A modal proposal on the capability areas of the fourth party logistics service providers

As a result of the competition reaching very high levels with the contribution of globalization, businesses have become competitive over their logistics functions. This situation has caused the logistics functions to be provided from service providers outside the enterprise, who are experts in their fields and can create various advantages such as economies of scale. As a result of the increasing progress of outsourcing in logistics, the concepts of "party / party" have emerged in logistics. The roles taken by the parties are seen as the level of logistics service provided. The amount and scope of outsourcing is expanding today, and the concept of Fourth Party Logistics is starting to find its place in Turkey. Businesses focus on their core business by working with other businesses that are Fourth Party Logistics service providers, leaving the supply chain management to these service providers. However, it seems that the concept and operation styles are still not well understood by the logistics sector stakeholders in Turkey. In this study, first of all, a conceptual study supported by the information in the literature has been conducted in order to better understand the concepts. By making inferences from the conceptual study, the abilities that businesses providing fourth party logistics services should have were determined. The importance and weights of the determined talents have been determined as a result of the expectations of the professionals receiving logistics services in Turkey and the opinions of the managers of the enterprises providing logistics services. The Analytical Hierarchy Process method was used to determine the importance levels and the 1-9 point ratio scale was used in binary comparisons while taking opinions. Thus, a model has been created to help guide logistics companies that aim to provide fourth-party logistics services.