Because of the big changes in logistics and the changes that will come in the near future, it becomes more and more important that the systems in logistics are linked to each other.

Current developments in logistics
Logistics suppliers focus more and more on the management of the whole value chain. The transparent representation of the value chain, called Supply Chain Visibility (SCV), is most important. It brings a raise in flexibility and a linking to other systems.
Furthermore, the protection of the environment and sustainability got more important over the last years. Transports should be more eco-friendly and politics regulate the carbon emissions.
But there is also a focus on the topics IT security and data privacy. Cloud solutions are getting more important as they have a higher level of protection and the offer an easier IT administration. This is an advantage when it comes to the linking of different systems.

One system for everything
In order to have the internal processes as easy and ideal as possible, the company should have as least systems as possible. Because of this, software suppliers become more and more solutions suppliers to the full extent. One example are the telematics providers that are developing to suppliers of transport management. Tour planning was a former task for transport management but becomes now also a task for telematics. The usage of the telematics data in tour planning optimizes the processes and the plannings.

Interfaces for data exchange
Interfaces are very important for the linking of data. Especially, data standards seem to be a reasonable faciliation for the linking of systems. For this, Open Telematics and Open Logistics Foundation work on an Open-Source-Development.