GLOBAL LOGISTICS , COMPETITIVENESS AND THE NEW INCOTERMS

If in the first stages of the internalization of business, logistics had a minor influence in the international success of the company. In a globalized economy, strategy and the logistics costs are essential factors for competitiveness. Nowadays, logistics determines the place which a country or a company holds in the worldwide competitive hierarchy. The new Incoterms - 2010 - establish - in the field of commercial practices this reality: performance is now assessed in global terms (not national), competition is global, not international. Ultimately, the new Incoterms encourage/stimulate the orientation of firms towards increasing competitiveness by employing an appropriate logistics strategy; the degree to which firms will manage - as quickly as possible - to be integrated in this new trend will also be the measure of their competitive capacity in the newly emerged context. The category of global firms should not include just the large transnational corporations, but also the medium and small enterprises that operate exclusively or mainly on the global market. Within this plan there can be created and developed competitive advantages which are primarily based on the reaction speed to the changes in progress, the capacity to adapt to new things and the availability for intercultural communication. These last conditions represent characteristics of the Romanian business approach.