Evaluating Customer Relationship Management in Logistics

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Added on 2020/05/04

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The assignment delves into the significance of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems within supply chain management, emphasizing their role in improving customer satisfaction. The discussion leverages findings from Mithas et al. (2013), which highlight how CRM applications contribute positively to customer experiences by facilitating better communication and service delivery. Furthermore, this analysis explores various facets of supply chain dynamics as outlined by key literature, including the integration of green logistics practices (Lai & Wong, 2012) and sustainable management strategies (Seuring, 2013). By examining these elements, the study aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of how CRM applications can be strategically implemented to enhance overall customer satisfaction in supply chain operations. The insights gathered are crucial for businesses aiming to optimize their logistics and supply chain processes while maintaining high levels of customer engagement and satisfaction.

Running head: LOGISTICS MANAGEMENT
Logistics management
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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2LOGISTICS MANAGEMENT
Executive summary
Supply chain management, physical distribution, material management and rhocrematics are the
names which were given to the sector of business logistics. Business logistics is an important
area of management in case of the majority of the organizations, whether those are
manufacturing or service companies. Logistics is been defined as the process of planning
implementing and also controlling the efficient and cost effective flow. Along with that a storage
of raw materials, finished goods, in process inventory and related information from the initial
point of consumption for in compliance to client needs. The purpose of this report is to shed light
on various facts and write an overview on the management of logistics and how they can be
applied to business organizations.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................4
Logistics overview...........................................................................................................................4
Definitions of Logistics................................................................................................................... 5
Objectives of logistics......................................................................................................................5
Reduction of inventory................................................................................................................5
Economy of freight...................................................................................................................... 6
Consistency in delivery performance.......................................................................................... 6
Minimum damage to goods.........................................................................................................6
Quicker and faster response.........................................................................................................6
Functions of logistics....................................................................................................................... 7
Order processing.......................................................................................................................... 7
Inventory planning.......................................................................................................................7
Warehousing................................................................................................................................ 7
Transportation..............................................................................................................................7
Packaging.....................................................................................................................................7
Value delivery in supply chain management...................................................................................8
Logistics solution.............................................................................................................................8
Future of logistics............................................................................................................................ 9
Logistics and customer service........................................................................................................ 9

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Impact of logistics management on customer satisfaction:...........................................................11
Manufacturing Companies- Logistics and Customer Satisfaction:...............................................12
Information Technology in Logistics:...........................................................................................12
Logistics and Social Media:...........................................................................................................14
References and Bibliography.........................................................................................................15

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5LOGISTICS MANAGEMENT
Introduction
The scope and the influences of logistics have evolved immensely in the late 40’s to 60’s
of the last century. Initially only the military organizations used logistics, but later the scopes of
logistics were extended beyond the army organizations and were widely known as one of the
most important apparatus to develop competitiveness. The term ‘competitive advantage’ means
that the association has the required capability to distinguish itself in the eyes of the customers
and also is working at a lower price and greater revenue (Griffis, Bell and Closs 2012). The
logistics facilitates in receiving the products or goods and services as and when they are required
and preferred to the clients. Logistics as well helps in various economic connections and serving
as a significant enabler of expansion of trade and commerce in a particular economy.
Logistics overview
The logistics nowadays is widely known as a different purpose along with the rise of the
mass production systems. The distribution and production in previous days were seen as a
chronological chain of particular actions. Thus the position of the logistics is to make sure the
accessibility of all the needed resources prior to each step in the sequence. Inevitably the
inventory of raw resources, completed goods and semi-finished merchandise is a must across the
sequence to make sure the smooth functioning. The basic notion of logistics has its foundation
upon the systems approach. There is a solitary chain with a run of resources initiating from the
provider, after that to the plant and lastly in the end purchaser and also those actions were done
in sequence to attain the customer satisfaction at low cost (Seuring and Gold 2012). Thus to be
successful, there must be a harmonization in the actions of the department. With references to a
specific association, the organizations get a tangible shape because of its arrangement. Earlier
times, the suppliers in distributional activities were spread across the whole structure, resulting in

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an overlapping of the activities and finally are inexplicable authority and responsibility. In
today’s world, the organizations, which are process driven organizations, the focus has shifted
from the functions to process and logistics has thus become a significant element of the process.
Definitions of Logistics
The American Council of Logistics Management describes logistics being the
processes of planning, controlling and implementing the efficient, storage of raw materials, cost
effective flow, fished merchandise and related information from the origin to consumption for
the reason of in compliance to the necessities of the customers (Griffis, Bell and Closs 2012).
Experts defined logistics as the planning, controlling and implementing the physical flows of the
resources and finished products from the point of origin to the point of use to meet the
customer’s needs at the profit.
Objectives of logistics
Reduction of inventory
The inventory can be seen as one of the main factors that can have an effect on the
revenue of an organization to a huge amount. Traditionally, the organizations had to carry a lot
of inventory to satisfy clients and in order to make sure an excellent customer service (Zhang et
al. 2013). Later on when the funds are blocked in inventory and those were not used for any
other productive purposes. Those costs will exhaust any organization’s profits and logistics also
helps to maintain the inventory next to the lowest level to achieve the customer objective. This
can be done by small but recurrent supplies.

