Many logistics, parcel delivery, retail and industrial businesses entrust all or part of their transport to an external provider. This subcontracting meets various needs and can take several forms.
What is transport subcontracting?
Transport subcontracting involves entrusting another company with transport or deliveries that you would have carried out yourself, or that you have sold to your customers. The subcontractor operates according to your instructions: schedules, areas, types of goods, handover procedures.
What are the benefits for a business?
- **Flexibility**: you adapt your transport capacity to your actual activity, without oversizing your fleet. - **Support during peaks**: festive periods, launches, stocktakes, busy month-ends. - **Investment control**: no purchase of an additional vehicle for a temporary need. - **Refocusing on your core business**: your teams concentrate on sales, production or order preparation. - **Service continuity**: a partner can take over if a vehicle or driver is unavailable.
Which services can be subcontracted?
The most common services are distribution rounds, outsourced customer deliveries, e-commerce delivery, transport for hubs and freight forwarders, and occasional operational support. Depending on requirements, collaboration can be occasional or formalised through a recurring contract.
How to make subcontracting collaboration successful?
Subcontracting works well when expectations are clear from the outset. Draw up specifications setting out:
- the type of goods and their constraints; - volumes and frequency; - the areas served; - the vehicle required; - delivery schedules and procedures; - monitoring and communication arrangements.
An initial short trial then allows the arrangement to be validated before expanding it.
Who is this type of partnership for?
Subcontracting concerns logistics, transport and parcel delivery companies, as well as manufacturers, retailers and wholesalers managing their own deliveries. KENKENY S.A. wishes to establish this type of partnership in Luxembourg, for one-off or regular services.