Transport is a factor that intensifies the development of both individual regions and entire economies on a macro scale. The relationship between the development of the national economy and the development of transport systems in supply chains stems from the fact that transport “serves” other sectors of the economy, especially industry, construction, and agriculture. The dynamic economic development in recent years forces companies in the TSL (Transport, Spedition, Logistics) industry to take actions aimed at developing and maintaining a competitive advantage through the implementation of modern management techniques, both at the operational and strategic levels. The search for ways to reduce costs, the increase in customer expectations regarding the improvement of broadly understood transport service quality, as well as the reduction of time for processes that ultimately create total value for the customer, favor, or rather force, the concentration of activities within modern solutions in the serviced supply chains.
In the last years of the 20th century, many small enterprises based mainly on family capital were established in Poland, dealing with forwarding and transport. Currently, there is a progressive specialization of transport companies caused by the high level of competition in the sector. Poland’s accession to EU structures, joining the Schengen area, and favorable economic conditions have translated into a significant simplification of transport processes and accompanying services in the EU area. The growing interest in outsourcing among manufacturing companies has also contributed to an increase in the demand for transport and forwarding services.
The potential of companies in the TSL industry, operating within transport systems, has a decisive influence on the efficiency of the order acquisition process. This condition results in the division of strategies, the consistent implementation of which helps transport companies to maintain/develop in the market:
– Strategy towards customers – consists of promoting one’s own offer, and thus the image of a reliable operator
– Strategy towards competition – boils down to confronting one’s own offer (relationship: scope and scale of operation – quality – price) with the offers of other companies operating on the market.
In the process of fierce rivalry in the transport services sector, quality is of great importance, which must be perceived in the context of criteria for measuring customer service, in relation to its elements at three levels, that is:
– Pre-transaction elements: convenience of customer contact with the company, organizational structure, supplier flexibility understood as the ability to quickly adapt to individual customer needs, target delivery dates, response time to inquiries
– Transaction elements: transport service execution time, order fulfillment rate, delivery timeliness, transport damage rate
– Post-transaction elements: complaints, returns handling.
Regardless of the elements presented above, most companies representing the so-called demand side distinguish four elements as the most important in determining the level of transport customer service, that is:
– Delivery time – understood as the time from placing an order to handing over the shipment to the customer
– Reliability – that is, the correctness of order fulfillment in every respect
– Communication – that is, the way of conducting a dialogue between the transport company and the service buyer, enabling the monitoring of order fulfillment and mutual information about changes and disruptions
– Convenience – treated as the simultaneous willingness and ability of the transport company to meet additional customer requirements, such as: delivery size, choice of type of transport means, packaging method, delivery frequency, order acceptance and delivery deadlines, etc.
New infrastructure investments, for example, those related to the organization of the UEFA Euro 2012 football championship, cheap labor, and increasingly experienced and educated management staff favor the achievement of an advantage by Polish carriers operating in transnational transport markets over Western companies that have long been performing their service functions. Competition between companies providing services in the TSL sector is high. However, this does not apply to every branch providing transport services, and opinions on this subject are often contradictory. The state has a large influence on the competitiveness of companies through its legal regulations. These regulations affect company strategies, including ways of gaining a competitive advantage. Competition has become an inherent element of the market. The market generates and forces specific behaviors of companies, which must react quickly to adapt to changing customer expectations and preferences, to innovation, to better quality of offered services, etc. Companies are increasingly looking for opportunities to reduce costs and increase their efficiency and competitiveness in order to become a more attractive partner in relationships occurring in transport systems.
The article comes from the “Logistyka” magazine 2/2008.