Welcome to the October 15th Warehouse & Logistics News. In these pages we have features on Multimodal, Warehouse Lighting and Warehouse IT. We also have an exclusive interview with Mark Garritt, MD of ByBox Field Support, the UK’s biggest pre-8am delivery network.
Founded in 2000, ByBox revolutionised the field services sector by delivering parts and tools overnight to its locker network for engineers to pick up as they start work. ByBox’s business locker network now offers Pick Up and Drop Off and drop boxes in over 1,500 locations nationwide. ByBox also uses its network of Forward Stock Locations to offer same day delivery through its strategic holding of stock.
In just a few short weeks our national business agenda has returned from the temporary introspection surrounding Scotland possibly voting for independence, to the usual preoccupation with chasing overseas opportunities. Appropriately in this issue our Multimodal feature looks at the options for moving goods as Europe’s road networks get ever more congested.
Continuing the Multimodal theme, our cover story presented by Honeywell describes how the logistics industry is currently experiencing growth at exponential rates on a global scale. Which is great news for readers with overseas interests or ambitions.
According to the Honeywell-sponsored article the growth of 3PL can be attributed to three main factors: traceability, omni-channel distribution models and a new term to this column – ‘Re-Shoring.’ For the uninitiated this involves businesses investigating moving operations closer to home, for a number of sound reasons. First, the once very attractive wage rates in the regions that were targeted for offshore outsourcing have begun to rise. Second, there is a perceived and in some cases real drop in quality of goods produced. And another factor that makes Re-Shoring an option is the instability and political upheavals that have plagued some of the growth regions targeted for past outsourcing.
One issue with Re-Shoring, however, as the article points out, is that when Off-Shoring took place, a lot of expertise and infrastructure were lost, so a number of international companies who are now interested in Re-Shoring no longer have the facilities, systems and personnel in place to support their operations locally. The result is that turning to a 3PL is now an attractive option when it comes to achieving their objectives – great news for new business-hungry logistics companies. But with roughly 90 percent of shippers naming ‘agile’ and ‘flexible’ as critical success factors, 3PL providers will also need to stay innovative and competitive to make the most of the global Re-Shoring opportunity.
Comments are closed.