Surviving the economic crisis In distribution and warehousing business

Abstract

The financial meltdown that happened in the US had a global impact on economies worldwide, resulting in a global recession in 2008 which was said to be much worse than the Great Depression in the 1930s (Lightman, 2009). Besides the financial situation in the US, there were factors that contributed to the global recession the world was experiencing. After 4 years of economic boom with the world seeing soaring trade volumes and rapid growth, the global recession had brought the trading market to a halt and countries experiencing depreciating growth. With decreasing import and export volumes due to depreciating wealth and falling consumer demand for goods, the global logistics and transportation industries were greatly affected. Singapore was an example of how the global market directly affected its economy as its local logistics industry plays an important role in the country’s GDP and economic growth. Despite the poor market condition for Singapore’s logistics industry, not all warehousing and distribution business were equally affected by the recession. While some had incurred great losses to the verge of collapsing, others had survived and were able to leap into recovery. Through the survey questionnaire distributed to over 200 logistics and warehousing companies, factors and strategies were identified and analyzed to study how some warehousing and DC businesses survive and recover from the recession. The project also focuses on the importance of IT application and other advanced technology to the warehousing and distribution industry as well as its perceived importance from warehousing and logistics companies during the recession.