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Issues regarding freight
Freight is a significant starting place of charges in logistics and this might get reduced by
the measures by choosing the appropriate mode of transport, long distance shipments, route
planning, consolidation of freight etc.
Consistency in delivery performance
The materials required by the clients have to be delivered on time and not ahead of the
scheduled time or behind it. There must be a suitable planning of modes of the transportation
with availability of the inventory would ensure this (Seuring and Gold 2012).
Minimum damage to goods
At some times the goods might be damaged because of the improper packing or frequent
handling of the delivery or other reasons. These kinds of damages add to the logistics costs and
the usage of proper logistical packing, mechanized material handling equipment would diminish
the harm (Zhang et al. 2013).
Faster response
An organization should have the potential of extending the service to the clients in te
shortest time span. Using the most up-to-date technologies regarding giving out information and
communication would progress the process of decision making, and that enables the organization
to be elastic so that the company can satisfy the necessities of the clients within the shortest time
span (Janvier-James 2012).

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Functions of logistics
Order processing
The dispensation of the orders taken from the clients is an action that is vital by itself and
also consumes much time and paperwork (Mangan and Lalwani 2016). This involves the
stepladder like inspecting the orders for any deviations in the negotiated terms, payment, price
and delivery terms and checking whether the materials are obtainable in stock, and scheduling
and producing the materials for any kinds of shortages and giving acknowledgements to the
owners by signifying any deviations.
Planning of Inventory
Managing the inventory helps an organization to maintain an optimum level of inventory
that will help to satisfy the clients. Various actions like inventory forecasting, manufacturing the
order quantity, proper deployment of inventory and many more are concerned in this matter.
Warehousing
Warehouse is the place where all the finished products are reserved before they are sent
to be sold in the market. This is the most significant cost center and inappropriate warehouse
management can create a lot of issues in future (Seuring and Gold 2012).
Transportation
Transportation helps moving the finished products to the customers place and this can be
done by choosing a variety of methods like rail, seaways, air and roadways.
Packaging
Packaging is the most critical element in the physical allotment of the goods and it also
influences the competence of the system of logistics.

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Value delivery in management of supply chain
Nowadays the globe has turn out to be a global community, and because of liberalization
and globalization the business associations are much more forced to provide the goods further
than their nationalized boundaries (Janvier-James 2012). Thus in those state of affairs, the
function of logistics is to offer time place and usefulness of the goods to clients. Also
organizations are striving to achieve competitiveness and in their resistance to endure, the focus
has shifted towards supply chain, and to deliver the worth for money for their clients. Logistics
plays a significant role in the process of delivering the value and how flourishing the supply
chain management is, greatly dependent on support and planning of logistics. In recent years, the
trend is to outsource and organizations are continuing to farm out their operations as it is better
to outsource the useful areas to experts who know how to carry out the job at a significant lower
cost and this is one technique of adding value.
Logistics solution
Usually, the in-house logistics departments in manufacturing companies consider all the
aspects of logistics (Griffis, Bell and Closs 2012). This is certainly not the area of the core
capability of manufacturing or trading corporations. Nowadays, a lot of thriving business
organizations throughout the globe is outsourcing logistics to the third party providers of
logistics; those are having the necessary communications and expertise to do the work in a better
way. Complete solutions of logistics are provided to manufacturers and traders by the third party
logistics providers and they help to integrate a variety of operations of logistics, thus making it
sure a speedy and consistent movement of supplies across the supply chain. Logistics is
nowadays extensively used in almost each area. The accomplishment of a logistics service
providing corporation heavily relies on how they conceptualize and put into operation the

