The third-party logistics industry in the modern sense is a relatively young industry with a history of about 10 ~ 15 years and a huge market. In the United States, the third-party logistics industry is considered to be in the introduction-growth period of product life cycle, and its output value accounts for 57% of the total value of the whole logistics industry, with an average of 20% in Europe. Logistics costs account for 25% of the sales of goods. According to the total retail sales of consumer goods in China of 3 trillion yuan, the output value of logistics industry will reach about 750 billion yuan, and if the third-party logistics reaches the level of about 20% in Europe, it will reach150 billion yuan. With the vigorous development of e-commerce, the third-party logistics in China is bound to advance by leaps and bounds. However, at present, the agency industry in China is underdeveloped, and people are even more unfamiliar with modern logistics. In the past, the potential logistics demand of each unit was often regarded as a simple transportation task, which was either handed over to the team of the unit or entrusted to a professional transportation enterprise in a helpless situation.
In recent years, the number of foreign-funded enterprises in China's open cities is increasing, and their urgent demand for logistics services has prompted foreign-funded logistics enterprises to enter China one after another, thus making China's transportation industry at a competitive disadvantage, but also making it see its own development direction. In order to focus on their main business, many enterprises "divest" the transportation service department and socialize their services. After these transportation service departments lost their "imperial grain", they had to "find rice to cook", expand their service scope and develop into the logistics industry.
Third-party logistics providers are companies that manage, control and provide logistics operation services for external customers. It is not an independent participant in the actual movement chain of goods, but is executed on behalf of the consignor or consignee. The choice of third-party logistics is mainly based on the expectations of the third-party logistics industry for customers: operational interests, economic interests, management interests and strategic interests. Today's society is in a "plug and play" era, and people want everything they use to be simple, fast and convenient, which is really a special challenge for those enterprises who want to seek third-party logistics services. Whether an enterprise entrusts a single warehouse management or a complete distribution system to a third party to develop an efficient third-party logistics relationship, sellers and shippers need to do a lot of work. Is it worth spending so much time and energy? Although there are many doubts in this respect, anyone who has had experience in this field knows its value. Experts believe that it is possible to simplify and integrate the activities of third-party logistics into the operation of enterprises, but this way must protect buyers from generating any extra expenses, and enterprises should create a good service and support environment to promote the best operation of third-party logistics. How can large-scale entrusting units rely on external forces,
That is, how to choose a logistics company, the following are some experiences:
1. The establishment of an inter-departmental logistics organization involves a wide range, and not only logistics professionals can do it well. It is necessary to absorb the representatives of production, marketing and quality management of this enterprise and form an inter-departmental logistics organization.
2. Determine the enterprise's goal of using logistics services. Establish such a goal, so that everyone has a clear understanding. This is a prerequisite for choosing a logistics company and a standard for measuring logistics performance in the future. After the goal is determined, it is not difficult to predict the difficulties to be overcome and choose the most suitable logistics company.
3. Determine the user's demand for logistics services After determining the enterprise's goal of using logistics services, it is also necessary to understand and determine the user's demand for using logistics services, so as to ensure that the logistics company to be selected can make full use of its strengths and avoid its weaknesses and better provide logistics services.
4. Formulate selection criteria According to the objectives of the enterprise and the requirements of relevant users, formulate the criteria for selecting logistics companies. This accepted standard, on the one hand, serves as the basis for selecting logistics companies, on the other hand, it is also the basis for making requirements for the selected logistics companies in the future, which should be taken seriously.
5. Put forward the list of alternative logistics companies, and look for alternative objects in the logistics industry according to the selection criteria. These candidates should not only meet the business direction of the enterprise, but also adapt to the regional scope of the enterprise. In order to find the best partner, we can seek the opinions of suppliers and customers, consult professional organizations and even search extensively on the Internet.
6. Ask the candidate to send a letter to the candidate asking if he is willing to bid. The letter should not only introduce the general situation of the company and the nature and regional scope of the bidding project, but also ask the other party to provide the basic information of the company and the business scope within the scope of authority.
