Competitive Environment And The Competitiveness Of China's International Freight Forwarding Enterprises

Since the start of reform and opening, freight forwarding agency services in China have developed quickly along with the fast growth of China's external trade and have reached a certain scale. Following the WTO accession in 2002, the sustained and strong growth of external trade generated a broader market for Chinese companies engaged in freight forwarding agency services. Meanwhile, the full liberalization of China's freight forwarding agency market allowed powerful foreign companies to flood into domestic market and compete directly with local companies. They had been squeezing out market share and took away many local talents, which posed tremendous pressure on Chinese companies. Against this backdrop, domestic freight forwarding agencies need to reposition themselves and fix a new direction by analyzing the complex competition environment and find and build their own core competence.In the new situation, these Chinese companies should clarify and expand their core business and optimize business process in accordance with market changes and new problems after the WTO accession. In particular, attention should be placed on the important role of electronic information management for freight forwarding agency business and the information system must be set up quickly in order to provide better services to customers. There are several ways that Chinese companies engaged in freight forwarding agency services can resort to. First is the expansion of business through horizontal alliances and consolidation; second is resource integration and managerial innovation to transit to the third-party logistics; third is the creation of new profit points through service innovation such as value-added services and tailored services; fourth is to strengthen core advantages and specialized operation; fifth is utilization of modern, new information technology and extension of network; sixth is training and use of talents. Through these six ways, Chinese freight forwarding agency businesses will be able to build and sharpen core competence, target on core advantages so as to survive and develop in the highly competitive market in the future.