Analytics Help Insulate Against Volatility Five Ways

The COVID-19 pandemic is officially over, but long COVID remains very real in freight markets.

Supply and demand are still out of alignment, with the ongoing retail overhang of excess inventory and discounting since interest rates and inflation began rising and demand stalled in early 2022. 

In the North American freight market, shippers are playing it cautious in both their procurement and their transportation planning. How should they allocate their freight between the spot market and contracts? Or among individual carriers, brokers and 3PLs, or even their own dedicated capacity? In a highly fragmented trucking market with low barriers to entry, how can they ensure reliable service well-suited to their needs over time? How can they build resilience into their bid RFPs without better forecasting confidence?

They need better visibility end-to-end, the kind that enables them to benchmark their networks against both past performance and the market as a whole. What are similarly situated shippers paying? How do lanes compare in terms of available capacity, pricing and service levels? In which segments should I just hand off the cargo to a 3PL or 4PL? 

With that level of data-driven visibility and insight shippers could construct more accurate RFPs customized to their unique needs in less time; assess relative lane and carrier performance to optimize their networks; develop different, more collaborative relationships with brokers and carriers; and develop strategies to improve OTIF and drive down costs. 

Supply chains routinely generate that sort of data but aren’t always able to capture, aggregate and interpret it in those ways. Now shippers are seeing interesting opportunities in the latest iteration of an old school solution that uses optimization technology to match freight and capacity in smart new ways.

This is definitely not your grandpa’s dial-up load board.