Logistics Is a Teamwork

Logistics effectiveness is an ongoing process. It requires teamwork that is effective. There may be many problems cropping up now and then. However, with a team perspective, the root causes and bigger issues can be recognized and addressed.

Teamwork presents opportunities to look at how best to serve your customers or how to best conduct business. Look around at sports teams or at other companies. Not all teams are successful. Some are downright terrible, both at playing and at organization. They don’t work together. Yet others are highly successful. They win. And they continue to win, year in and year out. They do this because they work together. Teamwork means everyone working together, because it is good for the company. It means sales, growth, profitability, jobs and a sense of feeling good.

The team is necessarily a cross-functional approach. It cannot just be members of the logistics organization. This will not be effective. It must include sales, manufacturing, purchasing, manage­ment information system (MIS), accounting, logistics and whoever else is needed to achieve results. They must work together to analyze the needs, issues and concerns, whether they are meeting the needs of customers and/or taking a blank sheet of paper to reengineer their entire process.

The team may tackle broad issues involving changing customer and market demands, service, cost, quality, the company network of suppliers, plants, warehouses and territories. These are sig­nificant issues, vital to the future of the company. The team may, in reality, be agents of change.

Sometimes the organization chart is a problem with achieving teamwork. Organization charts show who reports to whom. This can become a barrier to teamwork. They can operate as functional silos. Silos are vertical; teamwork is horizontal. Silos create turf wars.

To avoid failures due to cultural mismatch in the global organization reflecting the global scope of the logistics, the team issues must also include cultural issues. They must also recognize the goals of the outside companies, which may be different from their company.

With the external organizations, we are talking about partnerships, not of buyer-seller relation­ships. The external elements must be made a part, an integral part, of the team. They are a very vital part of the team. They must provide the parts and services necessary for the supply chain to properly function.

Everyone must share company information and plans. They must understand each other’s operations and requirements. They must be active participants in the team. All the internal work may fail without the participation of all the key players, including those outside the company.

Source: Sople V.V (2013), Logistics Management, Pearson Education India; Third edition.