Investigating brand equity of third-party service providers

Purpose: This research applies theory and techniques from the services and marketing literature to a supply chain context consisting of a shipper or seller, a customer or buyer, and a third-party logistics service provider (3PL) to investigate corporate brand equity resulting from service quality, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty towards the 3PL. Design/methodology/approach: A conceptual model was developed from the literature and tested with Finnish industrial firms using an online survey. Data were analysed using structural equation modelling to examine relationships among the four constructs. Findings: Hypothesised relationships among the four constructs in the conceptual model were supported however the relationship between loyalty and corporate brand equity was weak. Research limitations/implications: This investigatory research is based on a one country sample making transferability and generalisability to other countries difficult. Practical implications: The findings of this research should enable 3PL managers to determine service offerings that are most important to either shippers or customers, develop a service package using such offerings to satisfy needs, and thus build loyalty and corporate brand equity among both parties. Originality/value: This paper adds to our knowledge of these constructs in a supply chain context, particularly for 3PLs, and provides an interdisciplinary approach to research in the supply chain domain

What Turkey expects from logistics outsourcing ?

Copyright @ 2011 Yasar UniversityThe economies of the world have become increasingly interdependent, and organizations have come under tremendous pressure to maximize productivity and profitability. Creating value through outsourcing has emerged as a popular competitive strategy for firms of all sizes in all types of industries. The aim of this research is to investigate the use of third party logistics in Turkish companies from the users’ perspective to identify the types of logistics services outsourced, problems encountered in outsourcing these services, logistics costs, decision makers in outsourcing logistics activities, and information sources used in the decision-making process. A structured survey was selected as the tool for data collection. The field study involved face-to-face interviews with 204 companies out of top 500 companies ranked in terms of turnover that are registered with industrial associations and chambers of commerce in Turkey. Moreover, a decision support system based on Bayesian Causal Map is proposed for 3PLs in order to assist them in their service proposals for different sectors. This study is a first attempt to reveal and compare the outsourcing perception of the companies in different sectors, to expose the firms’ underlying motives as well as the respective importance of these motives for outsourcing logistics activities in Turkey. The use of Bayesian Causal Map based on the survey results provides an important guide to the 3PL providers to pick a suitable strategy and to prioritize their operational activities in different sectors in such a way to achieve a competitive advantage

An Analysis of Service Failures and Recovery Strategies in the Turkish Third Party Logistics Service Industry

Service literature indicates that both service failure and service recovery have a strong impact on the business relationships between service providers and their customers. The purpose of this research is twofold: to explore and analyze the most common service failures and implemented recovery strategies in Turkish third party logistics service industry and examine their impact on business relationships. Critical Incident Technique (CIT) was used. Thus, information on critical incidents were collected from both third party logistics service providers (3PLs) and their customers, failures and recovery strategies were categorized and the impact of service failures and recovery strategies on future relationships between customers and 3PLs examined. The findings indicate that service failures are most frequently encountered in customer services and port operations and that symbolic service recovery is the most common recovery strategy implemented by third party logistics service providers. The findings also show that third party logistics service providers and carriers are the most common sources of failure in third party logistics services

Measuring the performance of international logistics outsourcing partnerships: A dyadic perspective analysis

We analyze the validity of five performance measures of international logistics outsourcing partnerships, using information from both partners. Each partner's assessment of performance is captured by a single construct, which underlies four of the measures. This construct, however, is different for each party. Consequently, we examine a focal partner's perceptions of the other partner's performance assessment, and show that these inter-party perceptions are a poor measure of the latter's actual performance assessment.strategic alliances; logistics outsourcing partnerships; performance measurement; construct validity;

Attitudes of 3PL Providers of the Companies towards the Activities of Organizational Performance

Businesses today specialize in their core competencies and outsource their other operations due to the emerging perception of competition brought on by the large-scale similarity of production, the quick spread of technology and information systems, and the disappearance of international borders. One of the most common fields of outsourcing activity is Third Party Logistics (3PL) service, and the Organizational Performance elements of 3PL service providers are listed as Service Quality, Relationship Management and Organizational Effectiveness. This research aims to examine the Organizational Performance criteria of the 3PL providers serving the production enterprises and to evaluate the relationship structure between the mean and standard deviation values of the statements in the survey. The empirical results obtained from frequency, regression and standard deviation analyses show that Guanxi, Reliability, Assurance, and Trust positively affect Organizational Effectiveness. However, only Trust has a positive and statistically significant impact on Service Quality

Does structure influence performance in downstream supply chain?

In 1989, John Sterman has explained in the famous beer game the bullwhip effect in downstream supply chain and how structure influences behavior of supply chain members. In this article, we try to find answers to the following questions: Does structure influence performance in downstream supply chain? Can be identified a network configuration that performs better than other configurations? In finding answers to the research questions, we considered the axiom ‘what it is not measured, it cannot be managed’. In the study, we took SCOR metrics at first level as performance metrics and best practices to express each SCOR dimension. 30 top executives from World Class Manufacturers were surveyed to rate the importance of the metrics and best practices in measuring performance in downstream supply chain. The second step was to develop a multiple attribute utility model (MAUT) to select from the seven configurations identified the one that has the highest performance.downstream supply chain network; multiple attribute utility model; SCOR; performance metrics; best practices.

Management guidelines for third-party logistics

There is a significant amount of useful yet fragmented research in third-party logistics (3PL). This article seeks to review, summarize, and structure this 3PL research to provide a reference guide for managers interested in exploring, building, or improving logistics outsourcing opportunities. Topics covered include reasons to outsource, functions to outsource, 3PL provider evaluation, implementation and relationship success factors, contracts, and performance measures

An Empirical Analysis on E- Retail Service Quality, 3PL in Supply Chain L-SQUAL, E-SQUAL, and E-SRQUAL

Electronic commerce brings huge business opportunities and revenue growth to companies like e- retailers, mainly due to its convenient, interactive, lower costs and high degree of customization and personalization to their customers. With respect to logistics outsourcing, online shopping takes place in the chain consisting of the third party logistics providers, e-retailer, and the customer, which represents a service triad. Since, the delivery service is provided by the third party logistics (3PL) service providers, the satisfaction level of the end customers depends on the combination of both product delivery service and e-retailers service. The study proposes a research model that integrates the e-service quality (ESQ), e- service recovery quality(ESRQ), and the logistic service quality(LSQ) that are provided by the e-retailers, which furthers influences both customer satisfaction and loyalty. The study examines the second order dimensions of ESQ, ESRQ, and LSQ using second stage reflective-formative approach. The outcome of the data analysis, with the sample size of 350, concludes that ESQ strongly influences LSQ, customer satisfaction (CS) and customer loyalty (CL) when using online retail websites. Similarly, when CS is achieved it also has a strong relationship on CL. The outcome of the analysis also evaluated that ESRQ has a strong influence on CS. The relationship between LSQ and CS, LSQ and CL are strongly significant, than ESQ and ESRQ Index Terms— Service Quality, ESQ, ESRQ, 3PL and LS