It is easy to forget the own-account operators who are primarily moving goods produced by their companies. Over the last decade or more third party logistics companies have been trying to persuade own-account operators to give up and instead move to 3PLs.
But a interesting report from logistics research company Analytiqua shows that not only are in-house logistics companies recording greater revenue per head than that of their 3PL counterparts, it also re improving on key performance indicators at a slightly greater rate than 3ls and increasing profits at a greater rate (although how you work out the profit of an own-account operation can be difficult because the distribution arms figures are included within the total company results.
In-house logistics include companies such as Tesco Distribution Ltd and across Europe there are some very large own-account operators with revenues exceeding Euro500 million.
What is clear is that the decline in own-account is slowing and some companies that have used 3Pls are moving back to doing the work themselves.
Analytiqa is a research company that produces reports on the European logistics and road transport industry