Most of the papers dealing with third party logistics discuss the subject from a shipper's point of view, for example by describing key success factors, reasons for outsourcing, and what to expect from outsourcing, but relatively little has been written about outsourcing from the providers' point of view. To learn more about the provider's perspective on TPL, analyze the TPL-industry in more detail and judge the ability of providers to play a substantial role in supply chain integration activities, we carried out a survey among a number of logistics service providers. The survey participants
were chosen to represent a wide variety of providers, and were judged by the authors to be important or innovative TPL players. Of the
21 participants, 19 gave a reasonably
complete response. Ten participants were based in Europe, eight in the United States and one in Australia. Data were collected through a mail survey, complemented by phone interviews with CEOs or VPs in charge of logistics services.