The company-customer transfer of logistics activities

Abstract

International audiencePurposeThe starting point of the paper is the fact that customers participate in the logistics activities of the supply chain (SC) (Johnston, 1989; Granzin and Bahn, 1989). Having established that customers can and do participate in logistics, firms can consider transferring some of their logistics activities to/from their customer. The transfer can take two contrasting forms: outsourcing by the company of some logistics activities to its customers or insourcing by the company of some logistics activities from its customers. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to a theoretical understanding of these company/customer transfers.Design/methodology/approachTo address this emerging issue, the authors build on the service management literature and on the study of two contrasting cases of transfer. The first (IKEA) examines the outsourcing of some logistics activities to the consumer. The second (AuchanDrive) examines the reverse process of insourcing.FindingsBased on the service management literature and the two case studies, the authors develop a theoretical model for the transfer of logistics activities between a firm and its customers. The findings confirm several elements, such as the importance of managing customer participation and adapting service production during a transfer. Most importantly, the findings show that a key issue for a firm during a transfer is the need to redesign its SC in terms of transport, warehousing and production. The main contribution of the research therefore is showing that customer participation in logistics is a key variable in SC design.Research limitations/implicationsThis research is based on the analysis of two cases. To generalise these results, further research needs to be conducted.Practical implicationsThis research proposes recommendations to help managers and organisations to transfer some logistics activities to or from their customers.Originality/valueThe originality of the framework is that it considers both the company and its customers. This comprehensive approach establishes a link between supply chain management research and marketing

Consumer participation in last-mile logistics service: an investigation on cognitions and affects

“…While these studies establish the relevancy of the CP concept to the logistics services, more empirical evidence is needed to strengthen its saliency. Essentially, consumers do participate in logistics activities in various forms (Rouquet et al, 2017). In fact, the notion of consumer logistics was proposed several decades ago by Granzin and Bahn (1989).…”

“…As a central theme in the CP literature, consumers' motivation to participate is of particular interest to our study (Rouquet et al, 2017). To this end, the logistics literature focuses on delivering services with a superior quality in order to improve customers' satisfaction and loyalty (Mentzer et al, 2001;Rao et al, 2011).…”

“…Essentially, the last-mile logistics is a consumer-oriented service with a strong behavioural element (Collins, 2015;Wang et al, 2018a). To this end, factors that motivate consumers to engage beyond the conventional service transaction and to further participate in the last-mile deliveries are of significant interest (Rouquet et al, 2017).…”

Designing, writing-up and reviewing case study research: an equifinality perspective

“…Outsourcing Explore the different ways in which outsourcing can manifest itself, such as insourcing vs outsourcing (Rouquet et al, 2017) Examine how outsourcing is shaped by specific phenomena, such as conventions to make sense of work packages (Oshri et al, 2018) and organizational resources and capabilities (Malik et al, 2018) 2…”

Influencing factor modeled examination on internet rural logistics talent innovation mechanism based on fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method

“…A key issue for companies in the transfer process is the need to redesign their SC in transportation, warehousing and production. Customer engagement logistics is a key variable in SC design [ 9 ]. The purchasing manager found that the shared responsibility was to positively influence the delivery speed of the supplier, while the logistics manager found that it had a positive impact on the supplier’s price performance.…”