PHYSICAL DISTRIBUTION EFFICIENCY ON CUSTOMER SATISFACTION
Globally physical distribution is of utmost importance, not least because it involves significant amounts of public money even within the context of a national economy; pegnato (2003) estimated the US federal expenditure in physical distribution figure at around $200 billion per annum, while the OECD countries spend more than $trillion dollar in physical infrastructure in order to ensure physical distribution efficiency. Physical distribution efficiency is beneficial to the developing countries and they spend around 15% of their total GDP trying to improve on the system Nicow(2003) .
Physical distribution refers to all the activities that should be done to flow the raw materials and other materials to production place and to make the produced goods available according to the needs of the consumer’s lace and time at reasonable price (Routledge et al, 2006).
Physical distribution forms part of a broader logistics which ranges from marketing, customer service to the delivery of products (Rabinovich et al 2004).
Physical distribution efficiency involves the process of ensuring the goods required for the manufacture of products and the finished goods from manufacturers are made available within the required time (Sakire et al 2006). The success of physical distribution needs collaborations and high level of information sharing between the distributors and customers, decision synchronization and the alignment of incentives, (Sridharan et al, 2004).
In quality perspective customer satisfaction is defined as a result of comparison between what one customer expects about services provided by a service provider and what customer receives as actual services by a service provider, (Carvanna 2003). If services provided by an organization meet customer’s needs, this may lead to high customer satisfaction, (Waker et al 2006). Satisfaction is a post consumption experience which compares perceived quality with expected quality whereas service quality refers to a global evaluation of a firm’s service delivery system (Fornell eta al 2004). Due to globalization aspects, organizations are competing as demand chains for global customers to meet the customer service levels. Manufacturers and distributors form alliances with shipping and other transportation firms to allow quick exchange of information, decision synchronization and incentive alignment so as to consolidate their competitive strength and provide customer satisfaction in the global markets, (Venus, et al. 2009).
Physical distribution efficiency has been one of crown beverages main competitive strength, this has helped the company increase its market share amidst heavily competitive market comprising of century bottling company (Coca-Cola franchise), Fizzy, Riham cola among many other. physical distribution has enabled crown beverages reach out to market in far and distant places like northern Uganda, eastern Uganda, among many other places served by the beverage giant (cbl records 2012).
