LOGISTICS & WAREHOUSING
Saurabh explains:“ Today, companies like Dell operate across direct, marketplace, B2B, agentic commerce and social commerce simultaneously, and each with distinct inventory pools, SLA requirements and regional compliance rules. Winning 3PL partners are those that can operate across this complexity without forcing brands to maintain a different logistics relationship for every channel.”
Manufacturers, therefore, need partners who can scale in order to meet these needs.“ At the same time,” Alina adds,“ ongoing margin pressure means manufacturers are looking for 3PL providers that continuously offer improved systems, such as automation, technologies like AI, and efficient operational models.”
AI has been a significant tool within 3PL operations, helping reduce the demand signal timeline. It covers much of the time-consuming, manual work, enabling the human workforce to handle other tasks. The AI tool allows for faster processing, ensuring that bottlenecks and delays are reduced. Saurabh says:“ With agentic commerce, humans are simply chatting in natural language while the AI is autonomously handling product discovery, configuration, and purchasing.”
Through this, the fastest shipping options can be planned, creating accurate delivery windows and greater timeframes for the consumer.
He concludes:“ The partnerships that hold long-term commercial value are API-first, event-driven, and capable of syncing with autonomous commerce workflows in near real time.”
“The partnerships that hold longterm commercial value are API-first, event-driven, and capable of syncing with autonomous commerce workflows in near real time”
Saurabh Pitkar Director of Product Management, Agentic Commerce Dell Technologies
Cutting through complexity The aim of 3PL companies is to ensure consistency across networks and support organisations as they grow. This means having the capabilities around the world to support innovative launches and be prepared for demand spikes.
“ At Cencora, our goal is to become the partner of choice for pharmaceutical and biotech companies which require specialised logistics,” Alina notes.“ We’ re building capabilities in the US and Europe to support innovative launches, particularly in the cell and gene and radiopharma spaces. We know these new modalities are coming and will soon become the new norm, so we need to ensure our clients are confident we can continue to support them as they
102 August 2026