What are the main businesses of the logistics industry?

Third-party logistics is a business model in which logistics services are provided by logistics enterprises other than the supply and demand sides of goods. In the logistics channel, professional logistics enterprises provide all or part of the logistics services required by users in the form of contracts within a certain period of time. The profits of third-party logistics enterprises are not from direct expenses such as freight and storage fees, but from the new value generated by the promotion of modern logistics management science. This is the fundamental reason for the development of third-party logistics in China.

First, the status quo of China's third-party logistics

In the mid-1990s, the concept of third-party logistics began to spread to China, which was an important development of basic services such as transportation and warehousing. In recent years, with the improvement of market economy system and the deepening of enterprise reform, the self-restraint mechanism of enterprises has been strengthened, and the demand for outsourcing logistics services has been increasing. Especially with the entry of foreign-funded enterprises and the intensification of market competition, enterprises have gradually deepened their understanding of the importance of logistics and regarded it as the "third profit source", and the demand for specialized and multifunctional third-party logistics is increasing. From 1999 to 200 1, China Storage Association conducted three sampling surveys on the supply and demand of the logistics market, showing that the proportion of third-party logistics in the finished product sales logistics of production enterprises is 9. 1%, 16. 1% and 2 1% respectively.

The earlier domestic third-party logistics enterprises were transformed from traditional warehousing and transportation enterprises. For example, Shanghai Friendship Group Logistics Co., Ltd. was established after the separation and reorganization of the former Shanghai Commercial Storage and Transportation Company. In the early 1990s, it provided professional logistics services for Unilever, the largest international consumer goods company. Its business has developed from the initial warehousing and transportation services to providing multi-functional personalized services such as transportation, warehousing, distribution, distribution processing and information feedback. The two sides have established a good strategic partnership:

1995 integrated land freight enterprises, established cosco international freight co., ltd, and established a unified national freight network. 200 1 A joint venture with Guangdong Kelon Company and Wuxi Little Swan Company to establish Antaida Logistics Company.

From the perspective of the formation structure of third-party logistics enterprises, there are generally four ways: first, traditional warehousing and transportation enterprises have become dominant and occupy a large market share. Cosco International Freight Company, China Foreign Trade Transportation (Group) Company (referred to as Sinotrans), China Storage and Transportation Company, etc. Relying on the original logistics business foundation and the advantages of market, business network, facilities and enterprise scale, we will continue to expand and extend other logistics businesses and gradually transform into modern logistics enterprises. Second, the newly established state-owned or state-controlled new logistics enterprise is the product of modern enterprise reform, with relatively perfect management mechanism and rapid development. For example, China Shipping Logistics Company was established in June 1993 1 1 and began to develop its logistics business. Now it has developed into a third-party logistics enterprise that can provide multi-functional logistics services including warehousing, transportation, distribution and customs declaration. It is a large internationally renowned multinational company. Third, foreign and Hong Kong-funded logistics enterprises. On the one hand, they provide extended services for the original customers-multinational companies to enter the China market; On the other hand, they attract China enterprises with their own business philosophy, business model and quality service, and gradually penetrate into China logistics market. For example, Danish Advantage Logistics Company mainly provides logistics services for Maersk Shipping Company and its shippers, while Shenzhen Japan Near Railway Logistics Company mainly serves Japanese enterprises in China. The fourth kind is private logistics enterprise, which is the most dynamic third-party logistics enterprise in China logistics industry because of its flexible mechanism and low management cost. For example, Guangzhou Baogong Logistics Group started from 1992 contracted railway freight transfer station and established Guangdong Baogong Storage and Transportation Company in 1994. At that time, it undertook the logistics business of Procter & Gamble, the world's largest consumer goods manufacturer, in the China market. After several years of pioneering and innovation, it has become more than 40 branches or offices in major cities in Australia, Thailand, Hongkong and China, with more than 40 multinational companies and many domestic enterprises.

Judging from the scope and functions of providing services, China's third-party logistics enterprises still focus on basic logistics services such as transportation and warehousing, and the value-added services such as processing, distribution and customized services are in the stage of development and improvement. At present, there are only a few third-party logistics enterprises with perfect functions, such as Baogong and Zhonghai, and the scale is not very large. Although large transportation and storage enterprises such as COSCO Group, Sinotrans Group and China Storage and Transportation Company have been transformed into third-party logistics enterprises, their traditional transportation and storage business still accounts for the main part, and the function of third-party logistics is still not perfect. The survey of China Storage Association also shows that the outsourcing logistics of production enterprises and commercial enterprises mainly focus on distribution in the same city, simple storage and trunk transportation. In the outsourcing logistics of production enterprises, simple warehousing accounts for 265,438+0%, trunk transportation accounts for 36%, local distribution accounts for 28%, and packaging accounts for 4%; In the outsourcing logistics of commercial enterprises, simple warehousing accounts for 37%, trunk transportation 2 1%, local distribution 43% and packaging 14%. Moreover, there are usually 2- 10 third-party logistics enterprises used by production enterprises, and more than 0 third-party logistics enterprises used by commercial enterprises. It can be seen that the outsourcing logistics of production enterprises and commercial enterprises is mainly "subcontracting", that is, businesses with different functions are entrusted to different enterprises respectively. From the perspective of logistics supply, the proportion of third-party logistics enterprises providing users with a package of services is not large.

