Special report: Digital Transformation in Logistics 2025 

By Caitlin Gittins

Taking place over one day, guest speakers and thought leaders were invited to share their thoughts and learnings on the subject of innovation in the logistics industry; stressing that having the right mindset and not having a fear of failure were important, first and foremost. 

Kevin Green, Acting CEO of Logistics UK who chaired the event, spoke about how innovation isn’t easy for the sector, due to a lack of time to innovate, operating on razor thin margins, and sometimes difficulty with accessing government support. 

“Today is about trying to reverse that trend,” he said in his opening speech. “It’s about creating partnerships, confidence and direction needed to unlock innovation across the whole system.” 

To that end, speakers from ABBYY, DFDS, and Heathrow were invited to partake in a panel session on overcoming barriers in innovation. One of the major barriers to innovation can be overcoming company culture and existing resistance to implementing technologies such as AI, where the concerns are around data privacy and integration with legacy systems. 

One of the solutions proposed by panellists was stakeholder mapping to ascertain how open or resistant stakeholders were to technologies and why. In the case of Szilvia Turcsik, Technical Innovation Architect at Heathrow, employees in the operations and health and safety departments were most open to innovation, becoming their ‘innovation champions’.  

The importance of having people onboard with innovation was echoed by Danielle Gawler, Project Manager at DFDS who said that building relationships with teams and engaging with them early on helped to eliminate resistance. 

Logistics businesses were also briefed about the Intelligent Transport Systems World Congress coming to Birmingham in 2027. Chris Lane, Strategic Head of Transport Innovation at the West Midlands Combined Authority, encouraged delegates to get involved in this major event, to engage with the international transport innovation agenda.  

In another session, Ben Garratt, Deputy Director – Public Affairs, at Logistics UK presented the newly-released Logistics Innovation Opportunities Map, or ‘LIOM’ for short. Launched on the day of the event, LIOM is designed to act as a tool to help businesses begin their innovation journey. 

Other sessions covered fleet innovation, trade support systems, and an update on ZEHID trials, a government-backed project aimed at accelerating the rollout of electric HGVs. 

Logistics UK would like to thank the speakers, attendees and sponsors who supported the event and brought their insights on innovation in logistics. 

New innovation opportunity for logistics SMEs serving the West Midlands 

The West Midlands Logistics & Distribution Cluster, in partnership with the government-backed Freight Innovation Cluster, has launched the Innovation Sprint 2025 – a new initiative supporting operators to explore the potential of AI and digitisation technologies. Logistics UK has helped to shape this initiative as part of our work with the West Midlands Combined Authority, and our newly launched Logistics Innovation Opportunities Map.    

• Through this initiative, logistics SMEs can submit a real-world challenge facing their business; partner with SME innovators (solution providers) to explore feasibility studies for future pilots; enable the solution provider to access up to £10,000 in funding to develop the concept. 

• To be eligible, your business must be a UK-registered SME; operate in the West Midlands (you do not need to have a physical location in the West Midlands, and West Midlands means the whole region, not only the part of it covered by the West Midlands Combined Authority); and be members of the West Midlands Logistics & Distribution Cluster, which is free to join here.

The deadline for submitting a challenge submission is 4 November 2025. Challenges can be submitted here.

For any questions, contact [email protected].