Vliv mezinárodních logistických řetězců na konkurenceschopnost podnikatelských subjektů

When companies learned that logistics can be used to achieve strategic goals, it ceased to be perceived only as a source of necessary costs that need to be controlled. In this dissertation the potential benefits of selected sources of long term competitive advantage are questioned. The research in the dissertation focuses on international transport of goods, its employment and organization, and on how logistics capabilities can be employed to increase customer satisfaction and thus the competitive advantage of the entire supply chain. The potential sources of long term competitive advantage are cooperation and information sharing among firms in the international supply chain. The author hypothesised that cooperation and information sharing are positively related to logistics capabilities. Logistics capabilities are hypothesised to be positively related to customer satisfaction. To capture the impact of external environment, the lead time uncertainty and the demand uncertainty have been included in the model. The impact of modern information technologies on supply chain management has not been disregarded and information technologies serve as moderating variable in the model. The proposed model is based on the Transaction costs theory and the Resource-Based View. The qualitative research method of case studies had been selected and used to support the model. The research involves three cases. Interviews with professionals, company sources and secondary data mainly academy journals, supply chain management literature and web pages of selected companies and international institutions provided the foundation for the research. The contribution of this dissertation is in including the impact of the external forces in the model, in focusing on the relationships that a firm has with its supply chain partners, and in an in-depth analysis of relationships among triad of subjects -- buyer, seller and logistics service provider. Also, a new definition of logistics capabilities has been proposed. Examples of real situations of organization of international transportation of goods are presented. Cooperation and information sharing can serve as sources of long term competitive advantage, but their implementation is in many cases limited due to varied reasons. The size of the firm is in some cases one of them, other limitations are named in the text. Suggestions for practitioners are included.