Logistics Management: a comparison of strategic logistics practises in e-commerce giants

This thesis consists in a comparison of two e-commerce businesses: Amazon and Alibaba. The analysis sets side by side the logistics models adopted by the two companies, considering that this aspect is vital for e-commerce businesses. The objective is to frame and to appoint how these companies reached such results and how they are moving forward. The points of difference between the two models are, firstly, the logistics management. It has emerged that on one hand, Amazon adopts its own multi-tier system, composed by three tiers: the first tier is the Amazon Distribution Centre (DC), the second tier are wholesalers and partner DCs and the third tier includes the publishers, manufacturers, vendors and third-party sellers. On the other hand, Alibaba's strategy is to delegate parts of the business: the company called Cainiao is Alibaba's proprietary logistic platform. Cainiao is not an ¿in-house logistics arm¿, it behaves like a fourth party logistics provider; it uses a data integration platform that links every third-party logistics companies together, without investing in any physical infrastructure. Secondly, Amazon aims to become more independent from courier's companies, in order to achieve the best performance and gain full control over the last mile delivery. Whereas Alibaba, by delegating the whole logistics management, trusts the outsourced company and it guarantees its control by owning a large share of the partnered companies. The point in common between the two is to adapt an approach called ¿smart business¿, in which both businesses invest greatly in technology development, from clouds to drones, in order to make the company as dynamic as possible and to win over the competitors. In conclusion the two giants are facing each other for conquering new markets (Australia, Singapore and India) in order to diversify revenue across different geographies. Until now Amazon and Alibaba have avoided direct competition: Amazon is settled in North America, Europe and Middle East, while Alibaba controls China, Israel and parts of Asia.