Increasing competitiveness through a logistics and transportation cluster: A Literature Review

A logistics cluster is a concentration of enterprises which their core activities are logistics and related services, in a dense and specific geographical area, pursuing to improve competitiveness in operations and services offered by the logistics chains competing as a region. This paper presents a theoretical approach related to the logistics and transportation clusters, the main factors to remain in a successful operation and how to compete as a group to increase regional competitiveness. Based on different research frameworks in a wide spectrum of countries about clusters for competitiveness and specifically logistics clusters development, a literature review is presented in this exploratory study, mainly used to begin the construction of a Logistics Cluster in a particular region in Latin America. This logistics cluster is the 11^th cluster in the region and the first one based on logistics and transportation operations. In brief, the horizontal integration, synergy between members, diversification and the geographical logistics intensive agglomeration becomes the main topics of interest of this paper, looking forward to build competitiveness through a logistics cluster, and gain attractiveness for the region.