SHARING ECONOMY IN LOGISTICS AND SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT

Background: Challenges in today’s business environment require from logistics and supply chains managers continuous searching for innovative methods in business processes management, oriented to the simultaneous achievement of the Triple Bottom Line effects, namely economic, social and environmental. As a result, the concept of sharing economy is nowadays gaining rising significance among business practices. It has positive impact on building and development of collaborative relations between business partners in value chains as well as between potential market competitors. Sharing economy in logistics and supply chain management determines the requirement to manage companies’ potential and relations between them in a different way.   

Materials and results: The paper is based on a desk research. The authors conducted a review of recent literature, reports of international institutions and consulting firms, conference presentations, materials provided by companies, professional business movies and other Internet sources. As a result of the materials analysis, different best practices in sharing were described and success factors for their development in logistics and supply chain management were indicated.

Conclusions: The development of sharing practices is one of the most important aims of the managers responsible for business processes management in supply chains, especially for logistics processes. The presented sharing practices highlight different implementation possibilities and their significant influence on business activities in various aspects. Despite the variety, sharing practices have common characteristics, which could be indicated as their operational and strategic success factors. They enable the authors to present practical recommendations addressed to logistics and supply chain managers.