Marketing Logistics (2nd ed.)

We all know that it was Martin Christopher who taught us that supply chains, not companies, compete and it has become a common understanding by now. One of the other unique Martin Christopher contributions is in his title; he is professor of Marketing and Logistics. That gets to what is probably the most important interface in the supply chain for any competitive strategy. It captures the insight that logistics needs to be structured and managed from the market in, not the other way around. But it also gets to the hardest interface for logisticians to manage, that with marketing and sales.

All too often do logisticians complain about how marketers do not understand the relevance of logistics, do not care to provide accurate forecasts, only place panic calls into the fulfillment network, etc., etc. It is because of those frustrations that this book is so valuable. The book Marketing Logistics is not only about structuring logistics from the market in. It is also helpful in the marketing of logistics to marketing! And it is structured perfectly to make that much needed pitch.

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  It is not a 500 page textbook that would scare people away from even opening it. In stead it is 150 pages, with lots of examples and illustrations and written in a very accessible way.

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  The book begins with marketing (chapter 1: The new market place, chapter 2: Building customer relationships, chapter 3: Creating customer value) and shows how logistics fits into that. It speaks in marketing language in explaining logistics.

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  The authors resist the temptation to go into granular and technical logistics issues which would get a marketing audience to close the book because of lacking relevance.

All of this can help us in understanding the fundamentals of organizing around the market. More importantly it shows us how to better position our function and explain our function to marketing and sales.

Thank you Martin Christopher and Helen Peck for writing this book for all of us.