Evaluation of Third Party Logistics Providers And Their services in Sweden

Abstract: This thesis focuses on third party logistics providers in Sweden and their service offerings. The author examines, evaluate and discuss the range of third party logistics services provided by third party logistics companies in Sweden. Furthermore, the author categorized the third party logistics providers using some of proposed frameworks and theories for differentiating third party logistics providers from previous researchers. This was done to determine the relevant categories that the third party logistics providers in Sweden belongs to. Moreover, the author made a comparison of the competence of third party logistics providers in terms of the number of services they offer in Sweden. The author used the qualitative research approach as the thesis is more exploratory in nature. Basically, exploratory research is conducted to obtain greater understanding of a concept or to help clarify ambiguous problem. The author interview four (4) third party logistics providers in Sweden and other information such as the provider’s website information and annual reports was used in the analysis. It is interesting to note that, relationship between third party logistics providers and their customer is a major factor when classifying providers into different category. Some of the theories proposed by previous researcher on the classification of third party logistics provider have become obsolete due to the fact that the relationship between the third party logistics providers and their customers has evolve over the years from formal cooperation to strategic alliance and joint ownership. Some of the companies are less competent than others in terms of the services they offer in each of the third party logistics service categories. This does not necessarily make them weaker because the services they offer in each of the categories are being driven by the company’s business strategy to stay competitive in the third party logistics industry. Furthermore, although size and global status give some competitive advantages, adopting different strategies such as creating a niche market in a particular service or a particular industry will provide major competitive advantages to third party logistics providers.