Framework built on resource based view for outsourcing strategy on hiring logistics service provider

Abstract

Resumo: O processo de terceirização de serviços logísticos (TSL) é considerado incipiente na gestão das organizações, não só pelas suas questões operacionais como também pelas dificuldades de se criar elos com a estratégia da empresa. O presente estudo teórico, fundamentado na Teoria Baseada em Recursos, visa propor umAbstract: The process of Outsourcing Logistics Service (OLS) is deemed incipient in the management of organizations, not only because of the operational problems it presents, but also of its difficulties fitting into the company's overall strategy. The present theoretical study, building on the resource-based view of the firm, aims to propose a framework that guides managers in developing strategies to OLS starting from the operational structure to establish the necessary resources, capabilities, and routines. In addition, taken into account is the importance of analyzing risks and resilience in the environment, concomitantly with the analysis of the operational structure. Thus, four questions were developed, aimed at leading operations managers to reflect on the development of the strategy. The framework proposed for OLS considers the supply chain management department as the main interlocutor of the strategy. This framework can be adapted according with the necessity of the contracting company, and its main intention is to enable the establishment of a project that contemplates the necessary resources, the capabilities (criteria), and the operational routines (subcriteria) for the selection of a logistics service provider in the market, one which truly addresses the needs of the organization. This framework is already intrinsic in the practical actions of the authors, because of their extensive advisory activity over the last five years in OLS to logistics service provider. In addition, it is worth mentioning that so far in the tacit applications of this framework there has been no application similar to another.

Evaluating logistics outsourcing: a survey conducted with Brazilian industries

“…From the RBV perspective, companies must focus on their resources, core competencies that show advantages over their competitors and create value for stakeholders (McIvor, 2009). Operational procedures, logistics resources and core capabilities can be acquired to complement the contractor's logistical capacity, from the external resources obtained from logistics outsourcing (Zhu et al, 2017;De Oliveira Neto et al, 2018;Bandeira et al, 2015). In line with this, outsourcing logistics activities has been widely implemented by the outsourced to reduce their costs and increase service levels (Li et al, 2017), using the expertise of carriers and 3PL providers (Carvalho et al, 2021), while maintaining focus on their core operations (Aharonovitz et al, 2018).…”

“…In light of RBV, companies decide to outsource their logistics activities to a 3PL provider to gain access to a larger range of resources (tangible knowledge such as materials, warehouses, equipment and intangible knowledge, know-how and organisational assets) and aim to minimise their transaction costs (TCE) (Fadile et al, 2018), but only if this logistics provider shows good financial health, reputation on the market, and so on. Therefore, this decision takes into consideration the analysis of the 3PL providers to check the availability, historic relationship with partners (Aharonovitz et al, 2018) and financial health of providers in the market, not only offering good services, resources (Bandeira et al, 2015); it is important to check tax debt, supplier payment capacity, debt with suppliers (De Oliveira Neto et al, 2018), capacity to generate profit, low reputation with clients and other taxes (Hwang et al, 2016). Therefore, this main factor can also be explained by TCE as it helps to understand the role of companies as institutions for organising economic activities (McIvor, 2009), in our case outsourced logistics activities.…”

“…When logistics activities are outsourced, a company can acquire multiple benefits, such as client satisfaction (Mageto et al, 2018), better operation efficiency (Silva et al, 2019), minimum operation investment, operating cost reduction, flexibility increase, customer service level improvement, risk reduction linked to the development of knowledge and new technologies, innovation capability improvement (Marchet et al, 2018), access to many distribution networks and many more (Zailani et al, 2017); and not necessarily will the reduction in cost be the decisive one (Huang et al, 2019;Langley and Infosys, 2021, p. 15;Khan et al, 2017). The decision in logistics outsourcing also depends on the macro environment (De Oliveira Neto et al, 2018), location and taxation (Gerbl et al, 2015), the cultural environment (Thai et al, 2021), economical environment (Bandeira et al, 2015;Franco et al, 2016), technology (Min et al, 2016) and well-established government rules (Thai et al, 2021). In addition to these critical success factors, in emerging countries, average growth rates are higher than in industrialised countries (Klose, 2018) with high variations in inflation and interest rates (Franco et al, 2016), which are also important factors to consider in logistics outsourcing decision-making.…”

“…Brazil is one of the countries with very little logistics outsourcing research (compared to developed countries and emerging economies such as China and India); it deserves more research (Akbari, 2018). As in China where the failure rate in logistics outsourcing is relatively high (Zhu et al, 2017), in Brazil, unsuccessful 3PL contracting also occurs due to companies not planning the strategy correctly, not studying the criteria, not using performance indicators or using performance indicators only internally to the company without integrating them with the 3PL, resistance to change, and cultural differences (De Oliveira Neto et al, 2018).…”

Determinant Variables of Logistic Management in Micro and Small Enterprises

“…The production process is analyzed from various perspectives: planning (Sudarto et al, 2016), organization of production (Qamar and Hall, 2018), analysis of capacities (Pongpanit and Sornsaruht, 2019) and quality control (Gissin et al, 2019). Regarding procurement, in the same way, multiple factors are analyzed: relationship with suppliers (Suriyajaroen and Sopadang, 2018), inventory management (Alzate Rendón and Boada, 2017) and evaluation of the outsourcing alternative (De Oliveira Neto et al, 2018).…”