Identifying factors the Swedish forest industry considers important when selecting transportation mode

Abstract

The world trade is becoming increasingly important and an enabling factor is transportation. The transportation industry is very competitive. For that reason, it is important to understand the shippers need to stay competitive. This master thesis has been conducted for Seago Line as part of the program Supply Chain Management at Chalmers University of Technology. Seago Line is dedicated to intra-European trade and specialized in container shipping. Seago Line sees an opportunity to challenge other transportation modes and to increase their overall market share by converting transportations to container shipping. In order to accomplish this, Seago Line need to better understand what factors the shippers consider when selecting transportation mode, which is the purpose of this study. The main target for this study is Swedish exporters of forestry products such as paper, paper pulp and sawn timber, because it is where Seago Line sees great potential. The first step of the study was to increase our knowledge and understanding of the shipping industry as well as the Swedish forest industry. Thereafter, a literature study was made to examine what factors research state as important for selecting transportation mode. Further, empirical data collection was conducted by having interviews with six companies within the Swedish forest industry. When all relevant data was collected, both theory and empirical data were analyzed. Later, three frameworks were developed in order to increase Seago Line's understanding of what the shippers consider important when choosing transportation mode. The frameworks consist of different components such as important factors, factors with future impact and influencers. The influencers are not factors by themselves but could influence factors included in the framework. The study has shown that several factors have an impact on the choice of transportation mode. There is seldom one ruling factor, instead there are many factors affecting the choice of transportation mode and those factors need to be weighed against each other. From our findings, the most important factors for all product categories are transportation cost, capacity and reliability.