AN EMPIRICAL STUDY ON THE BENEFITS AND THE RISKS OF OUTSOURCING LOGISTICS IN THE ROMANIAN INDUSTRY

Salanta Irina (), Ilies Liviu and Muresan Ioana
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Salanta Irina: Babes-Bolyai University, The Faculty of Economics and Business Administration
Ilies Liviu: Babes-Bolyai University, The Faculty of Economics and Business Administration
Muresan Ioana: Babes-Bolyai University, The Faculty of Economics and Business Administration

Annals of Faculty of Economics, 2012, vol. 1, issue 1, 1066-1071

Abstract: Logistics outsourcing is considered to be an excellent source of competitive advantage for companies. Its benefits are long praised about in the specialty literature, but its risks are often briefly described. We believe that both the benefits and the risks of outsourcing logistics extremely important and must be regarded as a source of success or failure as it will be described in this paper. Our research objectives refer to investigating the main outsourcing risks and benefits in the contemporary Romanian industry sector, in order to be able to identify which are the most threatening risks and also the most wanted benefits in the opinion of the production companies. We regard logistics outsourcing as an exceedingly captivating and up-to-date topic, because it provides a satisfactory solution to various company issues that pertain to increased specialization, collaboration and integration in efficient and effective supply chains. The management of this activity with its main functions including the benefits and the risks will be approached in our research. The outsourcing of logistic services is a complex concept that our paper undertakes to discuss in some costs, access to new and costly technologies, scale economies, of its aspects.Our study is developed on 108 Romanian companies that have more than 50 employees. Based on our previous studies in Romanian industry, we decided that our research is best based mainly on quantitative methods. The instrument of our research is the structured questionnaire. The general goal of our research is to investigate the way in which companies manage the risks and the benefits both expected and attained in the process of outsourcing logistics. The implications of our research for the field of logistics refer to the fact that we were able to identify which are the most important and attainable outsourcing logistics benefits out of the large number stated in the international literature. Furthermore, we structured the risks encountered by Romanian companies which took a chance on outsourcing logistics. All in all, we consider that this is an excellent starting point for our future research in this field as we plan to investigate further on this topic by analyzing the outsourcing logistics benefits and risks also from the perspective of logistics service providers from Romania.

Keywords: logistics outsourcing; strategic decision; benefits; risks. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: M11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
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