The New Competitive Battleground: People Logistics

When it comes to third party logistics support, would you rather work with:

A.) A company that said it would make your supply chain more efficient through continuous improvement.

OR

B.) A company that said it would act as an extension of your business and sweat the details.

We recently completed survey work around this basic question, and the response was, overwhelmingly, Company B, which would act as an extension of the business. This reinforces a point KANE has been emphasizing for some time: logistics outsourcing success comes down to PEOPLE. People are the raw ingredient to any supply chain initiative, whether it’s strategic planning or day-to-day tactical execution.  They must be trained and incented in the right ways.  They must see the customer’s goals and their goals as one in the same.  And they must care.

The assumption that our research respondents clearly had was that people who care will find a way to do a good job.

Here are some of the comments from survey respondents:

• “I look for suppliers who would act as if they owned the business...we share the same customers.”
• “I want a service provider that believes my best interests are their best interests.”
• “We would need a company to feel and care like they are one of our employees. At the end of the day it's about the bottom line.”
• “If I had a freight company that realized the importance of customer service as I do, that would be my freight company.”
• In logistics outsourcing, forget whether it’s reverse logistics, inbound logistics, port logistics or distribution logistics.  It’s all People Logistics.

The right logistics partner must be not only good, it must be GREAT at recruiting, training, managing and incenting the people required to run a high-performance logistics operation.

That is the new competitive battleground.  People Logistics.