Transition or Transformation? Emerging Freight Transportation Intermediaries

During the past two years, traditional freight transportation intermediaries, which include freight forwarders, brokers and third party logistics providers have been joined by a large number of new intermediaries. The main drivers of the development of these new companies are advances in information and communications technologies, the development of web-based or on-line freight transportation marketplaces and the emergence worldwide of business-to-business (B2B) electronic marketplaces and business-to-consumer (B2C) e-tailers. Advances in Information Technologies make possible many new operational paradigms and potentially enable the efficient integration of supply chains. In this paper we examine these new companies, discuss the potential benefits and costs of shifting from traditional 3PLs to these on-line service providers and illustrate the extent to which changes in the industries appear to be more of a transition than a large scale transformation.