The dynamic development of the economies of individual European Union countries, globalization, and overproduction in certain segments of goods and services have caused a shift from a producer’s market to a customer’s market and a change in market preferences. Therefore, criteria such as quality, reliability, flexibility, speed of delivery, and price are playing an increasingly important role for customers in their choices. Thus, quality is one of the factors determining a company’s success in relations with potential customers. It is essentially created in the sphere of “production” of goods and services and constitutes the main indicator of the level of customer service.
Technological procedures in an enterprise should assume the execution of activities in a specific order, while maintaining predetermined technological regimes. By presenting customer expectations regarding a product or service in a clear and simple way, one can use the concepts used in the logistic 7R formula:
– right product or service
– of the right quality
– at the right time
– in the right place
– in the right condition
– to the right customer
– at the right price.
A careful analysis of the above formula indicates that almost all of its components can be successfully applied to transport services. Like the entire economy, the modern transport-forwarding-logistics (TSL) market is also developing dynamically. Consolidation phenomena are occurring, and trends towards the complexity of transport services are growing. Companies wanting to remain in the transport services market offer technologically advanced logistics services, in which cross-docking, Just in Time, or door-to-door are common.
The article comes from the magazine “Logistyka” 3/2005.