Averitt releases 2020 “State of the North American Supply Chain” survey results

Averitt Express has released the results from its fifth annual State of The North American Supply Chain Survey. More than 1,800 shippers from a wide variety of industries throughout North America participated in the survey, which was conducted in late 2019.

The survey consisted of a series of questions aimed at gauging the supply chain challenges that shippers experienced in 2019. They were also asked questions to measure the use of and interest in various supply chain services in comparison to data taken from the previous years’ surveys.
Some of the questions asked in the survey included:
    •    Are businesses predicting an increase or decrease in shipments in 2020?
    •    What were the biggest challenges with carriers in 2019?
    •    Did tariffs have a negative or positive impact on your business in 2019?
Results from the survey were compiled into a white paper that is available to download for free on Averitt’s website. The white paper will be a valuable resource that shippers can use to help plan their supply chain strategy for the year ahead.
Conclusions drawn from the survey of shippers included:
    •    66.23% anticipate increased shipping volumes in 2020 – a 3.36 percentage point drop from the previous year’s survey that also marks the lowest confidence level recorded in the survey’s five-year history
    •    12.34% of respondents struggled with capacity challenges in 2019 compared to 26.05% that reported issues in 2018
    •    43.32% viewed trade tariffs as having a negative impact on their business in 2019 (an uptick of 2.08 percentage points from the previous year) in comparison to only 5.20% that reported positive effects