The Big Fallacy in Transfer Pricing

We Are Still Talking About the Wrong Thing

When you sit down at a table in the logistics sector, the conversation doesn’t take long.
At some point, the topic inevitably turns to price.
In fact, most of the time, it’s the only thing discussed.

Freight rates have dropped.
The market is in bad shape.
You can’t do business at these numbers.

But this is not the real problem.
The real problem is that for years, we’ve been talking from the wrong angle.

Because logistics is not a transportation business.
Logistics is a risk management business.

A Clear Reality I Learned in the Field

Over the years, across different companies, different files, and different crisis moments, I’ve seen the same picture again and again.

When a customer asks you for a price, they are not actually asking for the price.

In one meeting, a customer looked at the price list and asked this:
“What happens if this number changes?”

We both knew that wasn’t the real question.
What they were really asking was this:
“If this goes wrong, will you still be here?”

In logistics, you don’t buy kilometers.
In logistics, you buy service.

But we are still trying to explain this with price lists.

Transportation Is Visible, Value Is Not

Transportation is the part everyone sees.
The vehicle, the road, the distance, the time.

Value, on the other hand, is mostly invisible:

• When there is no delay,
• When production does not stop,
• When an alternative plan is activated,

No one says thank you because nothing went wrong.

Yet logistics creates value precisely through these problems that never happen.

This is where the big misconception begins:
We cannot price what is invisible.

How Is This Handled in the World?

Today, logistics companies in Germany do not sell transportation.
They sell service levels.

On the same route, there are three different agreements:

• Standard delivery
• Time-guaranteed delivery
• Premium service including crisis management and flexibility

The road is the same.
The vehicle is the same.
But the responsibility is not.

That’s why the price is not the same.

In the Netherlands, contracts are not built on a “we carried it, we’re done” mentality.
Risk scenarios are discussed.
The possibility of disruption is put on the table.
Alternative route planning becomes part of the price.

In the United States, the matter is even clearer:
What is sold is not transportation, but solutions.

In these countries, price discussions are short.
Because the value has already been defined.

Why Are We Struggling?

Turkey is not weak in logistics.
It has strong field operations, fast reflexes, and a structure that produces solutions in times of crisis.

But we have one shortcoming:
We don’t like to explain value.

For three main reasons.

First, habit.
For years, the question was “Who is the cheapest?”
That reflex does not change easily.

Second, the inability to measure.
The impact of a one-day delay on production,
the gain from resolving a crisis,
are often not translated into numbers.

You cannot defend what you cannot measure.

Third, language.
We say, “We can do it too.”
But the customer wants to hear this:
Why and how do you do it better?

In Turkey, the problem is not cost.
The problem is that value is not put on the table.

How Would This Model Work in Turkey?

Not by copying.
By adapting.

The solution is not complex, but it requires discipline:

• Breaking transportation into services,
• Defining clear responsibility for each service,
• Talking openly about risk,
• And giving each of these a name.

Standard transportation is one thing.
Time guarantee is another.
Crisis management is something entirely different.

When you put all of them at the same price,
you actually sell none of them.

A Short Note From a Crisis Moment

In one shipment, an alternative route was activated.
The transport was expensive, yes.
But production did not stop.

Afterwards, no one talked about the freight rate.
Only one sentence remained on the table:
“Good thing you were there.”

Sometimes logistics is not won on the road,
but at the table.

Logistics Is a Matter of Trust

In logistics, the meaning of this is clear:
Not saving the job once,
but staying on your feet every single time.

And in no country is this cheap.

Transportation gets cheaper.
It always does.

But service does not get cheaper.
Because service requires knowledge, experience, and responsibility.

The Turkish logistics sector has the strength to make this transformation.

The real question is this:
Will we defend the price,
or will we build the value?

Because the real load
is not on the trailer of the truck;
it is on the shoulders of vision.