About 470 members of the VIL gathered yesterday evening at Grand Café Horta in Antwerp for the annual New Year’s reception of the trade and networking association for logistics professionals. 2026 is the ‘year of the horse’ and that inspired VIL chairman Danny Van Himste to give a fascinating speech about the analogy between logistics and horse power.
“Actually, logistics in Flanders are going quite well,” he added afterwards. “I think that we still have great logistics strength in Flanders. Not only because of the location of Flanders in Belgium and Europe, as a central point with good connectivity, but also because there are many companies, good companies and strong logistics service providers, that are renewing themselves for the future. The major challenges for logistics companies today lie less in the change process of physical goods handling, but much more in the information flows: digitalization, AI and making logistics more sustainable. processes.”
“It is also important to ensure that we have sufficient manpower, the ‘workforce of the future’. And finally, more than ever, we must be resilient. The world is volatile. This means that you must be able to adapt and switch quickly, and that you must design your model in such a way that you are ready for it.”
“VIL’s mission is to make logistics stronger. The most important way in which we do this is to develop, prepare and test new concepts together with companies. This involves both a mental shift and mapping the feasibility of innovations, together with those companies.”
