Challenges Faced by Riverwood Logistics in Singaporean Logistics Market

Running head: MANAGEMENT IN PRACTICE
Management in Practice
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Executive Summary
This business report discusses the major loopholes in the logistics market of Singapore and
reflects how the new market players Riverwood logistics face issues while operating in this
hostile business market. The market value of the Singaporean logistics business circle is very
high. In fact from 2012 to 2018 this business have been highly contributing towards the GDP
of the country. Major findings of this report also reveals that the logistics industry have been
the fastest growing business sector in the country. The strategic location of Singapore in
South East Asia have made the country a major logistics hub. The countries of Europe as well
as Middle East also relies on the logistics service providing companies of Singapore for their
business operations. In this context, the market position of the Riverwood logistics company
is very strategic. They provide business class service to the retrial businesses of the country,
alongside providing third party service to other multinational logistics companies. The way
Riverwood have implemented innovative marled mapping and maintained a competitive
client base have been discussed in this report. Furthermore, the other challenges like
operating in a VUCA world or requirements of high end investments have been other
hindrances in the way of attaining success of Riverwood. The findings of the report confirm
that severe market fragmentation and excess amount of market players posed the most
significant challenge before Riverwood and prevented the company from emerging as
successful.

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Table of Contents-
1. Introduction............................................................................................................................4
1.1 Industry and Company Background.................................................................................4
1.1.1 Industry Background..................................................................................................4
1.1.2 The position of the Singaporean Government...........................................................6
1.1.3 Company Background...............................................................................................6
2. Problem Definition.................................................................................................................7
2.1 Four major areas of disruption.........................................................................................7
3. External analysis of the Company..........................................................................................9
3.1 PESTEL analysis............................................................................................................10
Political Factors................................................................................................................10
Economic Factors.............................................................................................................10
Social Factors....................................................................................................................11
Technical factors...............................................................................................................11
Environmental Factors......................................................................................................12
Legal Factors.....................................................................................................................12
3.2 VUCA analysis...............................................................................................................13
3.2.1 Volatility..................................................................................................................13
3.2.2 Uncertainty...............................................................................................................14
3.2.3 Complexity...............................................................................................................14
3.2.4 Ambiguity................................................................................................................14

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4. Internal analysis of the company..........................................................................................16
4.1 RBV analysis..................................................................................................................16
4.1.1 Tangible Assets........................................................................................................16
4.1.2 Intangible Assets......................................................................................................16
4.1.3 Heterogeneous.........................................................................................................16
4.1.4 Immobile..................................................................................................................17
Conclusion................................................................................................................................18
Reference List..........................................................................................................................19

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1. Introduction
Logistics and transportation business is a booming reality in the business market.
Compounded by the strength of this industry, the logistics companies in Singapore are
scrambling to redesign various avenues to beat the rate race in the logistics jungle and grab
the best of the potential boom in the logistics industry. In this context, this report explores the
major hindrances and business related challenges that River wood-logistics have been facing
while operating in the business atmosphere of the logistics industry of Singapore. The major
blocks that Riverwood Logistics have faced are persistent demands from the customers of
Singapore for shorter delivery periods and the growing unreliability among the customers
regarding the third party logistics vendors. In this report, a detailed external as well as
internal analysis have been conducted to identify the competitions that the organisation have
been facing from adverse macro environment as well as other competitors like self-selling
logistics section that has reduced the reliability on the third party logistics companies. Other
internal issues that Riverwood have been facing has also been discussed in this report.
PESTEL analysis have been conducted in the course of the report to highlight the sources of
the issues that have hampered the productivity and the revenue growth of the organisation.
Further in-depth market study s accomplished through the application of the VUCA matrix in
this report. Again, RBV analysis have also been conducted for making a high end study to
understand how the macro economic factors have been influencing the internal operations of
the company.
1.1 Industry and Company Background
1.1.1 Industry Background
According to the declarations of the International Monetary Fund (WB), among 155
major countries, Singapore is ranked the 1st among the potential logistics hubs. Other than a

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strong network of domestic logistics, the country being situated in the heart of the South
Eastern Asian region, enjoys high advantage against monitoring global trade (Zhang et al.
2016). About 18000 in house and third party logistics companies are currently operating in
the country and approximately 180000 people are engaged in this industry (Kucukaltan, Irani
& Aktas, 2016). According to Piecy and Björklund (2015), about 10% of the workforce of the
Singaporean organised sector is employed in the logistics sector of the country. The
international Logistics market of Singapore serves about 123 countries and executes its
operations through more than 200 business routes in the Asian region only
(Riverwood.com.sg, 2018). The frontline Singaporean logistics farms have become the
leading players for supplying the deliverables of industries like aerospace, electronics,
telecommunications, biomedical science and e-commerce. In fact the most emerging as well
as reputed logistics companies like Agility, TNT, Nippon Express, Toll and NYK are
headquartered in Singapore, itself. The companies which have major share of their sales or
production franchises based in Singapore or in South Eastern Asia like Avaya, Hewlett
Packard, Panasonic, Siemens, or dell, rely on the Singaporean companies for a major part of
their business operations.