Collaboration required to capture Asian growth opportunities

Holloway emphasised that better partnerships should aim to improve services for customers and eventually win their trust. “We are becoming more customer-centric and need our partners to do the same,” he said, noting that for Diageo, performance today is “as much about planning and logistics as procurement and manufacturing”.

The complexity of container booking documentation, limited proactive information, data fragmentation along the supply chain and highly variable delivery performance were among the key logistics challenges.

He added that the size of the vessel or whether a 3PL is involved, matters far less than knowing whether containers will arrive on time, highlighting that shippers simply want sufficient forewarning of changes or delays in delivery so that they can mitigate the effect before it impacts the whole supply chain. In short, there is often a lack of proper end-to-end visibility between all the parties.