Outsourcing logistics activities in Turkey

Purpose – This research aims to determine the current situation of outsourcing logistics activities in Turkey, a country which has a great potential for logistics activities among the surrounding continents because of its geographical location. Design/methodology/approach – Survey analysis was conducted with 250 of the top 500 Turkish firms specified by the Istanbul Chamber of Commerce for the year 2001. These firms are selected based on the firms’ total sales volume, profitability, and other financial performance indicators. The responses were evaluated statistically using SPSS software. Factor and cluster analyses were utilized to determine the behavior of respondents against their logistics service providers and to categorize the respondents. Findings – The focus of the part of the survey is basically in the following areas: logistics functions outsourced by Turkish firms; the extent to which logistics functions in general and transportation functions in particular are outsourced by Turkish firms; and the criteria used to select and evaluate the performance of the outsourcing firms. The performance of the first three outsourcing firms currently used by Turkish firms. Originality/value – This study shows that the power of third party logistics (3PL) firms in Turkey is underestimated. The firms that outsource their logistics activities in Turkey are 95 percent foreign capitalized. Turkish businessmen think that they should do their business themselves and they are not aware of the benefits of outsourcing logistics activities. In fact, in selecting the transportation carrier, they consider different criteria but the general tendency is either to select the carrier that has a good reputation and/or the one which is easy to collaborate with.