Logistics has become a sort of high-wire act. Logistics managers today are walking a tightrope, juggling competing demands for outstanding customer service and cost control while trying to avoid being knocked off their precarious perch by rising freight rates. That's the picture that has emerged from the results of our 14th annual Masters of Logistics survey. "There are a lot of changes occurring that logistics managers have no control over," says Karl Manrodt, an associate professor at Georgia Southern University and one of the study's authors. "It's a little overwhelming."

For the past 14 years, the study has identified emerging trends in logistics and provided beneficial benchmarking data on transportation and distribution practices across a number of industries. As in past years, Logistics Management conducted the study in conjunction with researchers at Georgia Southern University, the University of Tennessee, and the consulting firm Capgemini. This year, more than 2,300 readers took part in our online survey.

The 2,311 shippers who participated in the survey this year accounted for an estimated $80.4 billion of transportation spending. Respondents hailed from a cross-section of industries, with manufacturing representing just over 48 percent of the participants.

Forty-nine percent of those surveyed described themselves as logistics managers; another 18.8 percent said that they were directors. Analysts/coordinators weighed in at 9.4 percent, and 7.9 percent said they held the title of supervisor. Nearly half of the respondents—45 percent—worked for companies with less than $250 million in annual sales. At the high end of the scale were the 9.5 percent reporting annual corporate revenues exceeding $9 billion.

When it comes to domestic transportation expenditures, 67.8 percent of survey respondents reported that their companies currently spend $49 million or less on such services each year. Another 11.5 percent indicated that their employers spend $50 million to $99 million on domestic shipments. A mere 1.6 percent of survey takers spend between $500 million and $750 million, while the biggest spenders were the 4.4 percent who purchase more than $750 million in domestic transportation services annually.

Our study found that transportation expenses as a percentage of company costs are on the rise. Last year, transportation expenses on average accounted for approximately 2.6 percent of the cost of goods sold. This year, that percentage climbed to nearly 3 percent.

The same goes for the cost of transportation as a percentage of company sales. Last year the average was 2.6 percent, while this year it rose slightly to 2.8 percent. Continued...

1 2 3 4 Next