Assessing efficiency and innovation in the 3PL industry: an empirical analysis

Abstract

The Third-party Logistics (3PL) industry is facing both important growth\ud rates and increasing competitive pressure. 3PL providers are required to\ud continuously sustain a more and more competitive cost structure (i.e.\ud efficiency) and develop capabilities to improve their services (i.e.\ud innovation); hence, the evaluation of these key success factors is\ud considered a key issue. This paper develops a quantitative analysis of 71\ud Italian 3PL providers by using Data Envelopment Analysis to jointly\ud assess efficiency and innovation. Furthermore, through a case study\ud research, it corroborates the quantitative results by investigating the\ud strategies of best-in-class companies. Results allowed identifying 13 3PL\ud providers as efficiency leaders and 6 as leaders from both the efficiency\ud and the innovation side. Their input composition indicates a\ud diversification of the business models. A breakdown of the analysis by\ud size and industry focus, along with empirical evidence on the strategies\ud enhancing efficiency and innovation, is also provided

Improving Eco-Efficiency through Waste Reduction beyond the Boundaries of a Firm: Evidence from a Multiplant Case in the Ceramic Industry

“…Through such a logic, 17 methods were retained. For instance, quantitative methods such as data envelopment analysis that has been widely proposed to perform efficiency analysis in a variety of contexts (e.g., [26,27]), were excluded as their scope is to provide summarising indicators. Note that traditional cost accounting methods are not included in the analysis, as they have a strong departmental orientation and most of the material costs are direct costs (and therefore, assigned directly to products).…”

Information technology developments of logistics service providers in Hungary

“…Several key success factors proposed in the literature related the LSPs to evaluate performance (Marchet et al 2017). Investments in IT systems would enhance logistics performance (Devaraj and Kohli 2000;Lim and Palvia 2001;Bardhan, Mithas, and Lin 2007;Pinna, Carrus, and Pettinao 2010;Sinkovics et al 2011;Evangelista et al 2012;Ghobakhloo and Hong 2014;Karagöz and Akgün 2015;Wong, Soh, and Goh 2016).…”

“…A more advanced role for LSPs has been created by the connectivity and communication requirements of leading supply chains. The literature shows that the logistics services industry is an increasingly important topic for researchers (Panayides 2004;Sohail, Austin, and Rushdi 2004;Maloni and Carter 2006;Yeung et al 2006;Selviaridis and Spring 2007;Trentin 2011;Marchet et al 2017;Mehmann and Teuteberg 2016). The most frequent references to the topic since the 1990s are mostly American and British, but researchers from North European countries such as Sweden and Norway have also been publishing their scientific findings related to the sector since the turn of millennium (Murphy and Daley 2001;Hertz and Alfredsson 2003;Markides and Holweg 2006;Lukassen and Wallenburg 2010;Huemer 2012).…”

“…efficiency) and develop capabilities to improve their services (i.e. innovation); hence, the evaluation of these key success factors is considered a key issue (Marchet et al 2017).…”

An Integrated Approach to Evaluating and Selecting Green Logistics Providers for Sustainable Development

“…Pang et al [48] applied a DEA-SBM model and the Theil index approach to analyze the agricultural eco-efficiency development level and spatial patterns in current-day China. Marchet et al [49] applied data envelopment analysis to evaluate the efficiency and innovation in the third party logistics industry.…”