RECOGNIZING 3PL EXCELLENCE – Top 10 excellence survey
What exactly are the 2003 Top 10 3PL Excellence Awards about? They are about you voting for 3PLs you think provide excellent service and Inbound Logistics magazine listening and reporting your choices. We conduct this survey to recognize the 3PLs that serve your needs well, in the hopes of encouraging more of the same. Don't kill the messenger if your favorite 3PL didn't make this list — vote for them for next year's awards
The Top 10 3PL awards are based on faxed, mailed, and emailed ballots received December 2002 to June 2003. This survey is the most encompassing study of the 3PL market. It is not a scientific analysis of every 3PL's capabilities. Part popularity contest, part opinion, and partly drawn from respondents' direct experience (47.3 percent report working directly with 3PLs), IL readers voted for their own logistics providers as well as others they think provide good service.
An incredible 3,000-plus usable votes were cast, naming 360 logistics providers of all scopes and sizes. The companies that garnered the most votes can be found on the list to the left.
Who Responded
Respondents represent all industries — manufacturing, retailers and distributors, services and government (mostly military). Mirroring your logistics philosophy of inter-discipline cooperation and collaboration, respondents' titles reflect a broad range of functions (see Job Titles chart below). Senior management, logistics/transportation and supply chain titles dominate the respondent base.
Respondents were not standing on the logistics sidelines either, with 39.7 percent having a logistics spend of more than $10 million a year. Almost 25 percent spend $1 to $10 million a year on logistics (see $ Spent on Logistics chart below). The varied services they buy as part of their responsibilities indicates two things: 1) these respondents are familiar with a broad scope of transportation and logistics challenges, and 2) that familiarity makes them eminently qualified arbiters of good 3PL customer service (see Services Bought chart below).
Services bought by respondents:
3pl 53%
Air Freight 54%
Ocean/Intermodal 36%
Small Package/Express 56%
Logistics IT 30%
Warehousing
45%
Global Logistics services 33%
Motor Freight 64%
Rail/Intermodal 32%
Equipment 31%
Consulting 36%
$ spent on logistics
over $10m – 39.7%
$1 – 10m – 24.8%
$100,000 to $1m 26.8%
under $100,000 – 8.7%
Job titles
Corporate management – 41%
Logistics – 25.9%
Traffic/transportation – 24.6%
Purchasing – 8.5%
2003 Top 10 3PLs
How do this year's 3PL winners rank? UPS Supply Chain Solutions places first, supplanting five-time winner Ryder, which falls to third. Schneider Logistics holds the number-two slot for the second year running, and Menlo Worldwide joins Ryder in third place, marking the sixth consecutive year it has placed in the top three. FedEx Supply Chain Services and C.H. Robinson maintain their hold on the four and five positions. Americold Logistics, new to the Top 10 this year, places sixth. Penske stays at the seventh position again, but Exel slips from seventh to eighth. TNT Logistics moves up a couple of positions to the eighth spot as well. Transplace notches the ninth slot, as it debuts on the Top 10. Another newcomer to our 3PL Top 10 list is Landstar Logistics, which ties for 10th position with Total Logistic Control.
The fact that 13 3PLs are squeezed into our Top 10 is testament to the continuing competition in the 3PL market. As always, many solid 3PLs did not make the list.
Although this survey is not an encyclopedia of 3PL providers, it is an important differentiator in identifying leading 3PLs. Their clients — our readers — are the most well-informed buyers of 3PL services in the world.
Naturally you will do your own research as you seek logistics partners. But the information on the following two pages provides a snapshot of what your peers think about the players in the segment.
Let us know what you think. Send an email to: [email protected]
