According to Mats Abrahamsson, the world has turned upside down in 2006. The best rapper being white. The best golfer black. Switzerland winning the America’s Cup. Denmark beating the US in icehockey. Greece becoming European champions in football. Chelsea’s FC being Russian. And ultimately, logistics being the most important source of profitability…
At least that’s what Mats’ best practices study shows. Yet it seems to depend on the image logistics has in a company. And on the ultimate issue that comes up in any similar study: top management support. Other disciplines are fighting with similar problems, which is why there exist projects with the explicit aim to take e.g. “marketing in the boardroom“. Even if we academics are prone to label ourselves in a weird way, it’s time to get rid of our truck driver image. A funny side effect of this image are German academic journals in logistics that love to print your picture plus phone number along with your article – yes, female logisticians are rare even in academia, nonetheless we are in no need of an academic dating service. Maybe, in companies and academia alike, we should start to take logistics to the boardroom.
Gyöngyi
Having just seen the promotional video of the Finnish Logistics Association LOGY, I’m starting to understand where logistics gets its truck driver image from. But judge for yourselves: http://www.logy.fi/video
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