Evaluation of logistics enterprises in European Union countries and Turkey in the context of crisis management strategies: The case of the COVID-19 output

In the logistics sector, which is one of the sectors where change is most common under today's competitive conditions, businesses have to be strategically managed in order to survive. Against the COVID-19 epidemic, which has turned into a global health crisis, businesses are trying to overcome this crisis with the least damage by putting forward the right strategy. The aim of this study is to determine the crisis-affected situations of logistics enterprises in Turkey and the European Union countries, to understand and interpret their crisis response strategies, their proactive capacity, and thus to determine their flexibility in crisis situations with qualitative methods. It is to reveal the similarities and differences by making comparisons between Turkey and the European Union countries. The scope of the study is limited to the logistics enterprises of Turkey, which is a member of the Association of International Forwarding and Logistics Service Providers (UTIKAD), and the logistics enterprises of European Union countries, the majority of which are on the "Goodfirms" website and "cargo-cards" websites. The COVID-19 shares that can be accessed by examining the companies' sites were discussed. The focal points of the shares of the mentioned businesses were evaluated. In the study, when the sites of 400 companies among 461 member companies in Turkey were examined, it was determined that 31 enterprises shared COVID-19 and 369 enterprises did not share COVID-19. The focal points of the shares made by logistics enterprises are speed, efficiency, harmony, security, transparency, flexibility, e-transformation, process improvement, service (service) problem, negative impact, increasing investments, reducing investments, effective communication, cooperation and partnership, supply. These are diversifying the transportation chain, changing the transportation mode, increasing the capacity, reducing the capacity, cost improvement, hiring, laying off workers, social responsibility and hilyen measures. It is expected that this study will be beneficial to logistics sector managers, employees, students studying logistics, researchers and academicians working in this field. Key words: Logistics, Strategy, Strategic Management, Crisis Management, Content Analysis, COVID-19