SCD: Damco is gone. Where do Maersk, forwarders and shippers go from here?

SUPPLY CHAIN DIVE reports:

The supply chain landscape began the year absent of a familiar name. Damco is no more, after Maersk announced in September it would dissolve the freight forwarder brand by the end of 2020. Maersk absorbed Damco’s air and ocean less-than-container-load shipping to combine it with Maersk’s logistics and services products.

The Copenhagen-based conglomerate’s portfolio now boasts air forwarding and LCL in addition to existing services in ocean transport, trucking, customs brokerage, warehousing and port terminals.

Alexander Nowroth, managing partner at Lebenswerk Consulting Group, compared it to the Amazon effect.

“Amazon wants to control everything up to the last mile. And the same thing is now happening with container lines,” he said.

Maersk CEO Søren Skou has pursued an end-to-end logistics strategy for years, acquiring customs brokers, investing in digital tools like Loadsmart and developing platforms such as Maersk Flow and Twill. Maersk marketed the internalization of Damco services using words such as “simplified,” “agile,” “seamless” and with fewer “handoffs.”

Andrew Sisto, director of corporate development at project44 and former manager at Maersk, described the internalization of Damco as “a natural fit.”

To read the full post, please click here.