetration growth forecasts, will result in a significant increase in regional and international commerce/trade.
- RFID tags, a technology used to track physical goods remotely since the 80s, will finally lose their cost and technology limitations. As a result, manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers will begin placing RFID tags on every individual item they have in stock, regardless of price. Thus, RFID tags, when coupled with the Internet of Things (IoT), will become an enabling technology, enabling the enhanced inventory awareness that will result in significant new investment in the logistics sector.
- Autonomous vehicles in the form of trucks, trains, planes, and cargo ships will revolutionize the logistics industry, allowing cargo to be delivered faster, more efficiently, and more economically. Such technological improvements will encourage greater regional and international trade that wholesalers will manage.
- Artificial intelligence (AI) systems will take over more and more of the administrative tasks and logistics management associated with purchasing items in bulk, shipping them across borders, and delivering them to end buyers. This will result in reduced costs, layoffs of white-collar workers, and a consolidation within the marketplace since larger wholesalers will afford advanced AI systems long before their smaller competitors.
These broad trends will have far-reaching effects on the wholesale sector that will influence the sector’s long-term development.
To stay informed about these and other trends, as well as the emerging opportunities and threats facing the wholesale sector, consider investing in Quantumrun Foresight sector forecast reports. Contact us today to learn more.
