Clusters don’t exist only around the world but also in almost all industries, such as in the IT, healthcare and automotive sector. Especially Automotive-Clusters are a worldwide phenomenon. According to an initial analysis in Germany 29 Automotive-Clusters with an average of 70 to 80 member companies exist. In a demand-driven logistics consideration, the question, how Clusters can be purposefully accessed and handled as new markets (business development) for logistics services, becomes relevant for logistics service providers. The aim of the project is the identification of market potentials and strategies for handling Automotive-Clusters (including accumulations of companies in the automotive sector which don’t call themselves Clusters) from the perspective of logistics service providers. In this context, a proactive disentanglement of logistics services for the customers initiated by the logistics service provider is in the foreground.

In the course of the initiation and preparation of potential services, the focus of the process shouldn’t be any longer on the selection of the logistics service provider. The attention should rather be the identification of potential synergies and the common development of solutions for a cooperative logistics system within the context of a common Service Engineering.

With the project, the potentials of suitable Automotive-Clusters as costumers are shown from the logistics service provider’s point of view. The identification of these Clusters leads to the possibility of taking them into consideration of strategic decisions regarding the business development (access to new markets).