At present, the service targets of third-party logistics in China are mainly foreign-funded enterprises, followed by private enterprises and a few reformed state-owned enterprises. For example, the customers of China Shipping Logistics mainly include IBH, Minolta, Nokia, Sanyo, Toshiba, Samsung, Huawei, Lenovo and other enterprises; Baogong Logistics Company serves Procter & Gamble, Philips, Nestle, Wal-Mart and Lenovo.

In a word, with the rise of logistics fever, the third-party logistics has developed by leaps and bounds, and many logistics enterprises have emerged. In 200 1 year, there were more than 120 enterprises registered as "logistics" in Beijing alone, and by the end of 200 1 year in Shanghai, there were more than 1000 enterprises with the name of "logistics". With the improvement of quality, the logistics service function has been significantly improved, and there have been logistics enterprises with both scale and efficiency, such as COSCO Group and Sinotrans Group. However, on the whole, the scale of enterprises is not large, the service level is not high, the third-party logistics only stays at a certain level or a certain link, and the whole supply chain service from raw material supply to commodity sales has not been realized, and the real network service has not yet formed.

The main questions are:

1. The concept of logistics is backward, and the phenomenon of self-operated logistics is prominent. Due to the misunderstanding of logistics as the "third profit source" and the influence of the concepts of "big and complete" and "small and complete", many production or commercial enterprises are afraid of losing control over procurement and sales and that extra profits will be earned by other enterprises, so they all build their own logistics systems and are unwilling to seek logistics services from outside. According to the survey of 2000 enterprises conducted by China Storage Association in 20001year, the proportion of third-party logistics business in production and commercial enterprises is only 2 1% and 13%.

2. Serious fragmentation and small enterprise scale. For a long time, due to the influence of planned economy, China's logistics enterprises have formed a diversified logistics pattern. In addition to emerging foreign-funded and private enterprises, the vast majority of third-party logistics enterprises are transformed from storage and transportation enterprises in the commercial, material, food and transportation sectors during the planned economy period. Fragmentation is serious, enterprises lack integration, the advantages of intensive management are not obvious, and economies of scale are difficult to achieve.

3. Poor logistics channels. On the one hand, the operation network is unreasonable, there is no network, there is a lack of cooperation between third-party logistics enterprises and between enterprises and customers, the supply of goods is insufficient, and the traditional warehousing and transportation industry has overcapacity, resulting in waste; On the other hand, information technology is backward, Internet, bar code, EDI and other information technologies have not been widely used, and logistics enterprises and customers can not fully enjoy information resources and have not formed an interdependent partnership.

4. The service function is incomplete. Most logistics enterprises can only provide single or segmented logistics services, and the logistics functions mainly stay in warehousing, transportation and urban distribution, and there are not many related value-added services such as packaging, processing and distribution, which cannot form a complete logistics supply chain. According to the survey conducted by China Storage Association at the beginning of 20001,23% of demand enterprises and 7% of commercial enterprises are not satisfied with the third-party logistics service.

5. Lack of logistics talents, backward facilities and low management level. China's logistics industry is still in its infancy, higher education and vocational education have not kept up, talents are lacking and quality is not high; Logistics facilities and equipment are backward and aging, and the degree of mechanization is not high, which does not meet the specific requirements of customers.

Second, the development of third-party logistics in China

China's entry into WTO will internationalize the domestic market, and more foreign logistics suppliers will enter the domestic logistics market, which will pose a severe challenge to the third-party logistics industry in China. It is urgent to take advantage of the short transition period of three years to take effective measures to accelerate the development of third-party logistics in China and narrow the gap with developed countries.

1. Accelerate the reform of property rights system and stimulate the vitality of enterprises. Most of the existing third-party logistics enterprises in China are reformed from state-owned warehousing and transportation enterprises, which have many traces of planned economy and cannot adapt to the international market competition. Therefore, it is necessary to establish a joint-stock enterprise with diversified equity and perfect corporate governance structure, straighten out the relationship between rights and interests, realize the separation of government and enterprise, the separation of ownership and management rights, ensure that enterprises operate according to market rules, stimulate the vitality of enterprises, and transform into modern logistics industry. Especially for large enterprises, on the one hand, they should carry out internal integration and optimize internal resource allocation. On the basis of integrating existing logistics resources and China ocean shipping agency business, COSCO Group established COSCO Logistics Company in early 2002 to rebuild its logistics service network covering the whole world. On the other hand, with the help of the power of the capital market, enterprises will be reorganized and listed, and idle social funds will be absorbed and utilized to overcome the shortage of funds and promote the rapid growth of enterprises; Prosperity promotes the establishment and operation of modern enterprise system.

