![Sample our Economics, Finance,Business & Industry journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5931/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Economics-Finance-Business-Industry.jpg"})
Abstract
Third-party logistics (3PL), a relatively new industry, has gained momentum since the emergence of global market and the Internet, in particular electronic commerce (e-commerce). Global competitive-ness places more pressure on companies to improve their delivery performance of products and services to customers. In an effort to improve the quality of delivery service, companies have outsourced their logistics services, including packing, warehousing (inventory management) and shipping of goods to customers. Communication plays an important role in integrating the activities along the logistics value chain. Information technologies such as electronic data interchange (EDI), the Internet, World Wide Web (WWW) and e-commerce have contributed greatly to improving communication with partners in the logistics chain. In particular, real-time information systems such as web-based logistics information systems help to improve 3PL services. In this paper, a case study of e-logistics is used to illustrate the implications of information technology, in particular the Internet, WWW and EDI, on the performance of the logistics value chain. A framework based on the literature survey and case study is proposed to help companies develop an e-logistics system to improve their competitiveness.
Keywords:
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to anonymous reviewers and the Editor-in-Chief, Professor Kulwant Singh Pawar, for their constructive and helpful comments on the earlier version of this manuscript, which helped to improve the presentation of the paper considerably. The authors are most grateful to the Chief Operating Officer, Mr Edmon Fung, the Managing Director, Mr Johnny Leung, and several senior managers of ecL for providing the necessary information for this case study research. This research was supported in part by the University of Massachusetts–Dartmouth (USA) and The Hong Kong Polytechnic University under grant number A632.