General outsourcing perspective in Turkish firms In a majority (47 percent) of the respondent firms, purchasing, supply, inventory management, order fulfilling, customer services, production scheduling and negotiations with salespersons are accepted as in-house logistics activities. In a three-year time period, these firms do not consider outsourcing the logistics activities mentioned above. Similarly, warehousing activities are held by the firm itself in 76 percent of the firms. Only 24 percent outsource warehousing to other logistics firms and 23.5 percent of the respondents intend to outsource their logistics activities within a three-year time period. Nearly 93.5 percent of the respondents outsource their transportation activities. It can be seen that Turkish firms in particular outsource transportation activities and the direct participation of manufacturer firms in transportation is expected to decrease visibly within a three-year time period. Therefore the current 3PLs, in fact, play the role of freight transporters.
Outsourcing in transportation activities As can be seen from the general perspective, transportation has a dominant role in outsourcing activities. That is why a more detailed analysis regarding transportation outsourcing is provided in this study. Fifty-four percent of Turkish firms choose to work with a 3PL firm in their transportation activities from supplier to manufacturer and 60 percent use a 3PL for the transportation from manufacturer to customer. From supplier to manufacturer (88.52 percent) and from manufacturer to customer (88.87 percent), the materials and goods are mainly transported by motor vehicles. The average value of the transported goods is about $100,000. The fact that the motor vehicles are preferred to other means of transportation is not a surprising result if today’s circumstances are taken into account. By the end of 2001, the number of firms that had licenses from the Ministry of Transportation for international highway transportation was 892, their fleet having a total capacity of 711,000 tones (www.mfa. gov.tr/Turkce/grupe/ues-7/Uluskarayolutasima.htm).
Factors affecting the satisfaction from the 3PL providers in transportation Factor analysis is conducted in order to understand the real factors underlying the selection of the carriers. A factor is a mother-concept which gives a summary of a subgroup of indicators that largely measure the same (see Hair et al., 1992 for details of factor analysis). As can be seen in Table VI, the factor analysis shows that it is possible to represent all 31 selection criteria with seven factors. The values given in the table correspond to factor loadings. Factor 1 is composed of: “the ability of the carrier to deliver damage-free goods”; “advance notice of transit delays if possible”; “shipment security”; “the ability of the carrier to customize its services to meet specific and/or unique needs to handle emergency shipment”; “length of promised transit times” and; “the ability to adhere to special shipping instructions”. In fact all these criteria are specifically related to the reliability of the carrier. That is why Factor 1 is named as “Reliability of the carrier”.