Combining Human Judgment, Innovation, and Resilience

In an interview with Loginfo24, Philipp Pfister, Sector Vice President at Transporeon, a Trimble company, reflects on the year coming to an end and also ventures a look ahead. For more than 20 years, Transporeon has been digitizing and transforming transport. The platform is an essential part of the ecosystem of shippers and carriers, connecting people, places, and things.

By: Andreas Müller

(Ulm) Philipp Pfister analyzes the developments of 2025 in conversation with Loginfo24, assesses the impact of the integration into the US technology company Trimble, and discusses the current priorities of his customers. He also takes a look forward: What will the future of logistics look like in 2026 – and what role will Transporeon play in this new environment?

Loginfo24: Philipp Pfister, how would you evaluate the year 2025 overall for the logistics industry – where were the biggest challenges, and where the opportunities?

“While we continued to face economic uncertainty and geopolitical volatility, adaptability has definitely emerged as the new critical competitive advantage. The companies that were at the forefront successfully combined human judgment, digital innovation, and operational resilience.

We have definitely observed a growing interest and greater openness towards AI: More and more companies have transitioned from using AI for tasks like route optimization to autonomous decision-making.”

The acquisition of Transporeon by Trimble Inc. was completed in April 2023. What impact did this step have internally and externally – both operationally and strategically?

“The acquisition of Transporeon by Trimble aimed to create significant value for customers worldwide by leveraging the strengths of both companies. The companies complemented each other perfectly: While Trimble has historically focused on carriers in North America, Transporeon brought expertise in collaborating with shippers from Europe. By bringing these markets together, we can now serve the entire supply chain from planning to delivery and optimize processes at every point in the supply chain: from transport management to maintenance, tracking, and transparency, to route planning and optimization, as well as safety and compliance.”

From your perspective: What are currently the three most important topics that concern your customers – and how does Transporeon address these?

“We currently see three strategic and interrelated topics that are of greatest concern to our customers:

First, increasing operational resilience in volatile markets is a priority, as logistics has faced constant turbulence since 2020, such as the Suez Canal blockage, attacks on shipping in the Red Sea, the Ukraine war, inflation, and capacity shortages. We address this by reducing manual labor, automating processes, and promoting collaboration across our extensive network. This allows our customers’ teams to focus on what really matters in this constantly changing environment.

Second, our customers are looking for pragmatic ways to achieve sustainability through increased utilization and efficiency. For example, if a truck transports only 10 instead of 30 pallets, that is a waste of resources. We provide efficient planning and procurement solutions to reduce empty miles, consolidate loads, and shorten waiting times at docks.

Third, our customers show a growing interest in AI-powered tools, as the focus has shifted from various tests to a concrete demand for data-driven decision support. The foundation for this is the enormous amount of data from our network, which consists of more than 1,500 shippers and over 180,000 carriers conducting more than 115,000 transports daily through our platform. This data is the basis for our benchmarking tools, predictive analytics, and AI-based decision support. An example of our AI tools is ‘Autonomous Procurement’ and ‘Autonomous Quotation.’ They allow users to fully manage and automate the entire process of bidding, negotiation, and assignment of spot shipments from a single access point. This leads to a significant optimization of processes for both shippers and carriers.”

How do you see the logistics industry positioned for 2026 – what trends will prevail, and where do you see potential stumbling blocks?

“For the logistics industry, the year 2026 will be a year of transition, where the adaptability of companies will determine their success.

The greatest opportunity lies in the rapid maturation of artificial intelligence (AI). The industry is moving from the experimentation phase to widespread, real-world implementation. AI solutions have become accessible to companies of all sizes and have been successfully transitioned into mainstream applications that deliver operational intelligence – including predictive maintenance, network optimization, and dynamic pricing. A new understanding of technology is emerging: AI is increasingly being used as a ‘colleague.’ The questions in executive suites are no longer whether AI can help, but rather how quickly it can deliver concrete, measurable results.

“The driver shortage remains another challenge for the industry.”

Data quality is a central challenge, especially regarding the broader application of AI. Autonomous AI systems require structured, standardized data. However, since logistics is traditionally highly fragmented, consolidating and cleaning this data is the biggest hurdle for successful and widespread implementation of AI solutions.

Change management remains another AI-related challenge. Successful companies recognize how important it is to appoint change ambassadors within their teams. These experienced employees can bridge the gap between old processes and new technologies and help their colleagues navigate the transition with credibility and empathy.

And for Transporeon specifically: What strategic priorities are you setting for 2026? Will the name ‘Transporeon’ remain – or will a new brand structure be introduced under Trimble? Does the renaming of the Transporeon Summit to Trimble Insight Europe point in a future direction?

“There will be a global Trimble Transport & Logistics segment, in which the Transporeon platform is integrated – accordingly, the Transporeon Summit has also been renamed.”

“The goal is to create a leading, fully connected transport ecosystem that brings together shippers, retailers, carriers, and logistics service providers on a common infrastructure. With a strong market presence in North America – where over two million trucks and more than 85 percent of the 200 largest fleets are operated with Trimble technology – as well as the world’s largest European freight network with over 180,000 carriers and more than 1,500 shippers, Trimble is creating the foundation for a global network effect. The way forward is clear: an ecosystem that makes transport safer, easier, and more efficient, opening up new scaling and efficiency potentials for companies worldwide.”

Philipp Pfister was appointed Sector Vice President of Transporeon at Trimble in January 2025 and has been a key part of Transporeon since 2012. With his extensive experience in customer delivery, he has a sharp eye for the essential connection between technological solutions and empowering the people who use them.

“In the field of AI, supply chain solutions that leverage this technology – combined with the largest managed network and the most comprehensive dataset – offer a unique advantage. Transporeon, along with a customer-focused team that cares about real, everyday problems, is the best solution to support our network in freight transport.”

Photos: © Transporeon