Thursday, July 10th, 2025
On 3 July 2025, ALICE and the Contract Logistics Observatory of Politecnico di Milano co-organised a high-level webinar focused on one of the most pressing challenges in the sector: managing complexity and uncertainty in logistics.
Gathering over 90 participants from industry, public bodies, and research, the event examined how companies are adapting to a new environment shaped by geopolitical instability, low demand of transportation volumes, transport capacity decrease and shortages potential, and evolving European regulations pushing decarbonization and empowering digitalization and Artificial Intelligence.
The session opened with Damiano Frosi, who presented the Observatory’s business-oriented approach and underlined the value of evidence-based market insights to understand and navigate complexity. Paolo Giacobbe then reviewed the persistent pressures facing European logistics: cost increases, reduction in transport assets and resources, and disruptions in global supply chains.
Alberto Curnis shared survey insights from 800+ companies, highlighting six strategic paths adopted across Europe: smart, green, circular, omnichannel, industrial logistics, and network reconfiguration. These strategies are increasingly used in combination, depending on market needs and operational context.
A key message emerged: collaboration is no longer optional. Curnis presented data showing measurable benefits from structured collaboration- improved flexibility, service levels, and risk mitigation among them. However, speakers noted that interoperability issues, digital fragmentation, lack of trust, lack of system base enabled collaboration and unclear governance structures are limiting the value realization of collaboration.
Fernando Liesa (ALICE) presented briefly the policy shifts that are reshaping the logistics landscape, in which competitiveness takes a higher importance without lagging on decarbonization. Digitalization and AI are receiving an important push in this new EU cycle. He also introduced ALICE’s involvement in projects such as ALICE EXPRESS and Horizon Europe projects: ZEFES, MODI, SARIL, REMUNET and IKIGAI which enable multistakeholder innovation ecosystems to address challenges on electrification of long-distance heavy-duty road transport, automation, multimodality and synchromodality for resilient logistics and the adoption of Physical Internet concept to enable increased competitiveness of Europe.
Closing the session, Andrea Condotta (GRUBER Logistics, ALICE Vice-Chair) emphasised the need for stronger alignment across supply chain actors and encouraged members to join ALICE’s upcoming Logistics Innovation Summit that will take place in Brussels on 23-24 of October.
A full summary report with takeaways, strategic frameworks, and speaker slides is shared for webinar participants and ALICE members.
ALICE members can find all materials in the Knowledge Platform link: General Assembly: [Webinar] Navigating complexity: Strategies and collaboration for the future of logistics
Contact info@etp-logistics.eu for access or involvement in related ALICE activities.