Operators urged to define problems first…
As AI fever sweeps through freight and logistics, operators are preparing for a new wave of technology investments and replacements, but Alan Dowsett, head of Sandfield’s Origin division, believes many organisations are rushing toward costly transformation projects before identifying what’s actually broken.
Origin’s Logistics Technology Outlook 2026 found 58 percent of ANZ operators expect to replace or upgrade three or more systems in the next year, with transport management systems topping many shopping lists. Yet Dowsett warns businesses risk launching expensive transformation projects before they’ve worked out what outcome they actually want to achieve and says advances in AI are changing how organisations can modernise their legacy systems.
“People are looking at spending more and they’re replacing systems, but they’re doing that without a strategy.”
“People are looking at spending more and they’re replacing systems, but they’re doing that without a strategy,” he told iStart.
The survey found 68 percent of freight and logistics operators expect to increase technology spending in the coming year, up from 52 percent in 2025, with cost reduction and efficiency the primary drivers. Fifty-eight percent expect to replace or upgrade three or more systems. More than half have a transport management system replacement on the agenda.
Dowsett says operators are facing growing pressure to modernise as AI and automation become more important, but many may be assuming replacement is the only path forward.
“I do wonder how much foresight there is in terms of looking ahead at where things are going,” he said.
“Are people rushing into replacing systems when perhaps they should be stopping and thinking about where they’re going and looking at what they can do with the systems they’ve already got in place?”
Don’t confuse legacy with broken
The survey saw 41 percent of respondents citing AI or automation enablement as a reason for technology investment. However, Dowsett says businesses should be careful not to assume older systems have reached the end of their useful life simply because AI has arrived.
“If you’re looking to optimise your business and use AI, your issue is that you’ve got solid data in these legacy systems,” he said.
“Just because they’re legacy systems doesn’t mean you can’t get that data out and start working on that central source of truth, a platform that sits across all your systems.”
He says operators frequently focus on replacing a system when the real issue is that information remains trapped across multiple applications.
“Most operators already own the data. It’s locked in systems that don’t talk to each other, and replacing one often just moves the problem.”
That challenge remains widespread. While 61 percent of operators say they have full or substantial visibility across the business, only 26 percent can currently see every job, its status and its cost in a single live view. Fewer than half measure the return generated by technology investments.
An ERP-sized undertaking
The warning is particularly relevant given the number of operators considering transport management system upgrades.
According to the survey, 51 percent of organisations planning software changes expect a TMS replacement or upgrade in the next 12 months.
Dowsett says those projects should not be underestimated.
“Unless you’re a very small operator running only a few trucks, for everyone else it is effectively an ERP replacement and the bigger you are, the harder it gets.”
Replacing core transport or warehousing systems carries not only significant technology costs but also major change management implications.
“If you’re replacing a TMS or a warehousing system, then that’s not just a huge expense, but a huge change management piece in the business as well, and if all you’ve done is put in a fancier version, but you’ve still got the same problem of isolated data, then you haven’t really solved a lot,” he says.
The AI opportunity
Ironically, Dowsett believes AI may strengthen the case for keeping some legacy systems rather than replacing them.
He points to advances in software development, integration and automation that make it easier to add functionality around existing platforms.
“If you’re rushing to replace the systems without having an AI strategy, you’ll possibly miss a few tricks where there’s a lot you can do with AI even now with your legacy systems and probably get more bang for your buck than you will by just replacing legacy systems,” he says.
One example is driver-facing mobile applications. Operators may decide to replace a transport management system because it lacks modern mobile capabilities, but Dowsett says organisations can increasingly build those capabilities around existing platforms.
“The opportunity that everyone has now with AI is you can, in a cost-effective manner, develop your own mobile app that can work with that existing transport management system to give you the functionality you’re missing,” he says.
“So you’ve got improvements in the business, you’ve made drivers’ lives easier, you’re getting better data coming through, but without having to replace that system that runs your core business.”
The same thinking can apply to customer-facing technology, where Dowsett says operators with older platforms can add customer portals and other digital services without undertaking a full replacement project.
“You might have legacy solutions that don’t have customer portals. You can put one now in front of those systems that’s serving up data to your customers and can easily integrate with those legacy systems,” he says.
Revenue leakage and visibility
For Dowsett, the bigger issue is whether operators have the visibility required to run the business effectively.
“It’s amazing how many people still, it’s not until the work’s complete, that they actually work out how much they’re going to charge for the work,” he says.
“Even that by itself leads to revenue leakage, because you’ve missed the opportunity to charge the right rate for all the work.”
The survey found operators with a single live operational view are nearly three times more likely to provide customers with substantial visibility into their operations than those without one.
Meanwhile, AI adoption continues to accelerate. Nine in ten operators now have staff using general AI tools, while production deployments have risen from 15 percent to 28 percent. Yet only 20 percent have a documented AI strategy and just seven percent can demonstrate measurable returns.
For organisations weighing up major technology investments, Dowsett says the starting point should be defining the outcome, not selecting the technology.
“The first step would be working out why you’re doing the big project, what it is that you actually hope to achieve by that, being really clear about what the outcome you’re trying to achieve is,” he said.
“AI is a massive opportunity, but if you’re going to take advantage of it and see the value for it in your business, you need basic disciplines in place with your systems.
“If you can’t integrate your systems together, if you can’t bring your data together so that you have one source of truth, then you’re not going to be able to fully leverage what you’ve got for AI.”
