UTILIZATION OF E-LOGISTICS IN MULTINATIONAL COMPANIES TO OVERCOME DIFFICULTIES OF TODAY'S ECONOMIC ENVIRONMENT

As the incredible growth of the Internet is changing the way corporations conduct their business. Logistics service providers must consider changing their traditional logistics system into an e-Logistics system in order to accommodate to the dynamic changes in the commercial world. The purpose of this study is to provide a better understanding of how organizations utilize e-Logistics within their supply chain and how to create a competitive advantage during the economic crisis so that losses be limited if not eliminated. To reach this purpose, two research questions are stated (two multinational companies), focusing the factors that influence the e-Logistics system. From the in-depth interviews and used to collect data, the findings show that the e-Logistics system can be described as a network creating value process. The findings further indicate that reliability factors, maintainability factors, software factors and facility, transportation and handling factors, all influence the e-Logistics system. On the other hand, availability factors, economic factors, organizational factors and test and support equipment factors are of low-level importance for e-logistics system. The second part of the paper focuses on how e-logistics will change the multinational traditional logistics systems and how we can measure (Key Performance Indicators) these changes. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]