Many companies are still stoically resisting digitalization. Half of transport and logistics providers still believe that digitalization is not necessary in their company. The procrastinators underestimate the speed of technological progress. Key technologies such as artificial intelligence and blockchain, robotics and 3D printing have long been interacting efficiently in the "Internet of Things", leading directly to the fifth industrial revolution: What can be digitized will be digitized. What can be networked will be networked. What can be automated will be automated. But that's not all: the near future belongs to autonomous, self-optimizing digital systems. Humans only interfere with their processes.

Exponential acceleration
Anyone who believes they can respond to digitalization in peace and quiet has not understood one thing: We are living in a time warp. Never again will digitalization be as slow as it is today. Digitalization is setting the stage for leaps in performance that invite the boldest expectations. The driving force behind this transformation is the power of exponentiality. IT experts have known since 1965 that this leap into the almost unimaginable is imminent. Back then, computer scientist Gordon Earle Moore, one of the founders of Intel, formulated a prediction that has since become known as "Moore's Law". Put simply: the computing power of computers doubles every two years. Mathematicians immediately recognize what Moore described back then as an exponential function. With this continuous doubling, the IT performance curve only reaches the point at which the graph shoots up steeply and almost vertically after decades of gentle increases. This point is now: slow growth turns into an explosion in performance. This phenomenon explains why a large number of digital technologies have reached market maturity almost simultaneously since 2010. It is no longer enough to extrapolate the past into the future, as politicians and entrepreneurs are accustomed to doing. Thinking exponentially means taking the impossible into account, accepting unpredictability as a principle and always considering it possible that innovations can completely change a market in one fell swoop.

Trend towards autonomous logistics
Logistics is one of the first industries to become both fully automated and autonomous. Autonomous trucks, which are already being extensively tested worldwide, are just the first step. Autonomous trucks will be followed by autonomous ships and cargo planes. In the future, products and packaging will not only be connected to the environment and the cloud via radio and RFID chips, but will also have intelligence. They will control themselves and navigate through the stations on their freight route. This is what a delivery from the Far East to Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel will look like in the future:

- The shipment plans its route independently, booking itself into a container in the overseas port of Tianjin, for example, and onto a ship that will transport it to Hamburg at the best price-performance ratio. If the goods are critical, such as food, chemicals or medicines, the product will take these parameters into account when making its decision. Naturally, the shipment will then only select means of transportation that meet its requirements for constant temperature or humidity. It will constantly send data about its condition to the cloud. If the cold chain is interrupted, the producer and the customer will be informed immediately.

- The ship will also find its way across the seas autonomously in future. This is not a spooky idea, but a rationally justifiable one. The biggest source of error in seafaring is human error. And: nothing is as expensive in shipbuilding as the superstructures in which the seafarers live and work.

- Once it arrives in Hamburg, the product finds its way through the - today already

- fully automated container terminal. It is already organized according to the principle of chaotic warehousing; only the machines know where each container is located. The shipment from the Far East automatically checks in at customs, is checked by robots and then handed over to an automated delivery service, which delivers it to the recipient's front door.

- But perhaps this product still needs to be customized in Hamburg according to the individual wishes of the customer. In this case, the shipment will then navigate itself to a factory using autonomous vehicles, automatically start up the machines there, perhaps a 3D printer, and continue on its way to its recipient in a revised version...

