Transportation / Logistics
The globalization of the economy, a robust export sector, rapid growth in online and mail order commerce, and changes in customer expectations have ensured high growth rates for the German shipping and logistics sector in the past. But today this development is often countered by rising cost pressures, persistent competition and increasing regulation. Local markets have coalesced into platforms involving competitors who operate worldwide. This competitive situation, together with skyrocketing energy and shipping costs and high customer expectations for service, puts special pressure on prices and performance.
Speed and reliability, tracking information and RFID (radio frequency identification), as well as specialized service in accepting merchandise and handling returns, are the performance features by which shipping and logistics companies’ quality is judged today. Not just the shipping activity itself, but organizing diverse logistical service processes is now part of a logistics company’s core business. Expectations from software and the IT infrastructure are high.
In addition, economic development in the transportation and logistics sector is increasingly being influenced by a constantly changing legal environment, most significantly because of European regulations. The need to invest in infrastructure and new (environmentally friendly) technologies will grow in the coming years.
The logistics industry’s established skills and technologies offer many companies a chance to leverage additional earning potential, through a focused investment in their own business model. Many companies still have substantial potential for savings, especially in logistics, or more accurately, in the supply chain. So logistics is a considerable “earnings lever,” besides being a competitive factor.
To meet the specialized needs of the transportation and logistics sector, at Ebner Stolz we have multidisciplinary teams of experienced accountants, auditors, tax advisors, corporate consultants, IT experts and attorneys, who have not only the necessary legal tools but specialized knowledge in transportation law. Shipping and logistics companies who operate abroad can also profit from our international network.
Our services at a glance
- Single-entity and consolidated annual financial statements (German Commercial Code, IFRS)
- IT consulting
- Risk management
- Specialized tax advice, especially value added tax matters when exchanging services with clients abroad, involvement of subcontractors
- Shipping and storage law
- Outsourcing
- Drafting contracts
- Logistics agreements
- Software license agreements
- Subcontracts
- General terms and conditions
- Customs and foreign-trade law
- Shipping insurance law
- Review of complaint claims
- Development and optimization of logistics concepts
- Procurement logistics (inbound)
- Warehouse management
- (Multi-stage) distribution logistics
- Logistics outsourcing / backsourcing
- Supply chain management
- Sourcing strategies and concepts
- Optimization and development of a supplier portfolio
- Optimization and development of systematic control tools