Choosing a Warehousing and Fufillment Partner SocialChoosing where your inventory lives, and who runs it, is one of the highest-leverage decisions in a supply chain. Get it right and orders ship faster, cheaper, and more accurately. Get it wrong and you’re paying for space in the wrong place, chasing inventory counts that don’t match reality, and managing the seams between a warehouse and the carriers that move its freight.
This guide is for growing companies, often in the $500 million to $5 billion range, that have outgrown their own space or can’t justify fixed leases across every region they serve. Here’s how to evaluate a warehousing and distribution partner, and the eight factors that separate a true partner from a landlord for your pallets.
The short answer:
Evaluate every warehousing and distribution partner against eight factors: network footprint and location, flexible and scalable space, inventory accuracy and warehouse technology, fulfillment accuracy and peak handling, integrated transportation (store and ship under one roof), delivery and installation for complex goods, compliance and security, and the service model (who you actually talk to). For a complex supply chain, the best fit is a partner positioned near your customers, flexible enough to scale with demand, and able to move and install what it stores, not just hold it. (....)