XPO Logistics Releases Chairman’s Letter to Stockholders - Seite 2

E-commerce is a broad-based tailwind, with demand coming from pure-play e-tailers, omnichannel retailers and direct-to-consumer manufacturers. We provide these customers with inventory management, fulfillment and also returns management, where we have extensive expertise. The strong upward trends we saw in the back half of 2020 — notably, in consumer packaged goods, technology products, food and beverage, DIY products and other consumer sectors — have remained robust in 2021. Soon, we expect to see the return of brick-and-mortar retail demand as stores reopen.

Another highlight of late-2020 was the long-awaited start of the recovery in the industrial economy. This has an outsized benefit to our less-than-truckload business, where our freight primarily moves within industrial markets. Our LTL customers tell us that demand is speeding up as manufacturers move back to full production in the upcycle.

Outsourcing, which has been a steady tailwind for some time now, is becoming a sink-or-swim strategy for an increasing number of companies that currently manage their own logistics. Supply chains are becoming more complex, making it difficult for companies to meet customer expectations in-house. The pandemic showed that outsourcing logistics operations to specialists like XPO means greater flexibility, lower risk, more innovation and better visibility into the movement of goods.

The third big tailwind — customer demand for advanced automation — is being driven by a mix of e-commerce, outsourcing and the pronounced efficiencies that automation brings to logistics. We were an early adopter of machine learning and artificial intelligence in our operations, and we developed a proprietary warehouse platform that integrates cutting-edge solutions in-house. Today, our employees work side-by-side with intelligent technologies that make their jobs easier: autonomous goods-to-person systems, collaborative robots, robotic arms and other advanced automation we tailor to each customer’s requirements. We’ve also introduced wearable technologies to improve efficiency and employee comfort.

Our truck brokerage business came roaring back in 2020, surpassing 2019 performance by the third quarter. We’ve substantially outperformed our major competitors in North America, as well as broker penetration of for-hire US trucking; our revenue CAGR of 16.3% from 2013 to 2019 was nearly double the US brokerage industry CAGR overall. XPO Connect, our digital freight marketplace, is accounting for a growing number of high-margin, “touch-free” transactions between customers and carriers, with one of the fastest adoption rates of its kind in the industry.