Over the past decades the world economy has reached an unprecedented level of global integration. As markets are being liberalised and trade barriers continuously being removed, companies are in an ongoing process of internationalisation. For the internationalisation of business activities, Global Logistics Systems play a significant role. The motivation of this survey is to review companies internationalisation procedures from a logistics perspective. What are the challenges of setting up international logistics networks? What are the problems logistics managers must face when entering specific markets? How do managers cope with these challenges to ensure that internationalisation projects will be successful? The research has been undertaken in China and Germany, surveying each countrys companies when going global.

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Frank Straube is the Director of the Logistics Department of the Institute of Technology and Management at the TUB since October 2004. He is Vice-President of the German logistics association Bundesvereinigung Logistik BVL e.V. and member of the Board of the European Logistics Association (ELA).Before his call to TUB, Frank Straube was Director and Chairman of the Board of the Kuehne Institute for Logistics at the University of St. Gallen and Director of Studies of the Executive MBA course. He published extensively on the subject of logistics and is a renowned presenter on national and international conferences. 

Professor Ma Shihua is a professor and the vice dean in School of Manangment, Huazhong Univeristy of Science and Technology (HUST), P.R. China. He is also the head of Institute of Supply Chain& Logistics Management, HUST. He has long been engaged in research and industrial practice in supply chain and logistics management, as well as production and operations management. He is member of Instructive Committee of Higher Education of Management Science and Engineering, Ministry of Education of China. Also, He is senior Committee member of China Logistics Society. He offers several courses including supply chain management, operations management and logistics management for EMBA, MBA, graduate and undergraduate students. He has consulting experience with numerous companies in China. Prof. Ma has established long time cooperation with many firms, including Haier, etc.

Dipl.-Ing. oec. Michael Bohn studied Industrial Engineering and Management in Hamburg and Singapore. Since 2005 he his working as a Research Associate at the Competence Center for International Logistics Networks of the Berlin University of Technology (TU Berlin) where he his conducting research in the field of global logistics and is managing international research projects.