Closeness and power in Logistics

By Clara López, member of Baud's team.

They say that it can still happen that you walk distracted on a Galician beach and come across a rubber duck that has floated thousands of kilometers for almost three decades to reach you. You may be part of the famous story of the ship that lost almost 1992 ducklings on its 29.000 Hong Kong - Washington voyage in the middle of a monstrous storm.

And it turns out that every day and more and more, you are part of a story with many similarities. The bike whose components travel across different continents to be assembled across borders that, with a single click, embark on a new adventure-filled journey to your doorstep. Or the pieces of fruit from the local farmer that travel refrigerated by bicycle, dodging the traffic again, to the door of your house.

Knowledge, hard work, technology, to get, from very far or from very close, to the door of your house. The true story that only a few logistics companies are knowing how to tell.

The first companies that are launching to project this value are, as usually happens in other sectors, those closest to the client, in this case, those that include among their services the delivery activity that arrives at our doorstep. They are only a small percentage of logistics companies, but they take much of the perceived value with them. Not so much for being close, but for knowing how to take advantage of it.

In this complex ecosystem, perceived value gives power: bargaining force, increased margins, attraction of alliances, sector reputation, investment in talent, technology and communication… in short, a power that is fed back and is growing.

The logistics companies best known and valued by the end customer are usually also the most powerful. But any company can be valued by the end customer, if it connects with it properly.

Being far from the end customer does not mean that you cannot value us. We 'just' have to be able to convey our story to him. Other brands have achieved this in other sectors and with very different casuistry such as Airbus, Recaro, Intel, Ineco or Deloitte.

In logistics, as in other sectors, the most powerful are usually the most valued. And to be valued, the end customer must know us, regardless of whether we are more or less close to him. Telling him our story and using the appropriate codes to get closer to him will help us compete better, changing the rules of the game.

We often think that companies far from the end customer should be unknown, without realizing that this belief perpetuates a power game that harms them. There are ways to change the rules, get closer, tell the stories that deserve to be told. And there is no better time to try than now.

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Image by Rinson Chory