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Logistics Management pp 19–31Cite as

Digital Forwarders

A Market Oriented Taxonomy

Part of the Lecture Notes in Logistics book series (LNLO)

Abstract

Digital forwarders are a rather new phenomenon in the logistics market. They claim benefits for shippers and freight carriers alike and threaten established players in the market. As a lot of digital forwarders are still situated in a start-up phase, the phenomenon has not yet arrived thoroughly in scientific discussions. Digital forwarders are not necessarily alike each other but try to cover various market segments. To enable a profound analysis of digital forwarders, this paper presents an empirically based taxonomy to serve as a starting point for both theoretical and practical discussions. The taxonomy was created through an iterative process by analyzing major digital forwarders in the market. The taxonomy consists of three major types within the digital forwarding market, being international full service, direct contract trucking and niche digital forwarder.

Keywords

  • Digitization
  • Freight forwarder
  • Taxonomy
  • Platform
  • Logistics
  • Disruptive innovation

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The corresponding legal framework and definitions can be found in §453-466 HGB for the German market and Title 49 U.S.C. §13102 for the US market.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Law and Economics, Chair of Management and Logistics, TU Darmstadt, Hochschulstraße 1, 64289, Darmstadt, Germany

    Ralf Elbert & Michael Gleser

Authors
  1. Ralf Elbert
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  2. Michael Gleser
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ralf Elbert .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Business Administration, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany

    Prof. Dr. Christian Bierwirth

  2. Department of Business Administration, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany

    Dr. Thomas Kirschstein

  3. Department of Business Administration and Economics, University of Applied Sciences Merseburg, Merseburg, Germany

    Prof. Dr. Dirk Sackmann

Appendix

Appendix

See Table 2.

Table 2. Considered digital forwarders
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Elbert, R., Gleser, M. (2019). Digital Forwarders. In: Bierwirth, C., Kirschstein, T., Sackmann, D. (eds) Logistics Management. Lecture Notes in Logistics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29821-0_2

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