Analyst Insight: Simply handling storage and order fulfillment more efficiently than their clients could in-house is not enough. In difficult economic times, 3PLs are being called upon-and are uniquely situated-to take on additional tasks such as kitting, light assembly, and custom labeling, that will ease the burden on their clients' operations.

Analyst Insight: Any 3PL that wishes to increase its market share in 2010 must provide higher levels of customer-focused service offerings in this competitive marketplace. Client companies want to have their 3PL contract partners provide better support to their current service offerings.

Analyst Insight: Inventory optimization technology has increasingly become an important tool to aide manufacturers in either managing their overall supply chain inventories more efficiently, or having the capability to support decision-making processes with what-if quantification of the impact of certain business decisions on overall inventory investment.