Making a choice about outsourcing logistics can be intimidating for companies of every size. Using transportation brokers or contracting warehousing space directly offers some short-term benefits, but these are limited and they lack the added value required to help companies stay competitive in the current market.

If your goals include immediate cost control and long-term growth, then a full-service logistics provider is the best option. Here are three reasons to choose full-service logistics providers:

1. Logistics providers are flexible. Because logistics providers are supply chain management experts, they vary from contract to contract and adapt to the needs of every client. Logistics providers serve each client to suit their specific needs and problem-solve their unique challenges.

2. Logistics providers are competitive. If Logistics providers don’t do their jobs well, they limit their clients’ long-term growth, which in turn limits their own growth and also puts them at risk to lose business to a competitor. Like any service, logistics providers must fight to remain competitive. This is good news for your supply chain.

3. Logistics providers are efficient. Logistics providers need to be economical for their clients and their expertise in supply chain management enables them to do just that. For example, logistics providers have a much more comprehensive knowledge of the best market price and quality of transportation services than their clients, who may only have time to collect two or three pricing quotes. Logistics experts work on behalf of their clients, finding the best possible price for maximum supply chain efficiency.

Because of the expertise of logistics providers, their clients can access efficiency that would normally be beyond their individual capacity and growth potential. Logistics providers, by their own definition of success, must be flexible, competitive, and efficient in order to remain cost-competitive in the current economy.