Miami Vice Teaches Logistics 101

As you know I am here in Vienna, Austria and it takes a little longer for the Hollywood movies to reach us. This weekend I watched the Miami Vice movie, which is probably on DVD in the US, and while the movie was mildly entertaining, I was more fascinated about how deep they went into the logistics of drug trafficking.

In several scenes they discuss the various modes of transport and the pros and cons of each. In one scene the Chief Security Officer for the drug cartel explains how he outsources the entire logistics process and doesn't expect to buy a service, but simply a result. In the end he gets a baseball sized gunshot wound to the chest as the force throws him up aganist a shipping container, but he was quite innovative in not shipping the drugs internally, thus eliminating the need to own trucks, boats and planes and all the maintenance that follows. This frees up capital so that he can focus his funds towards R&D and manufacturing, which are more critical to his core business.