Many years ago, the automotive logistics industry was viewed as an already matured sector with very little growth opportunities. Ironic as it may seem, the global crisis 2009 has played a pivotal role in instituting significant changes in the industry. Surprisingly, the decline in the demand among developed and developing markets were surpassed by the huge growth among emerging markets. This resulted in the expanded prospects for logistics providers in the global market.

International competition and market uncertainty has caused many organizations to scale their operations globally, which in turn has made logistics networks quite intricate. Changes brought about by increased globalization, technology advances in communication and manufacturing, changes in consumer expectations and preferences, and increased demand for social and environmental responsibility, have forced companies to revise their processes to increase efficiency by reducing costs and eliminating any waste and slacks, in order to maintain profitability.

In many organizations, the opportunities to reduce inventory costs are often not addressed at all or are not completely exploited. However, smart managers understand that they can reduce supply chain costs by spending more on transportation. The easiest way to reduce supply chain costs is to hold less inventory. The safest way to reduce your inventory levels is by buying additional transportation.

The logistical process eases the affiliation between production and the movement of products. In addition, logistical processes deal with the many facets of production, counting quality, costs, and time. When a business successfully synchronizes these logistical processes, they can follow the procedures through production, utilization, storage, and removal. Furthermore, a well-organized logistical process depends on the correct geographical locality of all assets within the company.

Introduction

While many companies today understand why they need to outsource logistics services, what appears to be less clear to them is when they should outsource. According to experts, the best time to outsource is when you realize that you are spending a lot of time, money and energy on an activity which is not necessarily your core competency. In this article, we tell you the other signs that the time is nigh for outsourcing logistic services. These tell-tale signs are explained below.

Sign#1: You have delivery date issues

Introduction

Any astute supply chain manager wants to seize opportunities of driving efficiency throughout the lifecycle of the product. However, there is an area that has been traditionally overlooked and this is reverse logistics. Traditionally, product lifecycle was considered to end the moment the consumer walked out of the shop with a purchase. Many organizations viewed returns management as nothing more than a cost center and there was little attention into what products or parts remained in the pipeline and what to do with them. But today, this is changing.