Article at a glance:

Better logistics in European consumer goods

• Retail consolidation is heightening the pressure on Europe's consumer goods companies.
• However, only one-third of the leading companies surveyed offer their retail customers clear incentives for adopting cost-saving logistics practices.
• Organizational issues—particularly a disconnect between the sales and supply chain organizations of many consumer goods companies—reinforce suboptimal logistics terms.
• Consumer goods producers that overcome these issues can often reduce the proportion of net sales devoted to logistics by one to three percentage points and share the savings with their customers.