An Investigation about measuring service quality of third party logistics enterprises

Today, fundamental transformations and changes experienced especially ininformation and communication sectors have shifted the activity field of the enterprises fromnational markets to international ones. It is more difficult for the enterprises that areunsuccessful in the national market to prosper in the international markets. Withglobalization, the enterprises have ceased to be product-centered and became consumer-centered. In the heavy competitive atmosphere, delivering the exact good to the exact locationon the exact time in the most efficient and productive way brings the enterprises importantcompetitive advantage. At this point, the concept of logistics is important. In theinternationally accepted definition, logistics is defined as the planning, implementation andcontrol activities of the efficient two-way delivery and storage of the materials, services andinformation flow in the supply chain spreading from the start point of the raw materials to thefinal point where products are consumed.The activities that the enterprises perform by using outsourcing in their logisticsactivities are called third party logistics (3PL). The research carried out indicates that theenterprises would like to benefit from third party logistics activities due to the reasons such asreducing the costs, focusing on the main activities , increasing the flexibility, reducing thecapital expenses for logistics activities, reporting the logistics activities in a more appropriateway, providing the use of information technologies, increasing quality, making connectionswith the foreign markets and lowering the need for higher level information and ability.In the enterprises, executive managers play the major role in both determining theoutsourcing and assessing and selecting the suppliers. The selection of third party enterprisesis concluded with the negotiations and a series of processes. This process usually consists of 5steps; determining the outsourcing, developing the possible alternatives, assessing andselecting the suppliers, applying the service and assessing the ongoing service.