News / Update your tech to attract the 'next gen', but retain vital 'institutional knowledge'

Photo: © Volodymyr Tverdokhlib

Supply chain and logistics companies should integrate digital technology to appeal to a younger workforce, but should keep “institutional knowledge” in the loop, delegates at TIACA’s Air Cargo Forum in Miami heard last week.  

Phaedra den Hertog, customer success manager at Awery Aviation Software, told The Loadstar that one often unspoken benefit of integrating digitalisation in the supply chain was for “the next generation”.  

“We have to make it is future-proof,” she said, “make sure the next generation can use it, as they are now used to working on their phones.  

“Digitalisation will definitely help attract new people.” 

And chief commercial officer at Nallian, Lionel van der Walt, agreed that technology and automation made the industry “more attractive” for young people, but urged that older team members must be “up-skilled”.  

“The one concern I have is that we’ve got an ageing workforce in our industry and we’ve got a lot of institutional knowledge that we could be losing… I’m just hoping everybody’s paying attention to that.” he said. 

“Roles are going to go. Roles are going to change. I think that’s natural, it’s happened in other industries. But what it’s doing is giving us the possibility to up-skill, to have new opportunities for people that are more engaging.” 

Mr van der Walt advised that when adopting new tech firms should “involve the users on the ground as early as possible” in both “the ideation and development of solutions, as well as their rollout” to ensure usability across staff.  

“I see this sometimes as one of the gaps we have,” he added. “When we look at adoption of these technologies, we spend a lot of time developing solutions and implementing solutions, and then we don’t have people really using them to the full benefit of our organisations.” 

He suggested avoiding making solutions “really complex”. 

“We need to be able to develop solutions that are as simple as possible and intuitive, both in terms of the interface and the workflows they facilitate and for the people working with them on a day-to-day basis.” 

He added: “We’ve come to the end of the project, we’ve got everything done and we tell the people we’re going to roll this out. Those with institutional knowledge look at the technology and say, ‘well, hold on… this or that hasn’t been taken into consideration’.” 

And, Mr van der Walt urged: “As you’re bringing in these technologies, we need to close that gap and make sure we’re also keeping that institutional knowledge embedded within systems and processes.” 

Greg Maloney, director of the supply chain and logistics programme at Florida International University, added: “If you combine the younger generation’s thirst for new technology with institutional knowledge, and are able to combine that in your organisation, that is a formula for success.”