Get better 3PL bids

This is an excerpt of the original article. It was written for the September-October 2018 edition of Supply Chain Management Review. The full article is available to current subscribers.

September-October 2018

If it’s September, it must be time for Gartner’sTop 25 supply chains, the lead article in this issue of Supply Chain Management Review. As I was reading this year’s contribution from Gartner, I was struck by the number of the Top 25 that have launched NextGen Supply Chain initiatives, using Big Data, artificial intelligence (AI), robotic process automation (RPA), machine learning and the like to digitize their supply chains. It made me wonder: Is the rest of the pack falling behind or are they ready to follow the leaders?

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The rapidly growing global market for 3PL services is forecasted to be worth almost a trillion dollars by 2020. Not only is the demand for services increasing year over year, so too is the complexity of supply chain services, creating unique challenges for anyone trying to evaluate the pricing models for 3PL warehousing and fulfillment services. In this article, we will examine some of the major obstacles faced by companies that procure these types of services along with providing options to improve current practices.

Specifically, we will provide insight into ways to establish an improved and more comprehensive 3PL pricing evaluation methodology to better analyze bid proposals and maximize 3PL contract terms and pricing for all types of warehousing and distribution services.

3PL services on the rise

There are many reasons that companies are more compelled than ever to outsource their logistics needs to a third party whose core competency is warehousing, transportation and order fulfillment. For starts, ever rising customer expectations for personalized services, greater selection and speedy delivery are placing extra burdens on those companies that try to keep order fulfillment in-house.

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