"The experience Cougar has gained with Bosch in Singapore and Malaysia for many years makes it familiar with Bosch parts and products. This gives it the advantage of meeting our high requirements for reliable and quality delivery services to our customers in Thailand," said Robert Bosch managing director Paulo Ferreira.

Cougar has served Bosch in Singapore for five years and in Malaysia for eight years before that.

The decision to outsource its warehousing and logistics services to a third-party supplier follows Bosch Thailand's plans to drive growth this year by implementing its "Be Qik" strategy in all business processes. The strategy stands for "quality, innovation and customer focus".

Under the five-year contract, the essential tasks assigned to Cougar include receiving and inspecting all in-coming goods, kitting and pick-packing operations and domestic delivery to customers, with accountability for its performance. Bosch's wide range of goods will be accommodated in customised warehousing and storage.

Ferreira said the arrangement would help Bosch calculate its exact operating costs.

The Board of Investment (BoI) says Bosch, which is involved in automotive and industrial technology, consumer goods and building technology, exported original-equipment manufacturing components worth Bt80.4 billion last year, as well as Bt6.65 billion worth of body parts.

The arrangement comes at a time when logistics costs have been identified as a high operating cost for all companies in Thailand.

Thailand's logistics costs were about 16 per cent of gross domestic product in 2005, and the government wants to reduce that to 13 per cent by 2010.

The BoI recently issued new incentives for international distribution centres and developers of logistics parks. They include an eight-year waiver from corporate income tax for logistics-park providers and exemptions from import duties on machinery.

Watcharapong Thongrung

The Nation