Abstract:

The acceleration of the global economy is creating some pressure on logistic sector. Nowadays the service and manufacturing sectors are in a state of flux. At the same time, the logistics industry is also evolving. Countries that do not keep up with this change are likely to experience difficulties related to economic processes. Logistics is a complex process that is difficult to measure. By publishing the Logistics Performance Index (LPI) data, the World Bank is making an important contribution to a country's logistics processes. The LPI claims to be a guide for many countries and companies. The study is based on data from 120 countries that have full access to the World Bank's LPI data. The data covers the years 2007, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2018. Countries were clustered by year, and the countries that were most similar in those years were grouped together in the same groups. In this way, the countries that were most similar in 6 different years were identified. The K-means algorithm was used for the analysis. K-means is one of the most used traditional algorithms. This algorithm first provides the practitioner with the permission ability to determine the number of clusters (k). The clusters consist of the most similar components and the least similar cluster centers. In this study because of the 8-element clustering procedure, 120 countries were classified into different clusters. Türkiye is clustered together with Bahrain, South Africa, Qatar, Hungary, Malaysia, Portugal, Slovenia, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Czech Republic, and Chile. For Türkiye to move up to the seventh group of better performing countries, it must try in the context of LPI indicators. This study not only shows Türkiye's position but is also important to show the similarities between countries in the context of LPI.

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