Logistics information technology practice in manufacturing and merchandising firms – An international benchmarking study versus world class logistics firms

Logistics information technology (IT) can be a significant source of competitive advantages. Examines logistics IT practices for different industries and global regions and identifies any IT gaps between world class logistics firms and their more average (baseline) counterparts. Overall, the merchandising firms were perceived to have a lead over the manufacturing firms for most of the nine logistics IT issues probed. Among the baseline firms, the European firms seemingly outperformed the North American and Pacific Rim firms in the five‐year improvement in LIS capability, LIS resource share increase, and the adequacy of LIS in meeting the firm's requirements. The North American firms took a significant lead in issues related to EDI, barcode, and real time communications. However, all these baseline firms probably have to look up to the world class logistics firms for excellency in major IT practice, confirming the notion that being world class does make a difference.