Comment / 'Digital v traditional' 3PLs – why logistics will never be a pure-tech game

ID 100144486 © Anar Mammadov | Dreamstime.com

For more than a decade, logistics has been promised a technological revolution. Digital-first 3PLs would disrupt the incumbents, strip out inefficiencies, and finally turn a messy, people-heavy industry into a clean, scalable software business.

That revolution has not fully arrived – and 2026 will make this impossible to ignore.

The debate between digital-native logistics providers and traditional global forwarders is no longer theoretical. Capital markets, customers, and employees are now asking the same uncomfortable question: who is actually built to win?

The answer ...