Key Influence Factors For Ocean Freight Forwarders Selecting Container Shipping Lines Using The Revised Dematel Approach

Abstract

More than 80% of container traffic in the global container shipping market in recent years is derived from ocean freight forwarders (OFFs). It raises concern about the OFFs' role in coordinating the services between container shipping lines (CSLs) and shippers. Most previous studies did not distinguish the identity of shippers among OFFs, direct shippers, and routing order exporters. There have been some studies examining the factors for OFFs selecting CSLs by the method of decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory analysis (DEMATEL), but the initial direct relationship matrix may not have convergence to zero in the original version of DEMATEL. Moreover, none of the previous studies applied the Revised DEMATEL analysis to evaluate the key influence factors for OFFs selecting CSLs. This paper implemented a questionnaire survey of 30 experts from 15 major Taiwanese OFFs. The survey considered marketing 4C frameworks of customer needs, customer costs, customer communication, and customer convenience. The influence factors of maritime service for CSLs were constructed; the Modified Delphi Method (MDM) and the Revised DEMATEL were used to define the suitability of key factors and to compare the different relations among factors for OFFs in selecting CSLs to provide shipping services. In particular, the result of research on the key factors of the selection of CSLs by OFFs confirms that the Revised DEMATEL could improve the shortcomings of DEMATEL. In conclusion, 12 key factors are proposed, and 'integrated logistics' and 'timely delivery' are the main influencing and consequence factors respectively.