2. With the application of information technology as the core, strengthen the construction of outlets. Informatization is one of the important symbols to measure modern logistics enterprises. Many multinational logistics enterprises have "first-class three networks", namely, order information flow, global supply chain resource network, global user resource network and computer information network. With the help of information technology, enterprises can integrate business processes, integrate into customers' production and operation processes, and establish an "efficient transaction" management and production model. Under the new situation of China's entry into WTO, the logistics market has expanded from domestic to international, and it is more and more important to have a network extending in all directions.

Enterprises should do network construction in two ways: on the one hand, they should establish a tangible network according to the actual situation, and if the enterprise is large in scale and has many businesses, they can build their own business outlets; If there is only sporadic business, we can consider cooperating with other logistics enterprises to build and use outlets; You can also establish joint ventures or cooperation with major customers to establish outlets. Last year, COSCO Group, Little Swan and Kelon jointly established a logistics company to rationally allocate goods from different places and achieved considerable benefits. On the other hand, it is necessary to establish an information network, realize resource sharing between logistics enterprises and customers through information technologies such as Internet, management information system and data exchange technology (EDI), and conduct real-time tracking, effective control and whole-process management of all aspects of logistics, thus forming an interdependent market relationship.

3. Cultivate internationally competitive logistics groups and implement intensive management. Market economy, everything depends on strength. Only with strong economic strength can we have reliable credit guarantee and win people's trust. According to the 200 1 survey of China Storage Association, when choosing a third-party logistics enterprise, the most important thing for enterprises is logistics satisfaction and operation quality. At the same time, only when the third-party logistics enterprises have a certain scale can they provide all-round services and realize low-cost expansion and economies of scale. At present, many third-party logistics enterprises are transformed from storage and transportation enterprises in commerce, materials, food and other departments during the planned economy period, all of which have specific service areas and have little competition with each other. In order to meet the needs of fierce competition after China's entry into WTO, we must break the restrictions of business scope, industry, region and ownership, establish the idea of playing chess all over the country, integrate logistics enterprises, encourage strong alliances and form large cross-regional groups. Only through mergers and acquisitions can we rationally allocate resources and improve our business network, and it is possible to extend our reach overseas and participate in international market competition.

4. Strengthen value-added services and develop strategic alliances. According to the development trend of logistics industry, those hybrid companies with a large number of logistics facilities, perfect network and strong overall logistics design ability have the greatest development space. Only these companies can integrate information technology and implementation capabilities to provide "one-stop" overall logistics solutions. Therefore, while providing basic logistics services, China's logistics enterprises should constantly subdivide the market according to market demand, expand their business scope, take customer efficiency as their responsibility, develop value-added logistics services, extensively provide services such as processing, distribution and freight forwarding, and even provide services including logistics strategies and process solutions, build an information platform, meet individual needs with professional services, improve service quality with services, and seek benefits with services; The company should provide all-round services, strengthen business ties with major customers, enhance interdependence and develop strategic partnerships.

5. Pay attention to the training of logistics talents and implement the talent strategy. In the final analysis, the competition of enterprises is the competition of talents. The gap between us and logistics developed countries is not only the gap in equipment, technology and capital, but also the gap in concept and knowledge. Only by constantly improving the quality of logistics practitioners and constantly learning and applying advanced technologies and methods can we build a third-party logistics industry suitable for China's national conditions. To solve the current shortage of professional logistics talents, a better way is to strengthen the cooperation between logistics enterprises and scientific research institutes, combine theoretical research with practical application, speed up the training of logistics professional and technical talents and management talents, and cultivate a large number of talents who are familiar with logistics operation rules and have pioneering spirit. Logistics enterprises should pay attention to the logistics knowledge and business training of all employees while training a few professionals and management talents, so as to improve the overall quality of enterprises.

Promoting the development of third-party logistics in China is a systematic project. It is far from enough to rely solely on the efforts of logistics enterprises themselves. It also needs the promotion and standardization of the government and industry associations to create a good external environment for the development of third-party logistics in China. First, establish and improve the corresponding policies and regulations system as soon as possible, especially the formulation and implementation of preferential policies, so that the development of third-party logistics can be based on evidence; Second, establish standardized industry standards as soon as possible, implement industry self-discipline, standardize market behavior, and make logistics business operations have rules to follow; Third, give play to the functions of organization, coordination and planning, make unified planning and rational layout, establish a modern logistics center with multi-function, high level, strong distribution function and wide radiation range, overcome the disadvantages of compartmentalization, avoid redundant construction and waste of resources, and promote the healthy and orderly development of third-party logistics.

From: Bao Yuntong