Evaluating the transportation service provider selection for Russian export deliveries by Finnish manufacturers

Abstract

Selection of a transportation service provider is one of the prime decisions faced by companies, directly affecting their ability to fulfill expectations of customers regarding consistent delivery performance, safety and timeliness. An ongoing trend of lean manufacturing and just-in-time inventories has increased the requirements for delivery performance and thus emphasized the importance of carrier selection even further. The featured study complements the existing range of literature on international transportation decision-making and carrier selection with a focused view on export deliveries from Finland to Russia. By means of a quantitative analysis of survey data from 56 Finnish manufacturing companies as well as three qualitative case interviews, the research focuses on the valuation of different carrier selection criteria by Finnish manufacturers as well as their currently applied transportations selection practices. The study also aims to draw interest on the topic of Russian export transportation as a rich field for further study. Main findings of the research include a high valuation of both cost-related and service quality -related selection factors by Finnish exporters as well as relatively informal selection processes based on intuition and experience. Partnering and longer-term collaboration with a decreasing number of carriers is viewed as a preferred future direction in Russian export transportation.