Armstrong & Associates sees more
modest, single-digit growth— more
than 5 percent—as the U.S. economy
improves by 2. 5 percent to 3 percent.
of Scandinavia and Germany, the outlook
for 2012 might even be described as bleak,
and 3PLs will be challenged to grow. That
means that major logistics services
providers, such as DHL, DB Schenker,
Kuehne & Nagel and Panalpina, will have to
look elsewhere for gains.
In Latin America, Brazil leads the surge.
Nevertheless, Colombia, Chile and Ecuador
are moving forward. All have international
structural problems that offer significant 3PL
opportunities. Mexico is sure to keep gain-
ing, despite its drug-related bloodbath,
because of near-sourcing advantages for
U.S. markets.
In the following section, we provide
compact descriptions of the Top 50 3PLs.
This is not a ranking, which suggests one
company is qualitatively superior to
another. Rather, the highlights are
intended to showcase the industries and
areas that each company focuses on.
The largest providers are global sup-
ply chain managers. They have tremen-
dous scale features in organization and
technology. Most have evolved, stan-
dardized solutions for major industries.
These standard solutions can be tweaked
and implemented quickly. All have estab-
lished quality and process improvement
programs. In addition, they are all cultur-
ally adaptive.
The regional operators who round out
the Top 50 are very good at what they do.
For example, GENCO ATC, Menlo World-
wide Logistics, Penske Logistics and Ryder
System do not have global reach. At the
same time, they all have international oper-
ations, Class-A capabilities and best-in-class
operations.
Whatever your logistics need, there
could be a great 3PL in your future.
2011 Global Logistics Costs and Third-Party Logistics Revenue Estimates
