Supply company VS. Logistics company: Battle of interests or cooperation?

By Tatsiana Straltsova, MSc International Marketing Student, the Claude Littner Business School, University of West London.

Last Thursday we were discussing in class, in the module Strategic Marketing, https://twitter.com/strategimkt2016?lang=es how the choice of a logistics company can influence the customers’ attitude to the supply company’s product. The world’s largest logistics company DHL was taken as an example of goods delivery from Amazon.com. https://twitter.com/amazon?lang=es During the delivery to a customer a DHL courier https://twitter.com/dhlexpressuk?lang=es is in fact representing Amazon as well, and the customer’s experience with the delivery creates his attitude to Amazon even more than to DHL! This paradox urges many manufacturers / supply companies to consider their prospective logistics partners very carefully before making a decision in a favor of one of them.

But what if the company underestimates the importance of this choice? Here is my life example.

Before starting my studies I was working in export sales department of an international manufacturing company in Belarus. I was responsible for German clients and was the person who received their feedback about any problem they had faced. Guess, which problem was the main I heard of? After almost every week of delivery some clients were furious with the quality of delivery. Quality in this case meant their challenges with drivers, who didn’t speak neither German nor English (= communication problems) and also had some cultural / behavioral blunders from the clients’ point of view.

Sometimes the fire was really hard to put out. The contacts between the supply companies and logistics companies are usually made for a longer period of time, and that means impossibility of the prompt problem solving. It means that one wrong choice of a business partner can develop into a global problem for the supply company. So please, work hard, consider carefully.