How Strategic Partners Can Deliver Value in a Changing Environment
As e-commerce expands, retailers face rising pressure to provide a seamless omnichannel experience. Lack of infrastructure, technology, or skilled labour makes order fulfillment difficult, and building warehousing, tech, and staff is costly. A strategic third-party logistics (3PL) provider offers significant value.
Radial Europe fulfillment site Halle, Germany
A strong 3PL partner offers robust infrastructure, deep fulfillment expertise, cutting-edge technology, and scalable staffing. Leveraging vast network data, it helps clients refine and optimize fulfillment operations.
Not all 3PL providers offer the same value. Some meet basic deliverables but fall behind in brand experience innovation. Before exploring key attributes of a modern 3PL partner, let’s examine strategic partnerships more broadly.
What is a strategic partner?
Retailers have multiple vendors and suppliers. These relationships are based on contracts and are transactional in nature. The vendor provides the goods and services as agreed to in the contract and no more. Once the contract ends, the vendor relationship ends, too. Communication is usually limited to deliverables and contract details.
A strategic partner goes beyond a vendor relationship, focusing on mutual growth and success. Communication covers contract terms, deliverables, and business optimization. They collaborate with retailers to innovate and enhance customer experience through tailored strategies that strengthen brand delivery.
When assessing 3PLs, look beyond marketing to how their team engages with yours. A strategic partner asks about your growth, challenges, expansion goals, and brand vision, believing in your potential. Non-strategic providers focus on their services and meeting agreements, leaving strategy to you.
That said, even among strategic 3PLs, you want to be sure you’re engaging with a company that is truly future-focused.
Radial Europe, Packing Station, Warsaw Fulfillment Site, Poland
3 ways a modern 3PL partner delivers strategic value
A modern 3PL will have more value to offer in solutions than a retailer may be able to leverage in any given moment. It will have a solid track performance track record and the stats to prove it. But, as we’ve noted, a track record of efficient order fulfillment operations is no longer enough to keep retailers’ competitive.
Today’s retailers need a 3PL partner that meets or exceeds their own investment in shaping the future.
Here are 3 critical attributes to look for in a strategic 3PL partner:
- Provides a consistent omnichannel experience. Every 3PL promises omnichannel fulfillment, but delivering it seamlessly across the post-purchase journey is complex. A strategic partner understands your brand experience by channel and designs consistent strategies across fulfillment, last-mile delivery, reverse logistics, and customer care to ensure true omnichannel cohesion.
Radial Europe automation, Groningen fulfillment site, Netherlands
- Demonstrates a commitment to innovation and technology. Many 3PLs rely on outdated tech stacks that are expensive to upgrade. Leading 3PLs embrace automation, robotics, and system integration, offering cloud-based solutions like order management and real-time inventory tracking. A modern 3PL prioritizes innovation, driving new solutions and shaping the industry’s future.
- Scales with varying market demands. Few retailers have the capacity to scale order fulfillment and staffing during highs and lows. Strategic 3PLs will scale automatically to give retailers the assurance that no matter the seasonal surge or slow time, their fulfillment needs will be covered. 3PLs should have the infrastructure capacity, sourcing, staffing, and flexibility to adjust to each client’s unique needs at any time of the year.
3PLs deliver on all three of these attributes by embracing artificial intelligence, machine learning, and automation. Automation needs appropriate human oversight and recognition of when the human touch is necessary, and when used well it gives retailers a strong competitive edge.
Benefits of a strategic 3PL partner
3PLs serve as an extension of a retailer’s distribution operations and handle complete fulfillment operations. They also provide services such as transportation management, omnichannel solutions, store fulfillment support, inventory management, and business intelligence. A strategic partner will offer guidance and collaborate with retailers to create the right solutions now and a strong plan for the future.
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