Global trade has entered a phase in which disruption is no longer episodic but structural. According to DP World’s Without Logistics research, cargo owners across regions and sectors are no longer planning for recovery between crises; instead, they are operating in what the report describes as a state where “disruption never really goes away”.
This marks a decisive shift. What were once labelled extraordinary events – geopolitical shocks, climate-related disruption, labour shortages, congestion or infrastructure failure – are now overlapping and persistent. The result is an operating environment in which businesses are forced into near-constant firefighting, with limited time to stabilise systems before the next disruption hits.
For policymakers and business leaders, the implication is clear: resilience can no longer be treated as contingency planning. It has become a baseline requirement for participation in global trade.
A global problem with a sharply uneven geography
In Europe, disruption is widespread but often less visible. The UK and Germany combine lower reputational damage with relatively high confidence in logistics partners, even when delays occur. France stands out as an anomaly: disruption costs are high, confidence in partners is low, and investment momentum lags behind other stressed regions.
The risk for Europe is not collapse but erosion. Where disruption is less visible, productivity losses accumulate quietly, weakening competitiveness without triggering the urgency seen in more stressed corridors.
While disruption is now widespread, its burden is not evenly distributed. The research identifies a small group of what it terms “stressed corridors”, where downtime, financial losses and reputational damage are consistently higher than elsewhere.
Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa, and the Gulf countries emerge as the most exposed regions. In these markets, losing more than a month of operational time in a year affected by disruption has become commonplace rather than exceptional. Financial losses are also more severe, with a far higher share of firms reporting annual disruption costs of at least $1m.
Yet these same regions are also among the most ambitious in terms of investment. Expectations of increased logistics spending and accelerated deployment of automation and digital tools are highest where disruption is most acute, suggesting that pressure is acting as a catalyst for structural change rather than paralysis.
Two forms of disruption, one permanent reality
A critical insight of the research is that disruption does not look the same everywhere. Instead, it takes two distinct forms.
High-volume sectors such as retail, perishables and healthcare face chronic disruption: frequent, recurring incidents that create constant operational friction. These sectors operate, as the report puts it, in a state of “near constant turbulence”, where the challenge is smoothing daily volatility rather than recovering from singular shocks.
At the other end of the spectrum, sectors such as automotive and technology experience catastrophic disruption less often, but with far greater consequences when it occurs. In automotive, the average cost per disruption is around $1m, and recovery periods can stretch into months, reflecting the tight coupling between production, inventory and component availability.
The distinction matters because it reshapes how resilience should be built. As the report warns, applying a uniform strategy risks “over-insuring against rare shocks while under-investing in the operational discipline that keeps shelves stocked and factories running”.
In Europe, where disruption is more often chronic than catastrophic, the risk for logistics companies is not shutdown but sustained margin pressure and declining service reliability.
Customer pain is widespread; trust erosion is not
Across regions and sectors, the immediate effects of disruption are strikingly consistent. Most cargo owners report increased customer complaints and lost business when logistics performance deteriorates. But longer-term damage to brand and partner relationships is far more concentrated.
“Complaints spike quickly when ships are late or shelves are empty, but long-term damage to brand and partner relationships tends to occur where disruption is both frequent and badly explained,” the report notes.
Markets experiencing persistent disruption combined with weak communication see logistics failure turn into a trust issue. Elsewhere, reputations prove more resilient, even when service levels falter. The difference lies not in the absence of disruption, but in transparency, coordination and credible recovery planning.
For European logistics providers, the findings suggest that competitive advantage increasingly lies in communication, recovery capability and trust management rather than the elimination of disruption itself.
Why technology alone does not close the gap
Despite strong expectations of increased investment in AI, automation and digital tools, the research is explicit that technology on its own does not deliver resilience. The largest reductions in disruption costs occur where companies invest across multiple parts of the logistics chain, strengthening fundamentals such as factory logistics, inbound flows and warehousing before layering digital tools on top.
“Resilience is built through a deliberate mix of investments in logistics fundamentals and enabling technology – not through technology alone,” the report concludes.
This finding challenges the assumption that digitalisation can compensate for weak physical systems. In practice, technology amplifies the performance of well-functioning networks but struggles to repair structural bottlenecks.
In a European context of tight margins and fragmented transport networks, the research raises questions about how far digital investment can deliver returns without parallel investment in planning, infrastructure and workforce capacity.
From operational function to strategic asset
Perhaps the clearest signal that disruption has become structural lies in how organisations are responding. Across sectors and regions, there is broad agreement that businesses with resilient supply chains will outperform their peers. More than four-fifths of respondents expect logistics to become a more strategic board-level concern, with investment rising accordingly.
Yet the experience of disruption differs sharply within organisations. Senior executives frame it as a strategic and financial risk, while operational teams experience it as lost customers, repeated escalation and constant firefighting. The alignment on the need for resilience is real, but execution remains uneven.
Taken together, the findings point to a deeper shift. Logistics is no longer merely a cost centre or efficiency lever. In a world where disruption is permanent, it functions increasingly as economic infrastructure – shaping competitiveness, market access and the capacity to absorb shocks.
For Europe, the risk is not a dramatic breakdown but a gradual erosion. As more stressed regions respond to permanent disruption with aggressive investment, European logistics faces the challenge of maintaining competitiveness while disruption accumulates quietly across routes, depots and balance sheets.
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