Towards a framework on the factors conditioning the role of logistics service providers in the provision of inventory financing

This paper explores the conditions in which Logistics Service Providers (LSPs) can compete or collaborate with banks in offering Inventory Financing as a Supply Chain Finance (SCF) service. A multiple case study research methodology was adopted. The case study involved six LSPs across Europe. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews. The results highlighted that an attractive credit demand for LSPs consists in suppliers with high amounts of inventory or borrowing needs that go beyond their borrowing capacity from the perspective of a bank. LSPs can respond to this demand when they have three specific capabilities: risk assessment, risk monitoring, and organizational capabilities. The offer of Inventory financing can be controlled by the LSP or by the bank. When the LSPs control the offer, they offer different conditions compared to the banks in terms of credit rationing, transaction costs, payment flexibility, tax rate advantage, and financial risk management. When the bank controls the offer, the LSPs influence the nature of SCF services only in terms of credit rationing and transaction costs. LSPs seem to easily develop risk assessment and risk mitigation capabilities, while the organisational capabilities appear to be the most challenging to build, and when absent they create a barrier to the provision of inventory financing. The value of the paper is twofold. Firstly, the paper provides a comprehensive taxonomy of the factors conditioning the role of LSPs in the provision of inventory financing as a SCF service. Secondly, the paper clarifies the link between the factors and the different roles played by LSPs

Exploring supply chain finance as an instrument for enabling logistics service providers to upgrade their service offerings

Due to high levels of competition (CMP) and diminishing returns in the traditional transportation and warehousing services, logistics service providers (LSPs) are differentiating themselves by providing value-added services (for competitive advantage) to supply chain members. By exploiting their visibility and control of physical and information flows (IFLs) in the supply chains, LSPs have tapped into the supply chain finance (SCF) market. SCF as a value-added service extends the scope of LSPs’ service offerings by integration and control of physical, information and financial flows (FFLs) across the supply chain. This facilitates the reduction of financial risk in supply chains by improving the collaborative cash-to-cash (C2C) cycle and working capital of the supply chain members. The two major research streams associated with SCF are financial supply chain management (FSCM) and trade credit. FSCM mainly focuses on the supplier-buyer relationships and the FFL while trade credit emphasises the short-term financing enabling the cash flow management that is fundamental to SCF. The existing studies in the literature provide insights into the SCF services, their mechanisms and ‘enablers and inhibitors’ for SCF adoption but a comprehensive understanding of the capabilities required by a particular supply chain member, such as an LSP, to offer SCF service offerings as a part of their service portfolio is still missing. In order to properly design and develop SCF service offerings, LSPs should be supported by a comprehensive theoretical knowledge pertaining to their capabilities. The provision of offering SCF services is associated with the new service offerings discussed in the strategic management literature, which emphasises the need for renewed skills, processes and routines developed within the frame of operations (operational capabilities) to offer new services. As the operational capabilities draw on the resources, the development of an adequate resources base by obtaining, reconfiguring, integrating and releasing of the resources (dynamic capabilities process) plays a crucial role in offering new services such as SCF. In this context, the strategic management literature provides an opportunity to carry xxviii out empirical research that identifies all the relevant characteristics, contextual factors and capabilities that might lead LSPs to offer SCF services. Keeping this in view and to explore this prospect, the purpose of this thesis is to identify LSPs’ capabilities and associated mechanisms necessary to offer SCF services. The research design that was developed to address this opportunity is a case-based approach with four embedded units of analysis. This provides the opportunity to look for literal replication of the guiding principles that underpin the capabilities an LSP can leverage to extend its service provision to SCF services. The research concludes that the interrelationships between the dynamic capabilities process and its antecedents, generic operational capabilities of LSPs and SCF adoption capabilities, provide a mechanism to understand the LSPs’ capabilities required to offer SCF services. Subsequently, the thesis contributes to theory and practice by developing a conceptual framework that can be used by researchers to extend the horizons of new service development such as SCF services and by practitioners to evaluate their firms’ (LSPs) capabilities to extend their service portfolio to offer SCF services

