1 Introduction 1.1 Background and Significance In the present day, logistics cost is considered to

2. As the economy grows bigger, the absolute cost of logistics will increase. This means the logistics costs increases as more goods and services are produced. If we divide the GDP by logistics costs, we would get a percentage of logistics cost. The decreased of logistics cost over the years, due to the improvement in the logistics systems, resulted in growth in the U.S. economy. Accordingly, as the absolute increased, the relative cost of logistics decreased. With reduced cost, companies were able to perform better in income statements and become more competitive in global market.

T. C. Edwin Cheng Department of Logistics, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong E-mail: lgtcheng@inet.polyu.edu.hk

As customers continually demand their shipments delivery to be cheaper and faster, all the logistics service corporations should focus on improving their services and customer responsiveness. The rivalry of existing competition is intense and low buyer switching cost only triggers it.

In Vietnam logistics is almost new concept and still there is no official authority authority with total responsibility over logistics. Consequently, the Vietnamese government has not yet been able to be in a position to specify any comprehensive

The cost, efficiency and capacity of the national logistics system was also identified as an area of concern. From a market perspective barriers to entry and limits to competition were pin pointed.

Distribution costs and time is also another factor that the economy plays part it. Because of the requirements of modern distribution, the issue of time is becoming increasingly important in the management of commodity chains. Time is a major issue for freight shipping as it imposes inventory holding and depreciation costs, which becomes sensitive for tightly integrated supply chains (Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrique and Dr. Markus Hesse, “Logistics and Freight Distribution,” 12/30/2007, http://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans/eng/ch5en/conc5en/cn5c4en.html, accessed on April 15, 2008).

Therefore, the company’s distribution plan of products is required to be flexible since each product has to be moved around the world and forecasting is an important key in logistic activities. The shipper must be able to adjust and deal with a swing in business activity. This may require a versatile transportation plan to keep the global supply chain moving smoothly. Moreover, the company also focuses on the cost of every painstaking aspect of the shipping process. The smaller the product packaging means the higher number of items that can fit into an individual case. The more cases that can fit into the shipping container means a larger number of items that can be shipped at one time. This cuts down on the transportation costs of fuel, paid driver hours, and vehicle maintenance cost. All these savings can be passed on to the customer who comes back to the manufacture and the shipper with customer loyalty.

1.1 Did it surprise you that logistics has such an important economic impact? Why or why not? I was actually not surprised at all. I have learned that shipping industry has played a major role in our economy and that foreign trade accounted for about 10% of US GPD. As of today about 90% of America’s overseas foreign trade is moved by ships and according to recent projections the foreign trade will be up to 35% of our GPD by 2020.

During 1980s, most global firms focused on quality management in product design and internal process improvement in order to achieve competitive advantage. Today, the spotlight shines on transferring value to customers instead (Mentzer & Williams 2001). Therefore, logistics has turned to be the primary marketing instrument for increasing and sustaining competitive excellence. While comparing to the past, logistics was only taken as a function regarding the higher productivity objective (Hutt & Speh 2011).

There are many challenges being faced by the logistics industry today as the companies strive for sustainability. This is because the providers of logistics services have, over a period of several years, found them being integrated into the production processes of their customers, while at the same time, governments and businesses have continued to carefully weigh the issue of logistics in their investment and business decisions. Some of the previous trends and the forces of the operations of logistics that drive the transformation of a Freight forwarding company will be examined. It will focus on theories, conceptual models and frameworks that explain logistic operations. The gaps in the logistics operations and the dangers of not addressing

Global business revolution not only provides more opportunities for companies, but also brings increasing challenges and risks in their operations as the global competition is becoming much fiercer. This kind of competitive environment has shaped the new relationship between the strategy and logistics. Therefore, in this essay, though analyzing the origin of the strategy and logistics, the outcomes of today’s ‘global business revolution’, we will find out the changes on the relation between strategy and logistics and the risks aroused from this transformation.

It is known to us, “in each industry, the customer is god, is operator's food and clothing parents.” This tells us that customers are important to organizations. With the current intense competition in logistics nowadays, most companies can provide high quality goods, even are willing to cut down prices if reasonable. However, how can suppliers gain a competitive advantage when high quality is expected and price must be maintained at a level to generate a reasonable return? In our views, it is no doubt that how various supplier service activities are valued by customers, more specifically, that is, the ability of logistics

The performance of the logistics system has a major impact on cost structures, revenues, service quality, and competitiveness in Australian industry. Logistics activities have been evolving rapidly in response to changes such as globalization, general industry restructuring, new production processes, and technological advances.

Logistics is considered as an operational process which includes activities such as storing, transporting and distribution of physical goods. E- Commerce has made a big change in logistics and distribution processes. Due to introduction of online purchases, way of handling materials have also been changed. Online retail industry is being expanded year to year. According to Goldman Sachs, Online Sales will reach $750B mark by 2016 with annual growth rate of 20%.

Transport plays a critical role in the supply chain and according to Bhattacharya et al. (2014) it is becoming one of the key components of the whole supply chain valuation for many organizations. Transportation is the movement of good from one location to another. Supply chain is a network of individuals, organizations, activities, resources and technology that is involved in formation and sale of a product, which is from the delivery of source materials from the supplier to the manufacturer, through to the end user. Hopkins (2007) states that supply chain professionals look at whole business procedures, which is from raw materials to manufacturing, wholesaling and retailing. And by