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Logistics have the potential to become the next governing element of strategy. Customer needs vary, and companies can tailor their logistics systems to serve them better and more profitably. The goal of logistics strategy is building distinct approaches to distinct groups of customers. The first step is organizing a cross-functional team to proceed through the following steps: segmenting customers according to purchase criteria, establishing different standards of service for different customer segments, tailoring logistics pipelines to support each segment, and creating economies of scale to determine which assets can be shared among various pipelines.

Describes the international oil tanker shipping industry both historically and in 1983. Designed to provide a vehicle for practicing industry analysis in a volatile commodity business, and for formulating strategy in such an environment. Also can be used to examine industry capacity overexpansion and vertical integration policies of oil companies who own some but not all of the ships they use to transport their oil.