Investigating the perceptions of Indian employees on logistics network and logistics cost on Indian steel sector

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to explore the perception of Indian logistics managers and employees engaged on the steel sector having knowledge and exposure on the logistics network and logistics cost in Indian steel sector using descriptive analysis. Design/methodology/approach - To address the research questions, a survey-based empirical study was carried out in a representative sample of 226 from different levels like managers, senior managers, presidents and vice presidents and general managers at the operational levels at reputed steel industries having annual turnover of 250,000 dollars. All 226 responses received and analyzed descriptively and the results presented. Findings - The result showed that 83 percent of the respondents perceived the importance of network mapping and the elements of logistics cost with reference to the total overall logistics cost on the context of Indian steel industry. At the same time, poor infrastructure and port inefficiency were the main barriers for increasing the logistics cost as perceived by the respondents. Research limitations/implications - The sample is restricted to the logistics networking and the elements of logistics cost in Indian steel industry only. So caution needs to be exercised in generalizing the results Practical implications - In order to achieve the cost level at other developed and developing nations, the government of India should give focus on infrastructure development, improvising the exiting road condition and sea port development so that bigger size vessels can call to Indian ports for direct delivery of goods without any transshipment. Further, government of Indian needs to promote the multi modal logistics providers for timely evacuation of material as per the demand of industry requirements. Social implications - In India, it is visualized that logistics company have an advantage of cheap availability of labor but on the other side have to manage high cost of logistics. Typically, the total cost on inbound logistics taken into consideration which is around 16-18 percent of the turnover whereas, the world average is around 7-8 percent. Originality/value - To the best knowledge of the authors this study is the first attempt to survey the perception of logistics managers on logistics networking and cost elements on the overall logistics cost incurring on steel manufacturing companies in India.