DHL: The world in 2020

DHL     PREDICTIONS   SUSTAINABILITY  

• Purchasing decisions will include the environmental impact of the product
• Global political systems will remain, but there will be an increase in either creating global value chains or operating shared networks
• Three billion people will conduct their business over the Internet
  

Global – The drive toward a sustainable future is not going to let up anytime soon, DHL says. The company lets us in on how the world will look like in 2020.

Sustainability

In the future, purchasing decisions will no longer be based solely on brand, quality and price, DHL says. In the future the environmental impact of products will play a major role, the company predicts in its "Delivering Tomorrow - Customer Needs in 2020 and Beyond" study, which polls 900 international respondents including CEOs from leading MNCs and scholars on issues such as globalisation, economy, technology, logistics, environment and society. The study is to serve as a guiding principle for future business strategies.

From the study, DHL found that to a certain extent, consumers will be willing to pay more for ecologically sound products and services. There is however a discrepancy between Asia and the West on this issue, the study found. Asian experts are far more inclined to believe in the worldwide emergence of ecofriendly "zero-emissions cities" than their colleagues in Europe, Africa and America.

Asian experts also believe that customers are prepared to accept longer delivery times for their orders in the interests of more climate-friendly logistics.

Global value chains

In spite of the depressed economy at the moment, the current political and social system should remain as it is - with the world still run as a market economy.

However, the trend toward outsourcing production will continue, and many companies will look to global value chains in the pursuit of a competitive edge, the study said. On the other hand, the study predicts companies will have to collaborate more closely than before. As such, the logistics industry will emerge as a model that other sectors can follow, the study said. "To combat the high cost of energy, logistics companies will invest more resources than ever before into establishing and operating shared networks," it said.

Business via the Internet

In 2020, the business demand for transparency and extensive information in real time from suppliers will be even greater, the study said, making the Internet a more important tool than ever.

"By 2020, a good deal of the population of the world, primarily in developed and emerging counties, will be almost permanently online and some three billion people will conduct their business exclusively over the World Wide Web," the study revealed.

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