Third Party Logistics : AN Emerging Demand in Pakistan Investigation in Pharmaceutical Industry

Abstract

The main purpose of this paper is to reveal the ongoing supply chain management activities and the barriers they face while functioning those activities in pharmaceutical industry of Pakistan, specifically in twin cities Rawalpindi and Islamabad. The main reason behind this research is to find out the supply chain outsourcing and collaboration with different third party logistics provider to achieve the cost and attain competitive edge through qualitative approach and in depth interviews from the different firms in pharmaceutical industry of Pakistan. The literature merely is focusing on the importance of an emerging trend of outsourcing the activities of different companies to third party, with effect of both dependent and in dependent will be discussed in detail with importance of these variables on the pharmaceutical industry of Rawalpindi/Islamabad. A methodology was designed and data was collected through qualitative procedure following an interpretivist approach in which two managers of five different companies were asked certain open ended questions that justifies the literature and indicates that collaboration is taking place in almost every supply chain management performance activities through third party logistics providers. The use of third party logistics providers has become more and more prominent in pharmaceutical industry and firms are now a days having complex relationships with their third party logistics providers to form a strong , long term and true strategic alliance with their outsourced partner to enjoy low cost advantage and concentration on their core activities and these relationships are now a days have been considered as a mean of increasing the effectiveness and concentrate on designing the long term strategies to achieve their goals and objectives. The paper emphasizes on the understanding of building long term relationship with outsourced partners and outsourcing transportation and ware house management activities will help the firms to not only achieve the low cost advantage but also allows them to concentrate on their core business activities.