Leveraging Big Data for Third Party Logistics

The global logistics industry has evolved from being labour intensive to the technology oriented system, producing a wide range of services. Traditionally, the shippers have managed their own logistics requirements, but, gradually, started outsourcing their labour requirements and services, such as transportation and warehousing to 3PLs, the concept of which is very recent in India. The Indian logistics market is huge and unexploited, the development of which is relatively slow and still in the infancy stage compared to other developing countries. With the entry of several 3PL providers into the Indian market, the supply chain industry became more competitive.

The 3PL providers can leverage the strength of Indian IT industry in the area of IT-enabled supply chain management, which includes Big Data and its potential to solve supply chain problems. Big Data is an emerging phenomenon, reflecting the ever increasing significance of data in terms of its growing volumes, variety and velocity. The logistics industry is positioning itself to use the huge potential of Big Data by planning a long term approach with business goals as the basis for strategic advantage.

The paper explains how 3PL companies can better utilize the available data and business intelligence to gain insights in aligning its activities to share and achieve their objectives to retain business and grow market share.