Logistics performance in South Africa

Abstract

The World Economic Forum (WEF 2017) identified the following eight megatrends that are likely to drive the future of logistics: * Logistics skill shortages * Restructuring global value chains * Supply risk and recovery (resilience) * Digital transformation of supply chains * Sustainability of supply chains * E-commerce driving demand chains * Logistics property and infrastructure * Collaborative business models. Against this background and given that the South African economy has not been performing well over the last number of years, this environment has put an enormous strain on the logistics and supply chain management industry in the country. Added to this, from analysis performed by the World Bank in the last survey, South Africa is in terms of its gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, or income, one of the top performers, outperforming most of its income group peers (Arvis et al. 2018). Year Country Rank Score Change from 2016 2016 Mauritius 33 60.10 - Nigeria 49 52.62 - South Africa 66 42.99 - 2018 Tunisia 49 51.90 5.93 Nigeria 51 50.86 −1.36 South Africa 88 33.34 −9.65 Source: Adapted from Boffa, M., De Borba, F. & Piotrowski, L., 2018 , Postal development report 2018 – Benchmarking a critical infrastructure for sustainable development, Universal Postal Union, Berne, Switzerland; Universal Postal Union (UPU), 2016 , Integrated Index for Postal Development (2IPD) – 2016 results, Universal Postal Union, Berne, Switzerland As input data to determining the 2IPD, the UPU used its data, including postal big data – over 3 billion tracking records checked and analysed – official UPU statistics and key UPU surveys (UPU 2016).