TIME FOR TEN

We would all love to know what the future will bring. Or at least it seems so from the widespread attention paid to all manner of mechanisms and experts that purport to help to tell of tomorrow today.

Back in Ancient Greece, for example, people would travel to the town of Delphi to consult the Oracle – an appointed woman believed to act as a conduit for the god Apollo. She would dramatically cast forth predictions on anything from the best time for a farmer to plant his fields to whether a neighboring empire should be invaded.

Even today, with huge leaps in understanding of the forces of nature and great scientific and technological progress, there still exists a widespread interest in seemingly irrational arts like astrology – in both its Western and Chinese forms. What will the Year of the Tiger mean for me, many people in this part of the world will start to ask at this time of year, for instance.

Perhaps it is because the future is so uncertain that we are only too willing to listen to any advice that may shine some light on the dark, unknown path ahead. Aside from the seers and soothsayers, the pronouncements of economic forecasters and investment gurus seem to hold us in particular thrall, although it seems like it was only a rather obscure New York economist (Nouriel Roubin) who was able to predict the great global crisis that still aff ected us all throughout 2009.

Reading through our main feature in this issue, in which more than 25 logistics-industry related leaders give us their take on the year just gone and the one that lies ahead, confirms that 2009 was indeed a rough, tough year for companies involved in the sector.

We see phrases like: “it was a difficult year”; “what a tumultuous year”; “not immune to the effects of the global financial crisis”; “economic roller coaster”; “economic upheaval”; “uncertainty around every corner”; “unprecedented challenges”.

But what also comes across is a genuine sense of resilience and optimism, as the 3PLs and software and equipment suppliers serving the sector moved quickly to reduce costs wherever possible, to spot and exploit whatever opportunities did arise, and also use the time to develop that all-important greater understanding of the customer’s business needs.

And what about 2010? The consensus seems to be a positive sense of anticipation for the year ahead – albeit touched with some caution and new-found realism – rather than any particular dread of what the world is going to throw at them this time. That can only be good, because in a world of murderous earthquakes, would-be aeroplane bombers, and killer viruses out of nowhere, the future really is unknown.