Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to generate a greater understanding of the interrelatedness of new business models in the truck market and developments in the road transport sector.

Design/methodology/approach

Based on a three year research project in cooperation with a European heavy vehicle manufacturer, we present short case descriptions showing some of the main developments in the European trucking and transport markets. 

Findings

New business models emerge both in the heavy vehicle and transportation markets, in complex ways involving multiple actors.  The impetus for the models can come from several direction but the final impact must be negotiated and cannot be planned by a single actor.

Research limitations/implications

The research looks at a selection of cases and business models to demonstrate changes and the relations between the markets, and does not claim to be exhaustive in terms of the different business models in the European market. 

Practical implications

There is a distinct trend to greater specialization and the need for innovation to survive given the strong pressures in the commoditized transport market. Our findings show conflicting trends in terms of social implications, with improved ecological impact but the risk of worse conditions for driver. 

Original/value

The paper considers the development of new business models and implications on the market from the point of view of the firms actually using the business models.  This shows how different business models can co-exist and involve different types of rationalities.

Background: The enacted sensemaking of third-party logistics (TPL) providers during the pandemic crisis may present an opportunity to explore their strategic operations.

Objectives: The aim is to understand the TPL strategic implications related to a crisis and specifically how TPL providers make sense of and respond to crises. The two research questions are as follows: How has the COVID-19 pandemic crisis affected the business operations of TPL providers? What have TPL providers learnt from enacting the crisis, and how has this experience affected their strategic development?

Method: We conduct an abductive study using combined data from interviews and a targeted archive search. The data are focused on the Swedish context and on a period of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Results: Three distinct groups of TPL providers have different sense and action processes impacting their business operations. This research shows how an understanding of servitisation is relevant for TPL theory. Finally, we develop the strategic perspective of TPL providers by defining TPL providers as value-cocreating relationships that can help manage the complexities of logistics services.

Conclusion: This research shows that TPL providers play an important role in crises, as they contribute to solving customer problems. This role appears to be strengthened during crises, but it imposes great demands on TPL providers.

Contribution: Third-party logistics providers work with their customers during crises. The sensemaking view emphasises the importance of personnel, organisational commitment, capacity and expectations during crises. This is an interplay that requires adaptation to short-term changes in operational processes and adaptability in long-term operations.

Contemporary (third-party logistics providers) TPLs are in danger of being stuck in the middle, unable to perform customer adaptation as well as before and unable to achieve sufficient economies of scale. This conceptual paper aims to explore challenges facing the strategic development of TPLs within a context of increased digitalization, e-commerce and servitization. There are two apparent strategic paths. Under circumstances of strong price pressure, there is demand for standardized TPL services offering simplicity, minimalism and functionality based on digitalization, e-commerce and servitization. Alternatively, with market developments responsive to supply chain complexity, digitalization, e-commerce and servitization enable development towards innovation and change. We conclude that these developments do not invalidate existing frameworks for TPL strategies but contribute alternative strategies. We formulate three propositions for each strategic path. To avoid being stuck in the middle, TPLs are encouraged to either develop efficient services through servitized logistics chains and digital solutions or develop advanced solutions to integrate the consumer into the logistics network system through competencies to control increased levels of complexity.

Much research has been done on outsourcing. However, we still know little about outsourcing based on a social process view on innovation. Outsourcing is an innovation as a logistics-related process that is perceived as new by the adopter. We will explore and analyse an outsourcing idea, its development and implementation, from an innovation perspective. The development is studied in a qualitative, long-term process study. The analysis draws on Hoholm’s (2009) model of innovation processes. It extends the applicability of this innovation model and its methodology of following the action into logistics and supply chain management (SCM) research. The outsourcing process is an innovation that develops in a rational way based on the incremental process because of its actor-network and simultaneous reflection. Interactions and confrontations come about because of involved contrary forces such as competing objectives. The model explains the practice of SCM innovation and increases the understanding of dynamics and complexity. The process study brings insights to cause-effect relations in the development of outsourcing that are consequential to innovative logistics and SCM.

Kundorderstyrning är ett viktigt inslag i såväl industriell som kommersiell logik. I den industriella logiken är fokus på att effektivisera produktion och distribution till kunder. Den kommersiella logiken handlar om att bättre anpassa sig till kundens olika behov och att öka intäkterna. Allt fler aktiviteter i industrins förädlingskedjor kundorderstyrs för att öka kundorienteringen. Kundens krav på fler varianter och modeller har samtidigt medfört allt större komplexitet och svårigheter att prognostisera framtida efterfrågan.

Problemen med kundorderstyrningen skiljer sig mellan olika industrier beroende på hur företagen i en förädlingskedja är integrerade och hur komplex produktionen är.

