Logistics in the Publishing Industry

Logistics in the Publishing Industry

Oxford University Press ANZ
Author: Michael Wang
Email: michael.wang@oup.com

With the rapid development of global business, business logistics has become an important topic in business disciplines. In a real-world environment, logistics is a marginal activity in many industries. It plays a supporting role within a business. Executive management often focuses on the core business of an organisation. Like many other industries, outsourcing the logistics function to a third party logistics provider is becoming increasingly popular in a publishing industry. Due to the digitalisation, internet and environmental sustainability, the publishing industry faces many challenges. Simplifying logistics activities seems a good option for many managers to cut costs from logistics budget in the publishing industry. However, to what extent and how should businesses simplify the logistics activities? The managers must consider and understand the question. According to the previous studies, the system should not be oversimplified to the point of losing its significance.  Logistics control is a complex control system in the publishing industry. It involves all types of shipments from a full container load sea-freight shipment to a small postal parcel. In addition, transport models including air, sea, road, rail, and post/courier are widely used in the publishing industry.  It is necessary to choose appropriate transport / delivery methods in order to achieve the cost-effective logistics performance in the publishing industry. A third party logistics provider may provide a delivery solution for several types of shipments. It is impossible to outsource all the shipments to a single third party logistics provider in the publishing industry, due to the limited delivery capability and service capacity.  Moreover, the publishing industry normally includes an end to end supply chain network from paper supplies to individual customers, and many different business partners including paper manufacturers, printers and distributors are often located in different states or continents.  The internal logistics function integrates, coordinates and monitors the business processes and partners in the publishing industry. Although simplifying internal logistics activities may help organisations to cut costs and the third party logistics providers advertise that they can provide logistics solutions for businesses, a reliable and accurate logistics control system is still highly needed to control and monitor the logistics performance in today’s publishing industry.