DETERMINANTS OF SUCCESSFUL LOGISTICAL RELATIONSHIPS: A THIRD-PARTY PROVIDER PERSPECTIVE

The information in this article comes from a mail questionnaire sent to leading third-party providers. More specifically, the fifty-one providers featured in the article Who's Who in Third-Party Logistics were used as the sampling frame. This article offered comprehensive service listings, addresses, point of contact (i.e., contact people), and phone numbers for each firm. In addition, these firms currently provide what is regarded as a full range of logistics services. Results indicate that the typical U.S. third-party provider is relatively young; over 50 percent of the responding organizations have entered the industry since 1985. They are optimistic about growth opportunities; 20 percent indicated that their revenues will double over the next three years. The responding organizations were evenly split between asset based and non-asset based companies, and typically provide at least fifteen different types of services to clients.