Logistics has been emerging from Peter Drucker’s shadowy description as ‘the economy’s dark continent’ for some years. From its largely military origins, logistics has accelerated into becoming one of the key business issues of the day, presenting formidable challenges for managers and occupying some of the best minds. Its relatively slow route to this exalted position can be attributed to two causes. First, logistics is a cross-functional subject. In the past, it has, rightly, drawn on contributions from marketing, finance, operations and corporate strategy. Within the organisation, a more appropriate description would be a business process, cutting across functional boundaries yet with a contribution from each. Second, logistics extends beyond the boundaries of the organisation into the supply chain. Here, it engages with the complexities of synchronising the movement of materials and information between many business processes. The systems nature of logistics has proved a particularly difficult lesson to learn, and individual organisations still often think that they can optimise profit conditions for themselves by exploiting their partners in the supply chain. Often they can – in the short term. But winners in one area are matched by losers in another, and the losers are unable to invest or develop the capabilities needed to keep the chain healthy in the long term. The emergence of logistics has, therefore, been dependent on the development of a cross-functional model of the organisation, and on an understanding of the need to integrate business processes across the supply network.

在彼得·德鲁伊的描述中，新兴的物流业在过去的几年里一直被描述为黑暗经济。从其主要的军事起源，物流已经加速成为当今的关键业务问题之一，给管理者带来了巨大的挑战，并占据了一些最优秀的人才。它相对缓慢地走上这一崇高地位的道路可归因于两个原因。首先，物流是一门跨职能的学科。过去，它正确地利用了市场营销、财务、运营和公司战略的贡献。在组织内部，更恰当的描述应该是一个业务流程，它跨越了职能界限，但每个流程都有贡献。第二，物流延伸到供应链之外。在这里，它涉及到在许多业务流程之间同步物料和信息移动的复杂性。物流的系统性已经被证明是一个特别难学的教训，个别组织仍然经常认为，他们可以通过利用供应链中的合作伙伴来优化自身的利润状况。通常他们可以——在短期内。但一个领域的赢家与另一个领域的输家相提并论，而输家无法投资或开发长期保持产业链健康所需的能力。因此，物流的出现依赖于组织跨职能模式的发展，以及对整合整个供应网络业务流程的需求的理解。