3PL Vendor Selection

• The Challenge

  A listed American luxury fashion brand with logistics operations across Europe was facing a perfect storm: rising labour and energy costs, underinvestment in its supply chain, and an incumbent 3PL contract that was approaching expiry.

  The business needed to decide quickly. It could renegotiate with its existing provider and accept the known limitations, or it could go to market, find a stronger partner, and manage a full transition. Either way, the stakes were significant. The wrong decision risked operational disruption, cost overruns, and damage to a brand built on service quality.

  Exevion was brought in to run a structured, competitive vendor selection process that would give the client confidence in whichever direction it chose. This was phase one of a broader logistics transformation.

• What We Did

  We ran the full vendor selection process end to end, across five workstreams:

  • Issued a detailed RFP to a longlist of 3PL providers, collected responses, and scored them against a structured evaluation framework

  • Developed a five-year NPV financial model to compare the true cost of each vendor's proposal on a like-for-like basis

  • Conducted risk assessments across all shortlisted vendors, identifying key operational and transition risks with mitigation options for each

  • Facilitated site visits to shortlisted vendors, enabling the client team to verify operational capability and test proposed solutions in practice

  • Worked with shortlisted vendors to build detailed transition and readiness plans, so the client could move quickly and confidently if it chose to switch

• The Results

  • Delivered a clear vendor recommendation that the client accepted, selecting a 3PL partner aligned to its commercial, operational, and sustainability objectives

  • Identified up to $10.7M in logistics cost savings over five years through detailed financial modelling

  • Completed the process within a compressed timeline, giving the client sufficient runway ahead of the incumbent contract expiry

  • Built transition plans that reduced delivery risk for the implementation phase that followed

• Summary

  When a luxury fashion brand needed to make a high-stakes logistics decision under time pressure, Exevion brought structure, rigour, and independence to the process.

  We designed and ran the full vendor selection from RFP to recommendation, built the financial models that made the cost case clear, and developed the transition plans that made a potential switch viable. The client walked away with a decision it could defend commercially, operationally, and to its sustainability commitments.

  Exevion brings the same approach to every vendor selection: a structured process that removes subjectivity, surfaces the real cost and risk picture, and gives senior stakeholders the confidence to act.