Logistics Enterprises Dynamic Alliance Formation

With the trend of economy globalization and the fast development of information technology, market competition is getting severer and severer. Therefore it becomes impossible for an enterprise to grasp fast-changing market opportunities only by integrating its interior resources. What an enterprise must do is to extend its scope of resources from inside to outside, and optimize both the interior and the' exterior resources on the basis of its core ability in order to acquire its collective competitive advantage.Facing the new competitive situation in logistics service sector after China's entry into the WTO, vast number of China's third party logistic enterprises must form alliances of certain types to compete in the market. This is their best choice if they want to effectively grasp opportunities in the logistic market under new situations. The virtual enterprise mode becomes the irreversible trend in the logistic alliance's development because of its prominent advantages in every aspect.This dissertation mainly researches the establishment of the third party logistics virtual enterprise. It includes the following chapters:Chapter 1 introduces the background and value of the research, the current research situation both at home and abroad, and the structure of this dissertation.Chapter 2 analyzes the connotation system of virtual enterprise. It mainly includes the concept of the virtual enterprise, reasons of its formation, its attributes and its forms. The author also raises several problems that should be paid attention to when a virtual enterprise is to be established.Chapter 3 analyzes the trend of logistics virtual enterprise. First the author analyzes the development of China's third party logistics. Then it makes a theoretical analysis about the formation of strategic alliance of logistic enterprises. Third it explores the trend of logistics alliance, that is, the virtual enterprise. And finally it analyzes the realistic nature of logistics virtual enterprise.Chapter 4 analyzes the process of establishing a logistics virtual enterprise. Starting with the life cycle of the logistics virtual enterprise, the author probes in detail the foundation of setting up a logistics virtual enterprise — the alliance leader and the logistic information network. Then the authorbriefly explains how to identify the opportunities in logistic market and, finally, analyzes concretely the design of logistics virtual enterprise.Chapter 5 analyzes the choice of partners in logistics virtual enterprise, which is the center task of the establishment of a logistics virtual enterprise. In this chapter, the author analyzes the preliminary partner selection, on the basis of which he proposes that a theoretical index system and a practical index system should be taken as the superior partner selection. Then, by establishing a multi-purpose optimization model, the author draws the best pair of partners. Finally an example is designed to illustrate the feasibility of this approach to partner selection.Chapter 6, a general conclusion of the dissertation reaches is given, along with the direction of further researches in this topic.