The Influence of Logistics Outsourcing on Supply Chain Management

Sammanfattning: This research work as part of a Master thesis aims to analyse the potential influence of outsourced logistics function on supply chain management from a strategic perspective. To carry out this thesis work a survey is designed to collect all the necessary data, in order to investigate the influence of outsourced logistics activities. The survey targets professionals in the area of logistics from Sweden and France, a response rate of 10% and 36% has been respectively obtained. A statistical analysis has been realized by using the ANOVA method which allows us to evaluate statistically significant results. Hence the analysis carried out answersthe research questions formulated.Our findings have shown a similar trend in Sweden and France on the outsourced logistics activities; mainly transportation and custom brokerage respectively at 80% and 60% are outsourced. According to the responses obtained from the survey, these activities tend to influence supply chain management and its strategy.As for example in Sweden, outsourcing transportation tends to initiate a need of organizational collaboration for an effective supply chain. The following functions such as warehousing, inventory control, order processing, product assembly, reverse logistics and information technology are less outsourced. However we noticed an increase in their use and importance on supply chain management. This can be explained by the recent and significant developments in the field of Information Technology, as well as the growing importance of sustainability for firms. For example for Swedish organizations, outsourcing order processing seems to lead to a focus on responsive supply chain, to use of postponement strate gies and an importance in collaboration across the supply chain. Results are different for companies in France as the main influence of outsourcing logistics activities is more on seen the supply chain as a whole with a great importance in partnership and an interest in standardization of method and re-engineering the supply chain as well as in a sustainable way.For further research work, it will be immensely appealing to develop a framework that defines strategies and managerial issues within the supply chain, considering outsourced logistics functions. Moreover, this research work can be carried out by using different methodologies such as the use of interviews.