Logistics’ Contribution in Global Competition

International logistics must be handled differently from internal logistics due to three major motives: higher costs, environment change and complexity. The issue of costs has dominated, until recently, the managerial thinking in the servicing of international markets. The problems related to changes in the trade and legal environment and the high complexity were considered secondary or even ignored, through the delegation of responsibility to a team of specialists in external transportation and the local management of the foreign market. The attention given to costs had beneficial consequences for the exporters of basic products or the ones with a large volume, in the case of which the price competitivity has a decisive role and negative consequences for companies which have to avoid the client’s evaluation of their offer only or primarily on the basis of its relative cost. We could compare the current step of evolution of international logistics practices with the internal logistics management of ten or twenty years ago, when the transportation and storage costs were in the centre of attention, under the protection of the physical distribution management.