Logistics is essential for the company's competitive strategy and survival. This is an important point that too often gets lost in the shuffle to overlook seemingly small but crucial details. Lee Iacocca brought this to our attention when he went to Chrysler and started confronting people about various issues. Many observers agree that Iacocca highlighted the critical role of the cost accountant within the corporate structure of a publicly traded company. Of course, he had mixed emotions about this. Cost accountants or what many also call management accountants perform a very thankless task: they do internal management audits. One goal of this type of audit is to provide information about the cost of goods sold so that the outside accounting firm responsible for providing public disclosure can have accurate information. Iacocca used the cost accountants to force many different departments and divisions in Chrysler to communicate with one another in order to find ways to lower the cost of goods sold and increase profits. His own vision of logistics played a key role in Chrysler's eventual turnaround.

	Logistics is very well understood by customers. One of the problems that I constantly faced as a divisional export manager was trying to convince foreign distributors that my manufacturer was capable of delivering the goods consistently. Potential customers would cite examples of other distributors in nearby markets who had prior bad experiences with my client and would then ask pointed questions about what changes had been made to solve these problems. When I tried to talk to the manufacturer, they would just ask how come some dumb foreigner was asking such questions. When I spoke with my boss about this issue, he told me that I needed to be more aggressive. Of course, this was the same man who had that infamous slogan about customers painted on his office wall. Both knew and understood the issues surrounding the bad logistics of the client, but neither would confront the issue directly because of concerns about saving face. Both also refused to believe that the foreign distributor was asking these questions on a good faith basis. As my boss said, "He's just trying to lower your price". People who are smart enough to build successful businesses are not normally stupid. It is unwise and foolish to think that one can allay legitimate concerns about capability to deliver by merely taking a more aggressive stance with a customer. Makes me wonder what people are thinking when they say such dumb things.
	Logistics is also well understood by analysts. This is especially problematic for new start-ups in the dot.com world. The paradigm does not shift when you produce services. One still has to gather intellectual capital that might reside in faraway places and then develop a consensus across cultural, racial and national borders. Granted the Internet makes this task easier now, but it does not eliminate it as a risk factor in assessing the viability of a business plan. Neither service providers nor manufacturers are going to receive a free pass.
	Logistics is not well perceived as a career choice. This is not a real problem for large multinational firms who can afford to pay for top talent. However, smaller companies have fewer options. Globalization continues to explode while the U.S. economy is in a tight labor market. This makes it very difficult for smaller companies with fewer resources to pursue top talent with a solid background in global business because there are too many other very competitive offers out there.
	Logistics has been named a suspect in many corporate downsizings within the past 15 years. Upon seeing the pink slip on his desk, one business executive quaintly asked his secretary, "How can they replace me?" Some observers have correctly asked if the U.S. is going to hit a wall and then collapse of its own weight. We are now seeing the effects of corporate re-engineering done in the 1980's and the picture being painted is very bleak. Some would argue, and I am not so certain that I would disagree, that the current wave of mergers and acquisitions is being driven by the brain drain of the junk bond era. Some skilled logistics practitioners are rightly upset about how they are being portrayed in the media.
	Logistics cuts both ways. If one is highly trained in the inner workings of a corporation, then one has the capacity for looting and other negative behavior. Logistics plays on a global stage. For too many multinational firms, the logistics department has become like an armed mine field with traps everywhere you might step. When academics and others finally do have time to really discuss the impact of transfer pricing, it should surprise nobody that they will look within two departments: accounting and logistics. In the end, it is these two groups of people more than any others who know where the corporate skeletons are hanging. Logistics is not only about strategic planning and resource management, but it is also about how companies go about their day and what impact this has on the rest of us. As a business specialty, the explosion of globalism has promulgated the practice of logistics. In the days of mostly domestic companies, shipping departments in most companies were run by an experienced shipping clerk that basically had carte blanche because too few people adequately understood how to get things done. Except for top executives, especially in family-owned companies, nobody wanted to have any direct involvement with this department. Most people wanted their packages shipped on time and wanted items shipped to them delivered to them immediately. Other than that, there was hardly any motivation to have contact with shipping in many instances. In many cases, this fact has not changed for practitioners of logistics. It is a business function that is largely ignored and mostly misunderstood because it is not very sexy. Smaller companies newly entering global business are beginning to recognize the importance of logistics, but many top executives still have a hands-off approach. In this sense, nothing much has changed since the days of Tony's dirty t-shirt.