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logistics solutions, and also adjust to the necessities of the customer (Bosona and Gebresenbet
2013).
Future of logistics
These days’ organizations only look for sustainable competitive advantages, not for only
the growth, but also for the need to sustain (Lee and Lam 2012). There are so much steep rivalry
that companies are bound to analyze their process of business whilst they distribute the goods
and services to clients, who are searching for more worth for the sum that they are spending. The
focal point of rivalry has moved from the manufactured goods to the supply chain. Nowadays,
logistics management is supported by the system concept and cost approach. Transportation,
managing of materials, warehousing, and order processing and inventory management are the
key logistics activities that impact the client cost and operation. Integrated logistics helps to take
out the price of the supply chain and it also improves the level of customer service ( Mangan and
Lalwani 2016). When seeing at the macro level, the growth of a nation’s economy is wholly
based on the accessibility of good logistics infrastructure. The pace of the movement of
merchandise is based to a great extent on the range of ways of transportation like road, rail, air,
and sea. Logistics actually has a bright prospect, especially in countries like India, but definite
pressing issues such as abolition of octopi levy, rationalization of customs formalities, and
various improvements regarding road and rail infrastructure, creation of modern warehouse
facilities and many more, must to be taken care of (Cozzolino 2012).
Logistics and customer service
Clients are definitely the center of any action as the most important cause at the back of
this, being that eventually every product, service or scheme lastly needs to be catered to the

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11LOGISTICS MANAGEMENT
customer’s necessities. According to experts, the Customer service as a multifaceted of
behavior that involves all areas of the industry that combines to deliver and invoice the
company’s manufactured goods in a fashion that is supposed as acceptable by the client and
which moves forward the company’s objective. Customer service, as a notion has numerous
aspects to it. Logistics management has a key role in increasing the customer satisfaction and
also retention and thus creating a lifetime client value. In other expressions, customer service as
a amalgamation of activities enables a business organization to add some more value to the
purchaser It is a chief constituent of the merchandise or service that is offered to the purchaser.
With good quality of customer service, the existing clients are content and this attracts new
clients throughout word-of-mouth system of communication. Customer Service is not just a
function or an activity (Lee and Lam 2012). It is a philosophy, and attitude. With so much
importance given to customer service, companies are trying to increase the level of customer
service and scale up to the expectations of the client. Unless the goods are in the hands of the
purchaser at the time and place of condition, goods do not have any worth attached to them. To
achieve a praiseworthy service level, the organization has to plan a closely incorporated logistics
strategy (Mangan and Lalwani 2016). In today’s marketplace, clients are so much difficult to
deal with, not only in the quality characteristic but also in relation to the service aspect. Clients
form a only some perceptions in relation to the variety of aspects of customer service like
reliability, trustworthiness, responsiveness, competency etc (Seuring and Gold 2012). With the
help of these cues, purchasers evaluate the company’s services and state whether they are content
or not (Zhang et al. 2013). Physical distribution has a key role in providing customer service. As
there an increase in the competition is seen, along with a progression in technology, firms today
are faced with the increasing pressure to develop even more ground-breaking strategies for

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customer service. Two key factors that contributed immensely for the growing significance of
customer service as a spirited weapon are the incessant progress expectations of customer and
the stable shift of customers from branded goods to local unbranded products (Janvier-James
2012). An extremely good example would be the personal computer market, where the buyer
finds it hard to make a difference between a branded version and an unbranded one. The
swiftness of technological alteration and a decreased product life cycle has additionally enhanced
the significance of customer service.
Impact of logistics management on customer satisfaction:
It has to be ensured that over the years there has been a radical change in the mode of
customer satisfaction. With changing milieu of the customer behavior and their want of the
products from a company, the mode of service provision has also witnessed a certain change
(Lee and Lam 2012). Thus better or to be specific, an active and effective supply chain
management has the key to provide an impactful option to the companies to work on the process.
In the past, the satisfaction of the customers depended more upon requirements like the quality
and quantity. However, this was highly entrenched that focusing on the customer satisfaction
would highly become effective depending upon the cost reduction process (Bosona and
Gebresenbet 2013). However, cost reduction strategies and process in supply chain has often
resulted in the breaching and violation of sustainability and the regulations oriented with it.
There has been a question pertaining to the reliability and adaptability of the companies with the
suppliers and vice versa (Griffis, Bell and Closs 2012). In this regard there has been a proper
understanding of the process pertaining to the effective supply and logistics management.
Considering the quality of the supplies, the companies would prefer the positioning of the
warehouse. Both logistics and customer service goes hand in hand. Requirement such as shifting,

