How Do You Move the Unmovable?

Our Special Cargo teams regularly navigate complex logistics challenges that require specialist planning and coordination. Transporting an entire factory from origin to destination, for example, involves assessing whether road infrastructure can accommodate heavy equipment, while lifting large industrial cable reels may require multiple cranes and specialist handling. Oversized structures present further challenges, with road transport arrangements, permits and suitable ocean freight solutions all playing an important role in ensuring cargo reaches its destination safely.

These are exceptional movements and the thinking behind them offers a useful lesson for European businesses facing a much broader challenge.

Supply chains have traditionally been designed around assumptions about costs, suppliers, production locations, inventory and routes, but when trade rules, customer demand, tariffs or market conditions change, yesterday's optimum may no longer be the best configuration. Businesses increasingly need to think not only about the most efficient way to move goods, but about what other options are available if circumstances change.

Our latest Global Trade Observatory research finds that 84% of Chief Supply Chain Officers say resilience and optionality have overtaken cost reduction as the primary drivers of supply chain strategy. The question is becoming less about finding one perfect answer and more about creating enough viable choices to make the right decision when circumstances change. 

Start with the Constraints, Not the Route

Rather than focusing immediately on the route, our Special Cargo teams start by understanding the constraints that could shape the journey. Berkay Ogan, Project Cargo Executive in Türkiye, experienced this when his team managed the door-to-door transportation of an entire factory.

The project involved managing the movement of heavy equipment from origin through to final delivery at the project site. However, some of the roads leading to the destination were unsuitable for transporting the cargo and required additional preparation and modifications. For certain shipments, our teams also coordinated with government authorities to facilitate changes to major roads. This required close coordination across transport, customs, port operations and on-site teams to ensure each stage of the journey was carefully managed.

Sometimes, the best solution is only clear when you're standing next to the cargo.

Understanding the constraints on a supply chain isn’t about assuming the existing route will fail but knowing what choices exist when cost, capacity, speed or commercial priorities change.

Building Options Before You Need Them

Understanding the problem is only the beginning. The next step is working out which combination of infrastructure and transport can solve it, and for Special Cargo, there is rarely a standard answer.

Depending on the shipment, our teams may consider road, rail, barge or ocean transport, and for an oversized ocean movement, the answer could involve a flat rack, RoRo or a conventional vessel. The route itself may need to account for bridge heights, road restrictions, permits or the physical capabilities of the origin and destination, and the same principle increasingly applies at network level.

Our Global Trade Observatory research finds that 86% of CSCOs say access to alternative and multimodal trade routes is becoming a competitive advantage. Alternative routes can help when an established corridor comes under pressure, but they can also allow businesses to balance cost, speed and market access differently as conditions and opportunities change.

Businesses are creating choices elsewhere too, with 71% of CSCOs surveyed planning to diversify their supplier base over the next 12 months, and many also considering changes to inventory levels and production locations. This is a key indication that the shift is from optimisation towards optionality.

When the economics of the original choice change, recognising the commercial value of another supplier or route doesn't have to mean abandoning efficiency. Our combination of European gateways, inland connectivity, freight forwarding and warehousing can help customers consider those choices across the supply chain rather than one movement at a time. 

An Alternative Has to Work in Practice

The execution of a complex cargo movement can appear deceptively straightforward and for Claudiu Pintea, who joined the business as a lasher in 2005 and today operates mobile harbour cranes for complex cargo movements in Romania, it's anything but.

One memorable operation involved an industrial cable reel that was too demanding for a single crane, so the team used two cranes together in a tandem lift.

It may look like simply lifting and moving a piece of cargo, but in reality, every detail matters.

That balance between preparation and adaptability was also a theme at our recent BMW PGA Championship programme at Wentworth. Reflecting on operating in the constantly changing conditions of elite sailing, Sir Ben Ainslie spoke about the need to be “very dynamic” and to have “that flexibility, not being too rigid”.

In elite sport, preparation creates the foundations for performance, but no plan survives unchanged once conditions, competitors or circumstances shift. The ability to adjust without losing sight of the objective is part of the skill, and the same is true in logistics.

Alternative routes are only valuable if they can actually be used, and equipment, capacity and permits have to be available with experienced teams able to understand how the pieces fit together.

The same principle applies whether the challenge is moving an oversized cable reel or redesigning the flow of goods across a region. Having options on a map is one thing, but having the infrastructure, connections and expertise to execute them is another.

Better Information Helps Businesses Make Better Choices

Speaking during the BMW PGA Championship panel on the changing global trade landscape, Kai Olschner, Global Vice President, Supply Chain Engineering at DP World, described the opportunity to bring together the information already flowing through supply chains and “make use of it in a more predictive way”.

Half of the CSCOs surveyed for the Global Trade Observatory identify digital integration and end-to-end visibility among the capabilities that will be most important in enabling business growth over the next three years. AI has also moved beyond experimentation in several areas, and 70% say they are already using AI to improve demand forecasting or have progressed to fully AI-driven operations in this area, with similarly high levels reported for risk analysis and inventory optimisation.

But prediction is only useful when there is something practical to do with it, and as Kai's point underlines, if data indicates that a route is becoming constrained, there still needs to be another route, mode or gateway available. If demand changes unexpectedly, there still needs to be the inventory, capacity and connectivity to respond.

From Optimisation to Optionality

Despite a landscape of uncertainty, the ability to anticipate disruption is expected to keep improving, and AI will help businesses interpret more supply chain data, identify patterns earlier and explore potential responses faster.

This is not simply an exercise in how to defend supply chains, and 93% of CSCOs say their role in driving business growth has become more central over the past three years, reflecting the influence supply chain decisions increasingly have on market entry, investment and commercial strategy.

The strongest supply chain won't always be the one with the perfect answer, but the one with viable alternatives, the information to choose between them and the capability to act.

As Andy Haldane CBE, President of the British Chambers of Commerce, said at the BMW PGA Championship, businesses need to “have line of sight on the scenarios and uncertainties” and remain agile when shocks arrive.

Our Global Trade Observatory CSCO Pulse Report 2026 explores how supply chain leaders are moving from optimisation towards greater optionality, the growing role of CSCOs in business growth, and the capabilities they believe will matter most over the years ahead.

Read the full CSCO Pulse Report 2026.