Vietnam leads charge towards data-driven logistics future

Vietnam leads charge towards data-driven logistics future

As Vietnam charts its course toward a data-driven logistics future, global leaders echo its vision for a smarter, more connected, and sustainable supply chain powered by technology and collaboration.

On October 9, Deputy Prime Minister Bui Thanh Son signed Decision No.2229/QD-TTg approving Vietnam’s Logistics Services Development Strategy.

The strategy aims to develop Vietnam’s logistics services sustainably, efficiently, and with high quality and added value, enhancing competitiveness while leveraging the country’s strengths in global supply and value chains.

“The proportion of logistics enterprises applying digital transformation solutions will reach all Vietnamese logistics companies. Logistics services will continue to develop efficiently towards low emissions, contributing to achieving the national goal of net zero,” stated the decision. “At least 10 modern logistics service centres meeting international standards will be established, serving as key hubs for regional and global supply chain connectivity and development.”

At the FIATA World Congress 2025 in Hanoi on October 8, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh said that Vietnam would accompany enterprises, organisations, and international partners under the principle of the “three guarantees” and “three togethers”.

“In the context of deep global integration, logistics serves as the ‘lifeblood’ of the economy, connecting production, circulation, distribution, and consumption,” Chinh said.

At the congress, Nerijus Poskus, vice president and global head of Ocean Freight at Flexport, emphasised that data has become the key to everything in an increasingly unpredictable world, where supply chains have grown too vital to remain unreliable.

“Supply chains are too important in this market to be this unreliable, and freight forwarders and logistics companies alone can't change everything. We are depending on data from shipping lines, airlines, ports, terminals, everybody. But what we can do is give that data visibility to you, your customers, and the government, depending if it's customs, essentially everybody,” he added.

Poskus noted that having the right data at the right time allows companies to reduce costly errors and improve efficiency.

“Having the right data at the right time makes you make less mistakes. Let's be real, problems with air freight happen because of some sort of a mistake,” he said. “If you can plan your supply chain a little bit better, or you have the right data at the right time, you are likely to ship less air freight.”

Building on the theme of intelligent logistics, Mike Bhaskaran, group COO at DP World, highlighted how automation and AI are transforming port operations, cutting emissions, reducing congestion, and enhancing turnaround times.

According to Bhaskaran, AI and deep learning are now central to optimising container stacking and overall port efficiency.

“We collect a lot of data, and then once we have this deep learning capability, the machine makes decisions about the best way to go back and choose the right optimisation,” he said.

FIATA World Congress 2025 in Hanoi

Echoing similar views from the air logistics sector, Guillaume Crozier, chief cargo officer at dnata, stressed that ground handling agents sit at the heart of the ecosystem, where reliable, real-time data is essential for seamless cargo flow.

“To do so, we absolutely need data, and we need to be able to consume the data in real time, and in a shape or form that is consumable. We need good quality data,” he added. “The air cargo industry is still working with experts and all stakeholders to understand the governance, the framework of which data we should use, which KPI and how we define it, and from here then start defining the protocol, data protocol exchange, that really helps us to make things happen.”

Crozier concluded that digitalisation cannot succeed without human adaptability and collaboration.

“We are in the middle of that stretch where we have to actually stitch everything together and really try to innovate and disrupt the market by using new capabilities,” he said.

Together, the three executives painted a compelling picture of a logistics industry in transformation, one where data intelligence, automation, and human expertise converge to build a more transparent, efficient, and sustainable global supply chain.

VIR