13LOGISTICS MANAGEMENT
shipping, delivery and packaging includes better problem solving attitudes in need. However,
there has to be certain understanding of the process which led to the understanding of the entire
case.
Manufacturing Companies- Logistics and Customer Satisfaction:
In terms of manufacturing companies, this has to be ensured that quality raw materials
are provided to the manufacturer. Management systems and policies and principles are quite
oriented with agile and lean production process. This has to be ensured that the specific
understanding has to be taken into certain understanding of the process. In this process, there is a
certain case that has actually provided effective learning method while addressing customer
satisfaction level (Mangan and Lalwani 2016).
Many papers have been written providing ample information about customer satisfaction
and the strategies that the companies should undertake while addressing to the greater number o
the customers.
Information Technology in Logistics:
One of the most important aspects in innovative logistics management is the intervention
of information technology (Lee and Lam 2012). Proper implementation process would also
meliorate the disturbed situations in a company. ICT or information and communication
technology in supply chain and logistics has been proving quite effective to determine customer
satisfaction. The elementary mantra for ensuring customer satisfaction is the quality of product
provided to the customers and post sales services (Cozzolino 2012). Two key factors that
contributed immensely for the growing significance of customer service as a competitive weapon

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14LOGISTICS MANAGEMENT
are the incessant progress of customer expectations and the steady shift of customers from
branded goods to local unbranded products. A very good example would be the personal
computer market, where the buyer finds it difficult to make a difference between a branded
version and an unbranded one. The swiftness of technological change and a decreased product
life cycle has additionally developed the significance of customer service. In terms of post sales
services most of the companies use third party organizations or the outsourcing companies. In
this case, those third party organizations provide ample scope to broaden the path for the core
companies to reach to the greater number of customers. In this case, the outsourcing companies
are highly equipped with proper ICT systems that are supplied to them from the top-class
organizations (Griffis, Bell and Closs 2012). Since this is performed through a chain system, all
the organizations and the agencies are to be well equipped. In this context, proper incoterm
management system comes in to existence. In collaboration with the supply chain partners, the
automation of the process has also eased the business practices. According to Gunasekaran et al
(2004), the measurement of the performance of the suppliers is considered to be something quite
important in terms of creating an essence with ease. However, this has to be taken into certain
consideration pertaining to the effective supply chain process. This is how, a particular group of
logistics solutions are highly effective in terms of service provision to the clients (Cozzolino
2012). In this case, classification of the customer needs to be taken into account. Since supply
chain is managed in B2B process i.e. business to business process, there is a clear understanding
of the process pertaining to the identification of the business clients as well as the identification
of the retail customers in the market (Mangan and Lalwani 2016). For instance, for shipment, the
companies with high quality ICT services are always prioritized. Customer service as a complex
of activities involves all areas of the business which combine to deliver and invoice the

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company’s product in a fashion that is perceived as satisfactory by the customer and which
advances the company’s objective. Customer service, as a notion has numerous aspects to it
(Bosona and Gebresenbet 2013). Logistics management has a key role in increasing the customer
satisfaction and also retention and thus creating a lifetime client value. In other expressions,
customer service as a amalgamation of activities enables a business organization to add more
value to the buyer.There is a need, as Del Baldo said, to ensemble the integration between the
carriers, information technology firms, and the manufacturing companies. One of the widely
used technological interventions has been FlashView software that tracks the usage and storage
of inventory data. The aim of using this software is to provide effective information to the clients
pertaining to the update. The other important technological acceptance is the acceptance of RFID
(Radio Frequency Identification), which is one of the most important and vital piece of
technologies that ensures effective service provision to the clients in the business process.
Through RFID chips, the companies are able to focus on the usage of ultimate foundational cases
(Zhang et al. 2013).
Logistics and Social Media:
Social media in any business process plays an important role. However, the plethora of
social media services and its synchronization has to be ensured with proper usage. Through
social media optimization, the supply chain management is precisely performed. Through proper
usage of social media, it would be strengthened (Cozzolino 2012).

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References and Bibliography
Bosona, T. and Gebresenbet, G., 2013. Food traceability as an integral part of logistics
management in food and agricultural supply chain. Food control, 33(1), pp.32-48.
Caunhye, A.M., Nie, X. and Pokharel, S., 2012. Optimization models in emergency logistics: A
literature review. Socio-economic planning sciences, 46(1), pp.4-13.
Christopher, M., 2016. Logistics & supply chain management. Pearson UK.
Cozzolino, A., 2012. Humanitarian logistics: cross-sector cooperation in disaster relief
management. Springer Science & Business Media.
Dekker, R., Fleischmann, M., Inderfurth, K. and van Wassenhove, L.N. eds., 2013. Reverse
logistics: quantitative models for closed-loop supply chains. Springer Science & Business
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Griffis, S.E., Bell, J.E. and Closs, D.J., 2012. Metaheuristics in logistics and supply chain
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141.
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based reverse logistics network design model. Resources, conservation and recycling, 67, pp.75-
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Katsikopoulos, K.V. and Gigerenzer, G., 2013. Behavioral operations management: A blind spot
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