Challenges of global markets: The role of transportation in supply chain management

International business world has been undergoing a period of rapid transformation. Trends towards globalization, supported with multimodal transport and supply chain facilities are all reshaping the world’s trading patterns and consequently physical trade flows. The supply chain has become one of the main globalization forces today. Transportation occupies one-third of the amount in the logistics costs and transportation systems influence the performance of supply chain management. Only a good harmonization between each component would bring the benefits to a maximum. Companies today are challenged to streamline their transportation and logistics management processes to maximize efficiencies, customer satisfaction and profit margins. For companies to keep pace with this expansion, supply chains will require systemic transformational change, a move that only contributes to even more operational complexity. The objective of the paper is to define the role of transportation in supply chain management for the reference of further improvement in challenges of present global market. Kew words: globalization, transportation, SCM - supply chain management, CRM - customer relation managemen