Logistics Costs

A recent study that I received from the recent CSCMP conference in San Diego called “Trends & Strategies in Logistics: Agenda for Logistics Management 2010” is a great overview of where the logistics industry is going in the future. One of the topics covered in the study was Logistics Costs as a percentage of a company’s total overall costs broken down by sector.

Logistics Costs as percentage of total costs

Food – 8.0%

Chemical – 6.9%

Machine Construction – 6.0%

High Tech – 5.2%

Automotive – 5.1%

• Depending on sector, logistics costs account on average between 5 and 8 percent of total costs

• Little or no standardized allocation of logistics costs and services

• Machine Construction, high tech and automotive investing increasing sums in logistics

This is interesting information to take a look at if you are in the process of outsourcing your logistics function? What percentage of your company’s total costs are spent on logistics services and management? Is your spending on the high side for your industry, can your numbers use some improvement?

Sometimes this is one of the reasons used as justification for working with third party logistics companies.

The Trends and Strategies in Logistics study was conducted by Bundesvereinigung Logistik (BVL) e.V.