Exploring the relationship between mechanisms, actors and instruments in Supply Chain Finance:A systematic literature review

Supply Chain Finance (SCF) deals with the management of financial flows along the supply chain. Its core objective is to facilitate the reduction of financial risk in a supply chain by improving the collaborative cash-to-cash cycle and working capital. In order to fulfil its objective, SCF involves the coordination of supply chain actors, SCF instruments, and supply chain processes. Existing studies focus either on SCF actors, such as buyers, suppliers, banks, and logistics service providers (LSPs), or on specific SCF instruments, such as reverse factoring, inventory financing and discounting. However, an analysis of the relationship between actors and instruments, as well as of the factors influencing this relationship, requires further development. In light of this gap, this paper systematically reviews the literature on SCF with the objective of clarifying the relationship between SCF actors, instruments, and contextual factors. The review identified three main archetypes for this relationship: fixed-asset financing (fixed asset-centric), inventory financing (inventory-centric), accounts receivable/accounts payable financing (buyer-centric and supplier-centric). Based on the results of the review, the authors discuss the implications for practitioners and further research for academics

Sustainable supply chain management towards disruption and organizational ambidexterity:A data driven analysis

Balancing sustainability and disruption of supply chains requires organizational ambidexterity. Sustainable supply chains prioritize efficiency and economies of scale and may not have sufficient redundancy to withstand disruptive events. There is a developing body of literature that attempts to reconcile these two aspects. This study gives a data-driven literature review of sustainable supply chain management trends toward ambidexterity and disruption. The critical review reveals temporal trends and geographic distribution of literature. A hybrid of data-driven analysis approach based on content and bibliometric analyses, fuzzy Delphi method, entropy weight method, and fuzzy decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory is used on 273 keywords and 22 indicators obtained based on the experts’ evaluation. The most important indicators are identified as supply chain agility, supply chain coordination, supply chain finance, supply chain flexibility, supply chain resilience, and sustainability. The regions show different tendencies compared with others. Asia and Oceania, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Africa are the regions needs improvement, while Europe and North America show distinct apprehensions on supply chain network design. The main contribution of this review is the identification of the knowledge frontier, which then leads to a discussion of prospects for future studies and practical industry implementation

Kluczowe miary oddziaływania dla ustanowienia i rozwoju intermodalności w korytarzu transportowym Bałtyk-Adriatyk

The zones along the Baltic and the Adriatic have substantial geographical, economic and transport similarities. The strengthening of economic growth and the dynamics of the flow of goods has provided intermodality the utmost importance. The development of multimodal transport network and its connection with the TEN-T1 corridors represents a precondition for strengthening national economies. Baltic-Adriatic corridor connects the north and the south of Europe, with a more progressive intensification of the economic growth of Baltic and Central European countries. The intermodal transport system in the corridor has the ability to generate and intensify the economical-ly sustainable growth. Without doubt, there is a true need for economic growth and transport system within which intermodal transport would have particular significance as a strategic program. Strategic planning of transport development must be in the service for the overall economic growth and it should be dynamically adjusted to the objective investment possibilities in the field of intermodality.Strefy leżące na obszarze pomiędzy Bałtykiem i Adriatykiem charakteryzują się znaczącymi podobieństwami pod względem geograficznym, ekonomicznym i transportowym. Umacnianie wzrostu ekonomicznego oraz dynamiki przepływu dóbr zapewnia intermodalności najwyższe znaczenie. Rozwój sieci transport multi-modalnego i jego połączenie z korytarzami transportowymi TEN-T reprezentuje warunek wstępny dla umac-niania narodowych gospodarek. Korytarz Bałtyk-Adriatyk łączy południe i północ Europy, ze zwiększającą się intensyfikacją wzrostu gospodarczego w krajach środkowej Europy oraz krajach bałtyckich. System transportu intermodalnego w korytarzu daje możliwość generowania i nasilania utrzymywanego wzrostu ekonomicznego. Bez wątpienia, istnieje prawdziwa potrze-ba wzrostu ekonomicznego oraz tworzenia system transportowego, wewnątrz którego transport intermodalny miałby szczególne znaczenie, jako program strategiczny. Planowanie strategiczne celowane w rozwój transportu musi służyć ogólnemu wzrostowi gospodarczemu i powinno być dynamicznie dostosowane do możliwości inwestowania w obszarze intermodalności

