Challenges And Strategies For Logistics Industry In The UK After Brexit: An Essay.

After triggering article 50, UK started negotiations to leave the European Union (EU). The process has wide implications not only to immigration but also to business operations in the UK, EU and the world at large. The current UK’s demand in this negotiation is to have full access and benefits to the single market without any exception. UK is a great nation with a strong economy and business relations with many countries across the world (Horan 2016).

You have been employed as an operations management consultant by the UK’s chamber of commerce to advise them on the future challenges that the specific industry you chose, and operation managers will face after the Brexit.

Identify and analyse the new operations management roles that will be needed in the UK’s for the Company/Industry you chose to cope with competition after Brexit.

Formulate a plan and outline an operations strategy for the chosen company/industry and the operations manager in the event that the UK did not get a favourable full access to the EU single market.

Tips consider manufacturing/operation process, project management, supply chain management, marketing functions, etc).

Challenges Faced by the Logistics Industry after Brexit

Operations Management is the administration of business practices to develop the highest level of efficiency possible within an organisation. It is the process in which the material and labour converts into goods and services to earn the high revenue. UK leaves the EU and cancels their agreement which is called Brexit (Bromiley, and Rau, 2016). The industries facing the challenges at the time of UK exit from EU. Logistic industry is one of those industries which face the challenges. The report will talk about the different challenges faced by the logistic industry after the Brexit. In this report, DX Group has been taken into consideration to analyse the challenges faced by the company of logistic industry while existing UK market from EU market. 

DX Group is a British mail, courier and logistic company with the operations throughout the United Kingdom. It was established in 1975 while the Royal Mail Postal strikes. It provides the services of Parcel Freight, secure, courier and logistics. The company mainly operates throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland. It main head offices are at Ditton Park, Bristol, Warrington, Willenhall, and Dubin (DX Group, 2018).

Brexit means that the Britain exits from EU. As per the report, it was founded that the majority of the votes state that the UK has to leave the European Union. The agreement between EU and UK is breakdown which is built to expand the business in the World but it separated from the country. The DX group also comes under the logistic industry and face the challenges which are faced by industry (Karlsson, Melin, and Cullinane, 2018). The company face a looming crisis just because of shortage of licences for their drivers which operate on the continents. There are limited seats to enter the EU to operate in the EU market. There are only 103 ad 1224 trips are allowed to exports the material and operates in the EU market (Cumming, and Zahra, 2016). It is a big challenge for the company to export the material in the limited trips and the shortage of material also an issue (Baker, and Knight 2017). The other biggest issue which is face by the company is potential damage which is incurred due to lack of progress in agreeing the new systems. As per the new rules, time is a major factor to operates the business in the market because in a small delay of two or more minutes per truck could result in tailbacks of 29 miles at the borders during the peak hours. The short time causes the issue of potential damage because the supply trucks have to come back from 29 miles. The material contains by the truck will also has a risk of damage (Cumming, and Zahra, 2016).

Operational Strategy

Operational strategy is a method which is used by the companies in order to meet their objective. It is designed to maximise the effectiveness production and support elements to minimising the cost (Mahadevan, 2015). The company can easily evaluate the effective and efficient system for using the resources. The five core operational strategies are corporate strategy, customer-driven strategy, developing core competencies, competitive priorities and product and development services. There are four theories of operation management which helps to operate the business smooth (Helo, Gunasekaran, and Rymaszewska, 2017). The operations management has the theories such as strategic decisions and the others. Strategic decisions refer to those decisions which are widespread and effective for the company. This strategy is developing so that the company can meet their needs of long term goals. The role of operations strategy is to provide a plan for the operations functions so that the sources need to produce the company’s goods and services. Corporate strategy, customer driven strategy and the many other strategies helps to reduce the challenges of the company (Christopher, 2016).

It is necessary to maintain the effectiveness of the operation strategy so that the business will operate smooth. There are four elements which help to operate effectively and these are Top-down, bottom-up perspective, operations resource perspective, and market requirement perspective.

DX Group uses the logistic strategy to manage the business more effectively. The company create the two divisions such as DX freight and DX express so that the company can easily maintain the expenses. The company contributed in the EBITDA of £7.5m in the six months. The main aim of the company is to separate the exchange business from secure and courier (Reuters, 2018). The top down factor of the operation strategy theory is explained the business which the company has to do. The DX Group has to be focuses on the exchange the business from secure and courier. The company move to centralise the trunking network, optimise routing and introduce a level of mechanisation (The Guardian, 2018). The market position of the company is good as compare to the others. It redeems its convertible loan notes by raising the £4m to support its growth initiatives. The new capital has been arising due to which the company can enhance the IT capabilities and developing the networks. It is clear that there is a great foundation to build upon the market leading products, a strong service and the culture supported by a royal and invested team (Kim, Sting, and Loch, 2014).

