Strategic management for logistics service providers: The creation and facilitation of supply network flows

Supply chains and networks are increasingly seen as entities of strategic importance. Nevertheless, little is known about the determinants of success and failure. The project focuses on the role of logistic service providers in creating and facilitating s upply network interactions. We use a business model approach and claim that the business model of manufacturers/retailers dominates the view of how supply relationships function. The dominant logic, building on the value chain model and its sequentially i nterlinked firms, is universally applied to all supply actors. Certain insights follow on this situation, such as the recent claim that supply chains are displacing firms as the logic of competition in the global marketplace. From a business model approac h, this assumption can be challenged. For instance, for logistics service providers, the main issue is not competition between different chains but how to create cooperation between chains. Rather than making individual firms in a chain pull in the same d irection, logistics service providers often make several chains pull in the same direction. This, we believe, may have significant implications in terms of both economy and environment. A general problem and challenge for the logistics industry, however, is that buyers consider logistics services as commodities, focusing on price in contrast to the total cost and efficiency of a logistics solution. That the key to efficient and environmentally sound solutions often lies in collaboration and mutual adjustm ents probably represent the major barrier for efficient solutions to evolve. However, by offering additional models and frameworks the potential for both industrial innovation and academic course developments is substantial.