By Shane de Beer, Sales and Marketing Director at express courier company TNT

As the festive season gets into full swing it is important that small and medium businesses plan their logistics requirements in good time. Therefore avoiding getting caught up in the bottleneck of last minute deliveries.

The number of companies selling their products online is increasing resulting in an escalation in the volumes of deliveries being made in the run up to Christmas. It is important during this time to ensure deliveries arrive on time, especially with the increasing focus on customer service excellence.

Smaller businesses are faced with the need to optimise their supply chain and logistics activities to provide the same level of service as their corporate competitors.

This is not easy to achieve in a fast changing global environment driven by fluctuating demand, volatile exchange rates, changing trade routes and growing customer expectations of instant gratification.

Forming a close relationship with a logistics partner that is qualified to assist with optimising sourcing and delivery processes is becoming increasingly desirable for smaller businesses.

A company should be able to view its logistics partner as an extension of its business. It is important to ensure such a partner has an extensive national and international reach and expertise, and the physical and technological infrastructure and flexibility to support future business growth and changing market dynamics.

Forming a close relationship with the right global logistics provider will also open up opportunities to be more innovative with sourcing raw materials from multiple sources anywhere in the world.

The growing complexity of supply chains is also driving the trend towards outsourcing all or part of the logistics function to a specialised and trusted third party. One of the drivers of complexity is the increasing demand for customised deliveries to suit specific requirements.

This makes it even more crucial for the logistics provider to have the supporting systems in place to provide a transparent view of the movement of goods across the supply chain, online, from anywhere, on any device.