Benefits, risks, selection criteria and success factors for third-party logistics services

The need to reduce logistics costs is well recognised, often, however, without identification of the factors that could contribute to such a reduction. Third-party logistics (3PL) is an augmenting activity of the transport system, which can strengthen the cooperation of different transport modes. As a new practice, conditions of success are driven from personal or empirical situations, often hiding the real causes. To tackle this problem, a major survey has been conducted among both buyers and suppliers of logistics services in the United Kingdom. From the survey, several key findings of customer perceptions of logistics services provided by 3PL companies were derived. Results of the survey show a clear difference in points of view between suppliers and buyers. The results of the survey shed light on how the architecture of logistics outsourcing can be improved