Download Chapter 8 “Making Holes in the Ground”: The Extractive Industries

© Peter Dicken 2015
‘Making the Connections,
Moving the Goods’:
Logistics and Distribution
Services
Global Shift
Chapter 17
Review
• Concepts to Review
– Transport and communications technologies,
resource extraction, buyer-driven industry,
clothing, agro-food and automobile industries,
key nodes
• Key Words
– Distribution, business-to-business/businessto-consumer delivery, RFID, e-commerce
Logistics and Distribution: Definition
and Structure
• Nature of the Industry
– Intermediate between buyers and sellers
– Involves complex flows of both goods and information
across vast distances
– Obstacles, political and physical, provide barriers to
movement
• Globalization of the Industry
– Getting things from point to point is a fundamental problem
– Growth of logistics market related to growth of economy
– System is driven by the consumer
– Lean production stimulates lean systems of distribution
Traits and Trends
•
Industry Players
– Transportation companies, logistics service providers,
wholesalers, trading companies, retailers, e-tailers
• The boundaries between these are slippery
•
Consolidation of the Industry
– Trend towards consolidation and concentration through
acquisition/merger
– Different types of logistics companies
• traditional transportation and forwarding
• asset-based logistics providers
• network-based logistics providers
• skill-based logistics providers
IT and Logistics/Distribution
•
Technology
–
–
Time is the basis of competition
Three key elements
•
•
•
•
electronic data interchange
bar code systems and RFID
distribution centres
E-commerce
–
Two types dominate
•
•
–
–
–
business-to-business
business-to-consumer
Rise of ‘infomediaries’
Different types of shipment models
The Internet is difficult to regulate
Retailers and the State
•
Role of the State
– Regulatory systems provide a significant obstacle
to logistics
– Try to protect domestic retail markets
– Regional economic blocs (e.g. EU, NAFTA) remove
obstacles to distribution
•
Retail Industry
– Strong domestic orientation
•
sourcing is increasingly global
– Acceleration in transnational activities
– Transforms retail supply and logistics networks