Procurement of logistics services—a minutes work or a multi-year project?

The purpose of the article is to describe and compare the purchasing process for advanced versus basic logistics services. Further some specific observations are presented from the procurement of advanced third-party logistics services, with respect to service definitions, providers evaluations and contracts. The purchasing process of logistics services will in the future need to be more differentiated due to current business trends. Hence companies must analyse how these new procurement situations will impact on their purchasing processes in order to understand what new resources, routines and competence they need to have in order to purchase logistics services in an effective way.