Logistics and Supply Chain Technology Report 2021

中国电信（欧洲）有限公司 C h i n a T e l e c o m ( E u r o p e ) L t d .

As this report has illustrated cloud technology and IoT devices have the potential, with 19% and 13% of respondents respectively telling us that these technologies would be driving forward the industry over the near-term. Furthermore, as we have alluded to in this report, the rise of 5G is coupled to the build-out of these technologies, and our survey respondents agreed, with 16% citing 5G as the next technology poised to disrupt the industry in the short-term. However, network security will be crucial if these technologies are to truly realise their potential. Currently the low availability of 5G over the region means that the threat surface for attacks is fairly small, but as the infrastructure is built out, both by handset manufacturers and network infrastructure, opportunities will increase for malicious actors and businesses need to stay aware of security issues as they encourage the adoption of these technologies. Support for cloud computing and IoT stayed stable when thinking about longer-term disruption (16% and 13% respectively), and 5G dropped to 6%, with many anticipating infrastructure to be largely stable by that point and newer technologies such as 6G on the horizon. Similarly, moving away legacy solutions means moving away from brittle solutions such as Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and opening up to a better integrated, more programmable and accessible set of applications that are less subject to breaking changes as formats shift or changes are introduced. Thus only 8% of respondents cited RPA’s potential for impact in the next 12-18 months, dropping down to just 4% when thinking about a 5-year horizon for the technology. Enthusiasm for blockchain grew from 11% in the next 12-18 months to 17% in the next 5 years. Though pilot programs have not yielded much in the way of results, industry efforts are still ongoing to integrate blockchain technology into supply chain process, and our respondents felt that prospects would improve over the coming years.