DX Group's Logistic Strategy

The company can implement the corporate strategy which is the highest strategic plan. It defines the global goal and objectives of achieving within the strategic management. Proper planning and goal helps the company in attaining the objective easily because the company. It is the responsibilities of the company to take the decision by taking care of the environment (Reuters, 2018). The company has to develop the statement of mission and vision statement as per the environment. The company also has to follow the Automatic Freight matching because in this there is end to end supply chain. The freight system has automatically coding system which deliver the services to the customer in an automatically way without any break. It helps to solve the problem of limited trips and time sensitive. The diagram shows the process of automated freight matching.

There are many strength and weakness founded in the management system of the company. It has been seen that the company has to focus on the weaknesses so that it can easily achieve the objective. It is observed that the company built the strong culture among the distributors and dealers because the dealer not just promoting the products of the company but also invests in the training of the sales team to boast the sale of the products. The company has the capability to stand against the competitors by using their strength (Moloney, 2017). The company has the high attrition rate as compare to the other competitors in the industry. The manager of the company believes in investing in training and development of the employees instead of spending on marketing of the products. As per the report of the senior management, it is observed that the manager leaves the organisation and the new person is appointed instead of them due to many reasons which cause the issue of weak bond (Phadermrod, Crowder, and Wills, 2019). The company opening up a new market with the help of new technology standard and government free trade agreement. It is recommended that the manager of the company has to play their four major roles to achieve the objective and these are performance management, change management, design of new products and services and the many other strategies. These functions of manager help the company in expanding the business in the market by reducing the challenges which is faced by the company after Brexit (Lasserre, 2017).

It has been seen that the good function design and management has the higher performance level in the organisation. A good output of product and low level of wastage are the result of good design. The logistic management of the company has different functions and these are given below:

Functions of Logistics Management

(Source: The balance, 2018)

The main function of the logistic is the transportation because the each and every company requires transporting the material from one place to another

The packaging and storage function of the company states the effective logistic management in the organisation. It is also a function of logistic management which helps the company in storing the material for long time.

There are different functions of logistic management in which the customer service is the main function. Customers are the main drivers of the market which helps to grab the high market share in the market. The company has to provide the best customer services with the effective business management.

It is required to store the material in a place where the risk of damaging is less and it would be protective. Warehouses are the places where the company can store the products and material for long time with the high quality.

The company is required to follows these functions to reduce the challenges and provide the best quality of product to the consumers. These functions also help the company in reducing the challenges such as shortage of time, license of drivers and limited trips. It is necessary to analyse the functions perform by the company to develop the logistic strategy (Helo, Gunasekaran, and Rymaszewska, 2017).

It is the main function of the company in which it is operating their business and earns the high revenue.

The partnership with the third party improves the service levels and it improves the performance of the company.

The company divide the functions in two parts such as DX Freight and DX Exchange. The company follow the logistic system by dividing the functions into two parts so that the logistic management work effectively. But still the company faces the issue due to Brexit.

The company has high competition which is increasing day by day due to Brexit. Watertech, Chemtreat are the competitors of the company. The activities perform by the competitors affect the activities of the company.

The information that drives the logistic organisational real time is accurate. The decision of two divisions is accurate which helps the company in managing the business.

The company has to implement the strategy which reduces the issue which is follow by the company such as marketing, more labours and machines so that the company can manage the time and promote the product in the market for high sale (Alwan, Jones, and Holgate, 2017).

Conclusion

Conclusion

From the above analysis, it has been seen that the company faces the issue of time sensitive, shortage of driver license and limited trips. The company has to implement the strategies and theories for the effective logistic supply chain. It is the responsibility of the company to provide the high quality of services to the consumers for which the company has to perform the functions. The company has to implement the operation strategy so that the management can effectively operate. The strength and weaknesses of management state the capabilities of the company to stand against the competitors. As per the analysis, it has been seen that the Logistic system of the company is implemented accurately but it has to improve and implement the strategies so that the challenges will be reduces (Rushton, Croucher, and Baker, 2014).

It has been recommended that the company has to implement the digitized trucking which will be an ecosystem of autonomous vehicle which is directed by a digitized supply chain (Fahimnia, Bell, Hensher, and Sarkis, 2015). These digitized trucking has cables trucks and delivery hubs which is control by the robots. The cost of the trucking logistics is also reduces by 47 percent in the future, through the reduction of labour. This technique helps the company in solving the issue of shortage of license of drivers after the Brexit. The company also use the drones to reduce the issue of delivering the materials in the new market.

Before implementing the strategies into the company it is require evaluating the environment. Measurement tools and software should be integrated that easily determines and classifies the information as per the requirements so that the company can take the best decision for the business (Zhang, 2016).

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