Thesis only requires an outline: The current situation and trends of third-party logistics in Changsha!

Abstract: Economies of scale are the product of socialized mass production. As a professional social logistics organization, third-party logistics has strong economies of scale. Based on the analysis of the meaning of economies of scale in third-party logistics, this article deeply explores the internal and external supporting conditions of economies of scale in third-party logistics. It believes that internal supporting conditions include production technology, capital and management and organizational capabilities, and external supporting conditions include market demand scale. , market scope and market transaction efficiency. The development strategy of my country's third-party logistics to achieve economies of scale is proposed from the perspective of solving supporting conditions.

Keywords: third-party logistics; economies of scale; supporting conditions; logistics alliance; integration

1. Introduction

Logistics has only experienced a history of more than 80 years from its early practice to today's vigorous development on a global scale. As a symbol and representative of the modern logistics industry, third-party logistics has only appeared in the West for more than 20 years. But it has formed a certain scale; while it was in the process of development in China for just more than ten years, world-class large-scale logistics companies in Europe and the United States have begun to embark on the path of mergers and acquisitions, reorganization and combination [1]. To a certain extent, the emergence and development of modern third-party logistics reflects its inherent economies of scale. The author attempts to explore the characteristics of economies of scale of third-party logistics from the perspective of supporting conditions for economies of scale, in order to seek the general rules for the development of modern third-party logistics.

2. The meaning of economies of scale in third-party logistics

In economics, economies of scale are It refers to the economic phenomenon that the average cost decreases as the production scale of manufacturers (or enterprises) expands. Under the conditions of market economy, the existence of economies of scale means that when scale expansion can improve efficiency and save costs, as long as this trend of improving efficiency and reducing average costs is not exhausted, enterprises will continue to expand production scale, thus benefiting from Obtain benefits [2].

Since logistics refers to the physical flow process of items from the supply place to the receiving place, logistics activities are the organic integration of basic functions such as transportation, storage, handling, packaging, circulation processing, distribution, and information processing according to actual needs. Therefore, from the perspective of logistics enterprises, the essence of logistics is the creation of the space-time value of items. This spatio-temporal characteristic of logistics activities determines the network production characteristics of the third-party logistics industry: transportation and distribution are the links and tools of the logistics network - the main carrier of spatio-temporal characteristics; warehousing, loading and unloading, handling, circulation and processing, etc. are the logistics network Node production - the auxiliary carrier of spatiotemporal characteristics; information processing is the organizational command of network operation - the production carrier of spatiotemporal information. Based on this understanding, we define the economies of scale of third-party logistics (or third-party logistics activities) as the phenomenon that the average logistics cost decreases as the logistics output of third-party logistics enterprises expands on the logistics network. This is a very general concept, because third-party logistics includes many different elements, so we expand the meaning of economies of scale of third-party logistics companies into the following specific manifestations: Economies of scale covered by the logistics network, that is, third-party Economies of scale in the size of the logistics enterprise's operational network, such as the economies of scale in the distribution network; economies of scale in logistics equipment, that is, economies of scale in the production of transportation fleets, warehousing, loading and unloading tools, information systems and other facilities; economies of scale in transactions , that is, the impact on the average cost as the number of transactions increases. The first two can be seen as economies of scale in logistics production, and the latter can be seen as economies of scale in logistics sales (selling logistics products).

3. Internal supporting conditions for third-party logistics economies of scale

(1) Internal technologies for third-party logistics economies of scale Supporting conditions - the technical level of logistics functions

As mentioned above, logistics functions can be divided into transportation, storage, handling, packaging, circulation processing, distribution, information processing, etc.

The technical and economic economies of scale of a single logistics function and the degree of matching between functions determine the overall economies of scale of third-party logistics. On the one hand, for an individual function, its economies of scale depend on its level of specialization. Adam Smith, the originator of economics, believed that the development of division of labor and specialization is the source of economic growth, and the benefit of division of labor is that it can improve production efficiency [3]. Yang Xiaokai and Borland (1991) have proved that with the gradual evolution of division of labor, the evolution of endogenous comparative advantages brought about by specialization is the driving force for accelerating knowledge accumulation and productivity improvement [4]. Improved production efficiency means that more products can be obtained in the same production time and the average cost can be reduced. Since the evolution of division of labor is subject to the scale of production, the resulting economies of division of labor and specialization are ultimately reflected as economies of scale in economics. In modern society, the improvement of logistics efficiency requirements requires independent logistics functions such as transportation, warehousing, loading and unloading to become more specialized to improve the production capacity of individual subsystems. In actual production, it is reflected in the investment and use of specialized, high-tech, automated logistics facilities.

On the other hand, for specialized third-party logistics, its advantages are not only reflected in the production capacity of specialized subsystems, but also in the resource integration of subsystems - independent yet closely connected. The functional subsystems match each other to form a complete and seamless supply chain. In the actual operation of logistics, it is reflected in the application of highly systematic, integrated and information-based management systems. Therefore, the internal technical support conditions of third-party logistics are mainly restricted by the optimal allocation of production capacity of the logistics functional subsystem and the optimal combination of major technical and economic indicators. The economy of its overall scale depends on whether it can match the logistics functional elements. Optimize and integrate to break through the short board limitation in the "bucket principle".

(2) Capital support conditions for third-party logistics economies of scale

The advantages of economies of scale are largely due to certain mature technologies. The technical characteristics of third-party logistics functional elements determine the economies of scale in the technical and economic sense of logistics. For example, the construction of highway networks has expanded the economic circle of automobile transportation, thereby promoting the economic efficiency of regional logistics over a larger network coverage; the advancement of information technology has made the integration of logistics resources between different regions a reality. The expansion of technically effective economic scale has promoted large logistics enterprises to move towards large-scale cross-regional logistics operations. However, in order to achieve greater economies of scale in the actual production process, especially when world-class logistics companies in Europe and the United States use capital acquisitions to control more enterprises to expand economies of scale, it is inseparable from huge capital investment. . Therefore, the capital accumulation and aggregation capabilities of third-party logistics enterprises have become an important supporting condition for economies of scale.

(3) Another internal supporting condition for third-party logistics economies of scale - management and organizational capabilities

Since Marshall listed "organization" as a factor in production One of the four elements, organization and management have become the focus of research by economists and business management masters. Some scholars and managers believe that when the size of an enterprise increases in an arithmetic progression, especially when an enterprise expands its scale through mergers and acquisitions, its management complexity and organizational coordination workload will increase in a geometric progression. For third-party logistics, the efficiency of organization and management is not only reflected in conventional human resource management such as personnel incentives and constraints, but also in the optimized operation of processing time and space resources. Since the time and space complexity of logistics will increase rapidly with the expansion of time and space, how to ensure effective management is an indispensable supporting condition for third-party logistics companies to pursue economies of scale.