ASSESSMENT ON LOGISTICS INTERCONNECTIVITY WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO ETHIOPIAN FAST MOVING CONSUMER GOODS (FMCG) IN ETHIOPIAN TRADING ENTERPRISE (ALLE!)

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to assess the logistics interconnectivity with special reference to Ethiopian fast moving consumer goods sector particularly in Ethiopian trading enterprise (ALLE!).On any type of business that markets goods, strong policy and regulations laid by governments supported by the integration of activities inside the company as well as with its external stakeholders will help it to achieve cost effectiveness, timely delivery and reliability. Ethiopian government pledged a significant effort & resource on various projects funded by Ethiopian government as well as its international allies including The World Bank, International Monetary Fund and other agencies to identify & fill the gap in this area in order to help the country in its quest to become a middle income country. The study assessed the level of logistics interconnectivity by incorporating both primary and secondary data. Moreover, this study used both qualitative and quantitative data collection research methods in order to collect relevant data. Quantitative data was collected through questionnaire from 27 respondents which are selected expert of employees from organizations involved in conducting the assessment which are ERCA, ALLE, ESLSE, CBE, NBE, AIC, Phoenix, FHMACA, MOT and International suppliers, and Qualitative data was collected through an open ended questions. The research participants were selected through a non-probability sampling technique more specifically snowball sampling. The study used descriptive statistics for analyzing the collected data from respondents. The responses which were obtained from the questionnaire were analyzed through the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) 21. Furthermore, it was interpreted in terms of percentage, descriptive statistics, figures, tables. Among the many major findings of the study, unavailability of single window, timely notification is not sent to importers, less level of coordination and high reliance in hard copy documents were few of them which shows that overall level logistics interconnectivity observed among the trade facilitator stakeholders is still expected to go a long way to support the international trade activity. Based on the findings, it’s been recommended that the trade facilitator stakeholders should give more emphasis on electronic single window systems and related ICT infrastructures, provide customer centric service, creating more awareness among themselves and customer education, work on their information sharing trend, use real-time systems to give updates to importers and other stakeholders and many more.