7. Publish the consultation plan. Issue consulting plans to candidate logistics companies that have passed the preliminary examination, and put forward requirements in transportation, warehousing and value-added services. Ask the other party to fill in the organization name, service capacity, original user unit and its quotation on the consultation quotation.
8. Conduct on-the-spot investigation after carefully reviewing the replied consulting scheme and quotation, organize forces to focus on 4 ~ 5 logistics companies that are most likely to win the bid, and gain a deep understanding of their logistics facilities, business processes, company leaders and general personnel. In order to facilitate comparison, the same group of people should conduct a collective survey and fill in a standardized questionnaire.
9. Examining the qualifications of candidates. According to the investigation report, quotation and other relevant materials, the inter-departmental logistics organization of the enterprise examines the financial status, business philosophy and strategic suitability of the bidding company one by one.
10. Through comparative analysis, the selected partners use AHP to compare the conditions of bidding competitors with the original selection criteria of the enterprise, and input the weight scores of each alternative logistics company into the computer for comparison, so that the leaders can make the final decision accordingly. The cooperative logistics company has been identified and signed a third-party logistics agreement with it. The implementation process of this agreement is different for each enterprise, but some important considerations will help each shipper handle these relationships well.
Here we offer some suggestions to shippers.
1. Make clear your demand for logistics services provided by third parties, and ask the shipper to closely follow every activity and conduct a thorough self-inspection. This means paying attention to the operation of the whole supply chain, not just a specific part. For logistics managers, we should pay attention to the whole process of products from the origin of raw materials to the end users, including after-sales service. The purpose of doing this is to really understand the operation, needs and goals of the enterprise, and whether the current operation of the enterprise meets these needs and achieves the goals? Only when enterprises truly understand their own operations can they get real benefits from the use of third-party logistics.
2. Top-down, fully supporting the introduction of third-party logistics will affect the operation of all departments of the enterprise, from sales, marketing departments to financial departments, which requires corresponding adjustments in cooperation policies, culture and behavior. Most importantly, the top leaders of enterprises should fully support this plan. But these are not enough, and it is necessary to ensure that the leaders of all departments of the enterprise accept this plan.
3. The implementation of the plan needs extra time and resources, and the third-party logistics relationship will be put on the right track from the beginning, because in the management process, third-party logistics companies often have changes in personnel or even the entire operating unit, so they need specialized knowledge to manage the initial cooperation. Some third-party logistics companies have created a methodology of preliminary cooperation, and here is a model supplier's main reference. This mode is called "Start" mode, each letter represents different stages of logistics implementation process, and "S" stands for "S" (strategic vision; T "(tactics) refers to the formulation of tactics; (Assembly) refers to the conditions-personnel, information systems, hardware, auxiliary facilities and communication R "(resources) refers to the development of resources-mainly human resources such as financial managers and supply chain managers; T "(training) stands for personnel training-training and using new technologies.
4. Eliminate communication barriers If there is no good communication between relevant departments, enterprises will encounter resistance when implementing third-party logistics agreements. For example, when suppliers serve new customers, they will encounter one of the most common problems, that is, they will often receive some contradictory information, some from the transportation department and some from the financial or marketing department. Therefore, to solve similar problems, all departments should work closely together to find out the obstacles in communication and solve them. One of the ways to solve the communication problem is to directly appoint someone to supervise the logistics cooperation relationship.
5. IT is a data-intensive activity to bring IT into the planning and logistics, and every third-party logistics agreement includes information processing and sharing, so it is natural to bring the information technology department into the project plan from the beginning, which is of great help to the successful implementation of the logistics agreement. To sum up, enterprises and logistics suppliers should supervise and inspect the progress of project operation, and realize that their relationship will change with the change of conditions, so they should make preparations in advance. In fact, no matter what the goal of the enterprise is, making preparations in advance will increase the chances of successful cooperation. You will find it worthwhile to cooperate with a third-party logistics company.
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