I kapitlet identifieras flera sammanhang, där kundorderstyrningen sätts ur spel. Så utgör t ex är ägarnas påtryckningar för att förbättra kapacitetsutnyttjande, öka försäljningen och bonussystemens uppbyggnad ett dilemma för verksamheten.

Supply chain development is debated in terms of whether lean and agile supply chain strategies will work simultaneously and whether “leagile” strategies are possible. This study explores complexity and dynamics of the mixed strategy in a longitudinal automotive industry case study and contributes with four propositions related to the debate and practices of supply chain strategies.

The research purpose of this paper is to describe and analyse how three basic types of logistics firms differ in terms of their core capabilities and network development as well as the effects of the difference. Based on the resource-based view and the industrial network approach, a conceptual framework is developed to differentiate logistics firms. Two case studies of logistics firms are used as examples to demonstrate how the framework can be used. Logistics firms have clear differences in capabilities and network focus. These firms follow different dominating logics of value creation that make them develop in different ways and think totally differently. This research enhances our understanding of the different logics of logistics firms and their interdependence. They are complementary and interacting in the logistics service supply chain. Moving between the basic types of logistics firms means changing the capabilities and network focus, which is costly and difficult. The conceptual framework can be used as a tool to comprehend multiple types of logistics firms. It also helps us to analyze related strategic moves.

Logistics firms play an important role in the economy but they have received little attention in strategic management and logistics management literature. This paper intends to fill in this gap by looking a specific strategising process, innovation, at an international third party logistics (TPL) firm. Using strategy as a practice perspective, the paper describes and analyses how innovation emerges and evolves over time. Drawing on an in-depth longitudinal case study of an international TPL firm, this study shows that intra-organisational interactions as well as inter-organisational interactions are essential in the innovation process at logistics firms. The innovation process at logistics firms is complicated and includes both top-down and bottom-up processes. It is vertically decoupled and multidirectional. Innovation at logistics firms emerges as a combination of an ad hoc response to a customer request and a purpose-driven interactive process.

The purpose of this research is to explore logistics innovation at third-party logistics (3PL) firms in China. Case studies of 3PL firms in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Mainland China (Greater China region) have been conducted. Based on interviews, observation and documentation, a qualitative case-study approach has been followed. Drawing on case-study findings, the driving forces, barriers, and effects of logistics innovation on 3PL firms in China are discussed. Customer requirements, environmental factors, efficiency and effectiveness enhancement, and provision of wider service portfolios and differentiation are strong rationales for 3PL firms to innovate in China. In comparison, cost, time, and employee ability are crucial barriers hindering 3PL firms from innovating in China. Logistics innovation can lead to positive operational performance by increasing efficiency, effectiveness, and service portfolios. Logistics innovation is also positively related to the enhanced relationship with clients, growing sales, reputation and financial performance.

This study explores servitization as an innovative market strategy for manufacturers and investigates how the decision making logics change over time in the servitization transformation process. Effectuation theory is applied to examine servitization as a new theoretical exploration. A longitudinal case study of a global heavy vehicle manufacturer's servitization process in China reveals that the decision makers adjust their decision making logics depending on the stage of the servitization process and associated risk patterns. As the servitization process evolves into a more sophisticated stage, decision makers will change their decision making logics from a causation dominant logic to an effectuation dominant logic in order to cope with the increased risks. Effectuation theory originally developed from entrepreneurship research is found to be a valid theory for the explanation of the risk and uncertainty control behaviors in the servitization transformation process of manufacturing firms. 

Partnerships and alliances are both tools to increase integration in supply chains and effects of increased integration. As a result of alliance, integration in supply chain networks effectiveness and efficiency increase. To develop highly integrated supply chain networks involves investing time, resources and much effort. Therefore, firms often continue and grow within the existing supply chain network rather than choose other alternatives. On the other hand, this also means that the establishment of new alliances is hindered. The gradual changes normally also apply to the dissolution of alliances. Even though the firm seems to leave a specific individual alliance, it might stay on in the same supply chain or still be a part of the firm network in another supply chain. Few radical changes take place. If they do, acquisitions, technological change or strategic alliances between networks are mostly the triggers causing effects on several individual alliances. Over time, as integration increases, supply chain networks become leaner and more tightly connected, and complexity, risk and conflicts rise in the formation and dissolution of alliances. This spiral effect is enhanced by the tendency to imitate the successful supply chains' increasing homogeneity of chains and stronger competition. Thereby the total industry network will be increasingly integrated, which means fewer opportunities to switch and lower flexibility. Most firms are already tied up and the effects more difficult to foresee. To change alliances will be increasingly problematic and costly when both the supply chain and the total industry network are highly integrated. Acquisitions would rise since this might be the only way to break into these integrated supply chains. As a result the number of alternatives decreases and the dynamics of alliances reduced, which in the end forces new waves of radical changes due to "domino" effects.