Exploring the role of logistics service provider in supporting the supply chain strategy using supply chain finance instruments

In order to serve different global markets, firms are revisiting the available logistics service providers’ (LSPs) expertise and their supply chain (SC) activities. The firms are increasingly focusing on outsourcing their logistics activities as they grow, thereby, driving LSPs to offer a variety of increasingly complex services such as supply chain finance. The aim of this paper is to interrelate SC activities, SC financing and LSPs’ roles in SC to support a global SC strategy. The findings illustrate three outsourcing scenarios that a firm can undertake to develop a sustainable relationship with the LSPs to facilitate their global role

Charakterystyka modeli biznesowych portów lotniczych oraz analiza ruchu na wybranych lotniskach w Europie i Stanach Zjednoczonych

Airport business models have evolved at rapid pace and shall be adjusted in accordance with the traffic struc-ture and demand. As highlighted in this article the airport business models differ from country to country with the fundamental goal of serving the demand generated by the air traffic. The volume of passenger traffic, traffic structure, aircraft usage, environmental impact and service level development has a correlated influence on the airport business models. The traffic trend analysis directly supports that the future number of passenger aircraft movements will be reduced due to usage of aircraft with higher capacities, thereby providing direct evidence of future change in the operational management at the airports, hence altering their business models.Modele biznesowe lotnisk ewoluowały w szybkim tempie i powinny być dopasowane do istniejącej struktury ruchu oraz popytu. Jak podkreślono w tym artykule, modele biznesowe lotnisko różnią się w zależności od kraju, poza podstawowym celem, jakim jest obsłużenie wygenerowanego przez ruch lotniczy popytu. Wielkość ruchu pasażerskiego, jego struktura, a także wyko-rzystanie samolotów, ich wpływ na środowisko oraz rozwój usług w regionie to czynniki, które mają skorelowany wpływ na model biznesowy lotniska. Analiza trendu ruchu lotniczego w bezpośredni sposób popiera fakt, iż przyszła liczba pasażerskich operacji lotniczych zostanie zmniejszona z powodu wykorzystania samolotów o większej pojemności, co zapewnia bezpośredni dowód na przyszłe zmiany w operacjach na lotniskach, i przełożenie na model biznesowy

Enablers and inhibitors for the adoption of supply chain finance by logistics service providers

Financial service providers lead in offering Supply Chain Finance (SCF) but their inability to monitor all the material and information flows is a major challenge. Logistics Service Providers (LSPs) overcome this challenge by exploiting their control over the material flows. Despite several studies on the competency of LSPs to offer SCF, the research on the influencing factors is still underinvestigated. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to identify the factors (enablers and inhibitors) that lead LSPs to adopt SCF. The findings show that these factors are related to finances, risks, standards, organisation, operations, information, cross-border transactions, and regulations

A systematic literature review on supply chain finance actors, instruments and processes

Supply Chain Finance (SCF) aims at managing the financial flows along the supply chain with an objective of maximising the creation and delivery of financial services. The literature on SCF is complex and focuses on SCF actors, SCF instruments and supply chain processes. However, the connection between these elements is weak, and the configurations of actors, instruments and processes that maximises financial value creation is unclear. In the light of this gap, this article aims at reviewing the literature on SCF, with a specific focus on actors, instruments, coordination, performance of processes and their interrelation. A systematic approach has been taken to the literature review, which ensures it is auditable and repeatable. The selection criteria are clearly aligned with the review questions and relevant information is extracted from the selected papers and synthesised into a set of constructs. Furthermore, the constructs are used to develop a conceptual framework to align SCF actors and instruments along with the contextual factors