We all know what it feels like to have too many things on our plate. Not only is it overwhelming and stress-inducing to have a seemingly never-ending list of things to do, but having multiple tasks to accomplish in a limited amount of time often means we have to sacrifice doing things well for the sake of getting them all done.
But wouldn’t it be so much better if we could do fewer amount of tasks well instead of doing a bunch of tasks in mediocrity? Not only would it make life easier, but we’d certainly come to excel in those few tasks because we’d have more time to focus on doing quality work.
Now, take this scenario and apply it to the logistics industry. Operations managers and their teams are tasked with fulfilling orders, warehousing, managing inventory, purchasing and procurement, forecasting and transportation, among others. This is a long to-do list! Finding the time and the resources to accomplish all these tasks in a quality manner and optimizing them for what works best for your business is not an easy feat. Needless to say, it would be much better if you were responsible for only some of these tasks. You’d have the time it takes to really learn what works best for your business if say, you were only responsible for purchasing/procurement and warehousing. But if you’re only handling purchasing and warehousing, who’s handling order fulfillment and transportation?
This is why 3PL is needed! 3PLs free up your time to focus only on the segments of logistics that your business has decided need to be in-house. The other segments of your logistics that aren’t necessarily your core competencies can be outsourced to a 3PL. Transportation is one of the main areas of logistics that companies will outsource to a 3PL. Some 3PLs focus solely on transportation, and because transportation is their only focus, they’re experts at it! When you pick a good 3PL to manage your transportation, you can rest easy knowing the transportation and shipment of your product is being done well which, in turn, means you can focus all your time on what you need to without having to worry about the transportation of your product.
Ultimately, 3PL is needed because it helps businesses manage their core competencies more effectively while providing expertise in areas that businesses don’t always have the time or resources to learn.
