I noticed something strange when I started working with enterprise clients in Mexico.

Amazon, Walmart, Mercado Libre. Companies with billions in logistics infrastructure. None of them owned their delivery fleets.

In the US, Walmart operates 7,400 tractors in its private fleet. In Mexico, they outsource everything to local operators.

This wasn’t a strategic choice. It was an economic reality.

The Capital Trap

Building an owned fleet in Mexico means importing vehicles that face 20% import tax plus 11% VAT. A Class 8 tractor that costs $175,000 in the US could hit $250,000 after tariffs and duties.

Then you need somewhere to park and maintain them. Land is scarce in developing markets. Infrastructure for a centralized fleet operation requires capital that even US-origin enterprises don’t want to deploy in a foreign country.

The time investment is worse than the money. Building operations around owned vehicles means hiring drivers, managing retention, providing benefits, handling maintenance schedules.

Third-party operators absorb all of that. Small fleets don’t need massive infrastructure. They maintain vehicles locally, hire regionally, operate on economics that make sense at their scale.

Across LATAM, 67% of contract logistics is outsourced. The distributed model isn’t a preference. It’s the only model that works.

The Quality Collapse

Enterprise clients initially gained speed and flexibility by outsourcing. They could scale up or down without capital expenditure. They could tap into local knowledge and existing networks.

But they gave up quality control.

Now they’re losing speed too. Too many third-party providers creates a coordination nightmare. Enterprise clients juggle dozens of fleet operators, each with different systems, different reliability standards, different accountability structures.

Visibility disappears. When a delivery fails, nobody owns the problem. The original promise of third-party logistics has deteriorated into fragmented chaos.

The Marketplace Solution

At PartRunner, we saw the gap between what enterprises need and what the fragmented market delivers.

We built a centralized marketplace that connects enterprise clients to 5,000 fleet operators across 50 cities. But we don’t just position drivers and vehicles. We take responsibility for the end-to-end service.

When a driver doesn’t show up, we send a replacement. When a client needs a different vehicle at the last minute, we coordinate it. When there’s an issue at dropoff, we work with the client to maintain quality standards.

We’re partners, not just another outsourced provider.

The technology layer makes this possible. We coordinate thousands of independent operators through a single platform, giving enterprises the reliability of an owned fleet without the capital investment.

The LATAM Opportunity

This model works because the same economic barriers exist across Latin America. Vehicle import costs, infrastructure scarcity, labor market dynamics. The fragmented third-party landscape is consistent from Mexico to Argentina.

US companies expanding south need to stop trying to replicate their capital-intensive model. The asset-light approach isn’t a compromise. It’s an advantage.

Lower upfront investment. Greater flexibility. Access to local expertise and existing networks.

The key is centralization. Not through ownership, but through coordination. Technology that turns fragmentation into orchestrated reliability.

Enterprise logistics in LATAM requires rethinking control. You don’t need to own assets to deliver consistent outcomes. You need a partner who takes responsibility for the entire service and has the network to back it up.

That’s the model that scales across the region. That’s what enterprise clients actually need.