Conducting a Freight Bid – Should We Do It Ourselves or Seek Outside Help?

7 months ago

As outlined in previous blogs, most companies conduct a freight bid to achieve certain objectives. These may include saving money on shipping costs, upgrading the quality of their carriers, and/or improving service. Success can be measured in terms of a reduction in freight expenses, higher on-time service, greater customer satisfaction, or other metrics. To achieve […]

Shippers Need to Prepare for Rising Freight Rates

7 months ago

Freight expenses often represent 2 to 10 percent of operating expenses. For shippers seeking to maintain stability in their freight spend, they should begin preparing their next freight bid or freight RFP project. An RFP allows shippers to negotiate multi-year agreements with a team of dependable business partners. These agreements can be solidified with annual […]

Freight Rates, Inflation, and the Economy

2 years ago

The White House and the media are touting the tentative agreement reached last night between the major U.S. rails and their unions to avert a strike. The agreement, if ratified by union members, would help avert a work stoppage that would have crippled supply chains and passenger trains and would have restricted the movement of […]

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Shipper Strategies to Navigate through Q4

3 years ago

These are challenging times for shippers. Driver, labor and truck shortages, port congestion, escalating freight and fuel costs, coupled with the lingering effects of Covid are making life difficult for shippers across the world. Here are a few coping strategies 1. Work in Partnership with Procurement to Create Alternate Sourcing Strategies for both Raw Materials […]

Shipper Strategies to Address a Tight Capacity Freight Market this Winter

4 years ago

Truck capacity remains tight during this peak season and this is expected to continue into 2021 as inventories are replenished. We are seeing all-time highs in the number of loads in the spot market. Despite the impact of Covid-19, capacity has been reduced by a decrease in the truck driver workforce that occurred during the […]

What are Some Lessons that Shippers Can Learn from the Past Two Years?

5 years ago

From a Freight Transportation perspective, the past two years have been among the most tumultuous in decades. Throughout 2018, an economic surge, a shortage of qualified drivers, and the implementation of the ELD mandate in the United States, created a shortage of freight capacity, particularly in the truckload sector. Shippers struggled to find trucks to […]

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Will Shippers and Carriers ever be able to Trust Each Other?

6 years ago

It is hard to believe that a decade has gone by since the Great Recession. Those of us in the Freight Transportation Industry at that time remember the sharp drop in business activity and freight volumes. This encouraged many shippers to conduct multiple freight bids during that period to use (abuse) their freight rate […]

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A Checklist for CEOs Seeking to Control Freight Costs in 2019

6 years ago

The subject of rising freight transportation costs has come up on the earnings calls and quarterly reports of almost every publicly traded manufacturer and retailer in 2018. This has been a very challenging year as many transportation expense budgets were shattered by a host of variables including a driver shortage, the ELD mandate and a […]

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An Action Plan to Optimize the Money Spent on Freight Transportation

7 years ago

In my last blog, I identified one of the recurring problems we encounter in working with shippers on a day to day basis, namely a lack of complete and accurate information on their freight transportation activities and expenses. I would argue that “you cannot manage what you cannot measure.” Good quality freight data is […]

Manage your Freight Spend Data to Improve Your Profitability

7 years ago

For the past 15 years, my colleagues and I have been working with shippers throughout North America to help them save money on freight transportation. In 2018, this cost has hit the radar screens of CEOs, as the tightness in freight capacity has placed upward pressure on freight rates. Many shippers have been experiencing rate […]