Preface

The globalisation of economies, increased competitive pressure, heightened customer expectations, emerging technologies and multilateralism have had a profound effect on the way organizations conduct their business. Organizations started focusing on supply chain process integration to bring efficiency, cost effectiveness, productivity in business process, to add value to their customer offering and services to gain a competitive advantage.

Supply chain integration is possible through the disciplining of logistics management, which has advanced from warehousing and transportation to the boardrooms of successful companies across the world. Logistics capabilities supplement the supply chain operation. The efficiency and effectiveness of inventory movement across the supply chain depends on the capability of logistics management.

Logistics has a key role to play in customer service strategy of the organization. With the emergence of e-commerce, logistics operations has become more challenging than ever because competition is just a click away. Logistics and supply management cannot be separated as they are part of the same customer solution. The logistics operation may go on irrespective of whether the enterprise follows the supply chain philosophy or not.

The increasing importance of business logistics makes it necessary for students of business management to understand logistics, its basic framework, and its practical utility. Keeping this in mind, the book has been designed for students studying logistics and supply chain management in BBA, DBM, PGDMA, MMS, and MBA across various business schools and universities in India. The book covers both text and cases with Indian context. Separate chapters have been devoted to emerging technologies used in logistics operations and the government policy and regulatory framework for the logistics industry in India.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I wish to thank numerous people without whom this text would not have come to exist.

I would like to thank my colleagues who contributed their time and talents: Prof. B.V.R. Murthy, Prof. Kumar Chandnani, and Dr. Manoj Bhatia for their review and suggestions on technology and legal environment in logistics. They also helped to review and modify the case text to the present form.

Several other persons have given me much to thank for—Ragini and Thomas Paily who helped to key in the text into the computer and print it, and Pankaj Shetty who made the computer illustrations.

I would like to acknowledge the efforts of the senior MBA students and the research assistants at the Institute of Technology and Management, Navi Mumbai, who helped in developing the cases for class discussion for this subject by way of data generation and information collection from the field and the Internet.

I cannot forget my spiritual guru, Shri Dada Maharaj Zurale, who in fact inspired me to take up this project. Without his blessings this book would not have been completed within a short span of time.

And of course, there are no words to express the gratitude and love I feel for the members of my family, who encouraged me to complete this book even at the cost of my time with them.

I would appreciate your suggestions, comments, and feedback to continue to improve the usefulness of this book. You can reach me by email at [email protected].

VINOD V. SOPLE