IMPROVING THE PERFORMANCE OF LOGISTICS SECTOR OF PAKISTAN

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the challenges faced by the logistics sector of Pakistan. According to World Bank’s Logistics Performance Index (LPI) report, the logistics performance of Pakistan declined in 2018 as compared to 2016 for all six key indicators, namely: Infrastructure, customs, quality of logistics services, international shipments, timeliness, and tracking and tracing. To understand the reason behind the decline a qualitative study was conducted. The study adopted a thematic analysis methodology in which twenty-three semi-structured interviews were conducted with informants in the logistics and supply chain sector. These experienced informants helped in gaining in-depth insight into the research problem. The data collected were analyzed using the qualitative data analysis software ATLAS.ti. It was found that the performance logistics sector of Pakistan was lacking in terms of both hard and soft infrastructure and this study focused more on studying the challenges in hard logistics infrastructure that could be embedded in the challenges in soft logistics infrastructure. Moreover, in this study, a framework was developed that represents the challenges existing in hard and soft logistics infrastructure in Pakistan. The major challenges were the inefficiencies of the government, minimal use of ICT services, and an incompetent workforce. The findings from this research had implications for logistics users and logistics service providers present in the logistics sector and could be used by policymakers for undergoing improvements in the logistics industry of Pakistan. The research findings from this study were contextual and need to be applied cautiously. This study contributed to the existing literature in the context of overcoming the challenges in the logistics industry of Pakistan and improving them by considering the strategies adopted by developed and developing countries to tackle similar issues. Furthermore, this research addressed broad but under-explored issues and strengthened the academic debate within this research stream.