This example is still fiction, but by no means science fiction. The technologies for such processes already exist. In the coming years, it will be a matter of further increasing their efficiency, coordinating their interaction and increasing the level of safety. The many employees, dispatchers from shipping companies or freight forwarders, no longer play a role. Their slowness and uncertainty would merely disrupt the fully automated process. The delivery reaches its destination autonomously, faster and cheaper. The system of sensors, radio, cloud storage and intelligent devices makes it possible. But that's not all: digitalization is like a game of dominoes. One tile pushes the next. As soon as a company automates, it only wants to work with automated systems. The stock exchanges are a good example of where things are heading: the brokers who used to fill the trading floor have long since disappeared. Nowadays, a share is traded by computers thousands of times a second; no one can keep up with this speed; humans interfere with such fully automated processes. In the future, most prices for services will be negotiated like the price of a share. In the same way, freight rates will be balanced in milliseconds between two self-driving trucks or on special platforms in such a way that an optimal and acceptable price is achieved for the respective partners. Those who are unable to play a part in these automated value creation networks will initially only receive second- and third-class orders, will have to concede dumping prices and will drop out of the market after a short time. Digitalization forces digitalization. All processes are optimized and automated end-to-end, from the supplier to the end consumer.

Another far-reaching development for the logistics and transport sector is dematerialization, a misunderstood megatrend that has already had far-reaching effects in many industries. It is about the disappearance of things, or, as internet pioneer Marc Andreessen put it: "Software is eating the world." Physical products are being transformed into software and apps. You only have to look at your smartphone to understand the force of dematerialization. Radio, calculator, camera, music system, address book, alarm clock, compass, navigation device and so on - all in the truest sense of the word in one hand. If cars are opened using an app instead of a key in the future, everything that was necessary for production will also disappear: factories, machines, systems and jobs in development, production, marketing, sales and management.

Dematerialization - Why software is eating the world
This is the downside of the new digital world: software, services and data are tearing down entire sectors of the economy: Companies are falling out of the market because their CEOs have not understood the transformation that is taking place. The interplay with the "Internet of Things", data-based business models, artificial intelligence and blockchain is also ensuring that people no longer see possessions as essential. The concept of wealth is changing. Sharing is the new having, and the sharing economy is becoming the predominant form of consumption. Networks are taking the place of markets. Many successful models of the sharing economy are based on platforms that only offer intermediation as a service: Uber doesn't own a vehicle, Airbnb doesn't have a single hotel bed. And yet these start-ups have the energy to completely disrupt industries. Even logistics. 3D printing is responsible for this, with optimistic forecasts predicting a market volume of over 400 billion US dollars. 3D printing is ideally suited to networked and distributed working. In future, products will no longer be sent around the world, only data sets. They will be "printed" in decentralized 3D printing centers, meaning that the product will be created close to the consumer or the factory where it will be further processed. Logistics service provider DHL has already tested such "3D printing hubs". The advantages are obvious: products can be manufactured highly individually and on-demand. Long-distance transportation and warehousing are no longer necessary, reducing the burden on transport routes and the environment.

Conquering Earth 5.0
In this new infrastructure of prosperity, companies in the logistics and transportation industry must reposition themselves. They are called upon to integrate the trend towards autonomous systems, dematerialization and the impact of the sharing economy into new, fully digital business models. The new game will not be decided by trucks, ships or logistics centers, but by software and services. They determine the added value for the customer, they are where the added value of the future lies. However, companies must also think outside the box and question the purpose of their work. In an Earth 5.0 characterized by hunger and poverty, climate change and the waste of resources, as well as inequality and social instability, companies must not shirk their responsibility. Ultimately, it is about the fair redistribution of the world. And distribution - that should also be the core competence of clever logistics experts in the fifth industrial revolution.

Karl-Heinz Lands' "Erde 5.0: Die Zukunft provozieren" was published by Future Vision Press on August 1 as a paperback and eBook and costs 28.90 euros (print). ISBN: 978-3-9817268-4-8

About the author:
Karl-Heinz Land is an author, speaker and investor. He has been experiencing and shaping the topic close to his heart - digitalization - for over 35 years, including in management positions at international companies such as Oracle, BusinessObjects (SAP) and Microstrategy. In 2014, he founded neuland, a digital and strategy consultancy that has repeatedly been ranked among the best in Germany by the magazine "brandeins". He focuses on innovative technologies such as blockchain and the Internet of Things. The World Economic Forum (WEF) and "Time Magazine" honored Land with the "Technology Pioneer Award" back in 2006.