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Make the Move to Inbound
Implementing a transportation management system (TMS) has become a well-used route to cutting the cost and improving the performance of outbound freight, so why do many shippers still shun the...
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Advancing the Truckload Procurement Discussion
Four strategies for moving beyond “price” and finding “value” In my recent blog regarding Truckload Procurement Exercises, we reviewed the seemingly counterintuitive idea that buying too low when it...
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Balancing the Cost Versus Service Equation
It is no revelation that of the many challenges transportation managers face, one of the toughest is how to bring costs down while ensuring that customer service moves in the opposite direction. This...
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Get An Early Start on Carrier Management
Take two companies that trade independently with distinct clients, suppliers and other stakeholders not to mention corporate cultures and bottom lines, and bring them together to operate a complex...
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Cutting Through the Fog of Freight Rate Predictions
Expert opinion is one commodity that is never in short supply. The challenge is sorting through the abundance of views to find the ones that are credible and make sense. This is certainly the case...
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Avoiding the Two Year Carrier Contract Pitfall
In my previous blog (see Cutting through the Fog of Freight Rate Predictions), I described the many factors that influence the movement of full truckload freight rates, and showed how historical data...
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Keeping Freight Budgets on Track
In last week’s Managed TMS blog (Avoiding the Two-Year Contract Pitfall), Kevin McCarthy explained how unpredictable freight rates can make it difficult for shippers to maintain long-term contracts...
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What is a Core Carrier Program?
The term “core carrier” is used widely in the freight industry, but the way it’s used is not consistent. The definition can vary from company to company. It can even be argued that very few companies...
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Bridging the Transportation / Procurement Divide
The operations department wants to maximize the value of its logistics spend by purchasing third-party services that make the distribution network more efficient. Buying these services is difficult,...
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Are You Managing the Right Negotiations?
When bargaining over freight rates, many shippers and carriers are involved in the wrong negotiations without being aware of their mistake. It has nothing to do with where they are physically located...
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Savings By The Bundle
If you have ever wondered whether aggregating low volume lanes is a way to lower full truckload costs then conjecture no longer; research shows that such a strategy can achieve savings of up to 15...
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Have you Discovered Rate Curves Yet?
What is a rate curve? If you do not know the answer to this question or only have a vague notion of what the term means, then you are missing out on a relatively simple, but powerful freight...
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Truckload’s Distinguishing Features
Is procuring truckload transportation any different from the procurement activities of other corporate functions or industries? The answer is yes. Which begs the second question: why does it matter?...
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Savings Tricks You Might Have Missed
In cost-conscious times like these freight professionals often turn to familiar sources of savings such as network design and carrier negotiations to trim the organization’s transportation budget. But...
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Ten Ways to Avert Procurement Myopia
As we have argued a number times in past posts (see Avoiding the Two-Year Carrier Pitfall, by Kevin McCarthy, September 2nd, 2010, for example), taking a strategic approach to truckload procurement...
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When Reading the Market Generates More Heat than Light
Shipper anxiety over freight rates often tracks with the upward movement of industry indexes, and since the Stephens Index recorded 6.5% year-on-year (YOY) and 0.8% sequential increases for the first...
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Leveling the Surcharge Playing Field
Is it possible to create a fuel surcharge program that is consistently fair to shippers and carriers? As we have seen over recent months, the cost of motor vehicle fuel is a national preoccupation....
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Get Your Just Rewards by Teaching Truckload
Are you surprised by how regularly you have to educate people on the dynamics of a truckload market? We often see many shippers spending time educating their internal constituents on the subject. This...
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Single-Minded Procurement Losing Ground in Europe
During tough economic times, long established practices tend to come under scrutiny as companies search for ways to gain a competitive edge. This is one reason why freight managers in Europe are...
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Depth of Tender Can Be a Telling Network Health Check
There are many ways to check the pulse of a transportation network. One of these vital signs is depth of tender, which, with the right analytics, can reveal much about the wellbeing of your network....
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LTL Avenues to More Efficient Networks
As we explained in our previous post (Demystifying LTL ), managing less-than-truckload (LTL) transportation can be less difficult than you might think, especially if you understand how these services...
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An Industry Formula for TMS
It’s important to tailor transportation management systems (TMS) to individual corporate users. But the technology can also be customized to specific industries, particularly in cases such as the...
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Fresh Procurement Insights from Stale Rates Study
Should your freight business be put out to bid regularly or on an ad hoc basis? There are arguments for and against both approaches but not much in the way of hard data – until now. Some new market...
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What is the Shelf Life of a Freight Rate?
Lots of things deteriorate with time, the freshness of food, athletic performance, and human memory, for example. And according to research sponsored by C. H. Robinson and carried out by the...
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Consider the Live Loading Option
No two businesses are exactly the same, so it stands to reason that each business requires a certain mix of transportation services to move their goods. Of course the choices aren’t infinite,...
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Buying Truckload: When Do You Dip Into the Market?
When is the best time to procure truckload (TL) capacity? There is no single answer to this question because buying practices differ from shipper to shipper. However, understanding the timing options...
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Setting Your Procurement Clock
Last week, Chris Brady and Kevin McCarthy reviewed some of the approaches taken by shippers to timing Truckload (“TL”) procurement events. In this post, we take a look at factors that influence these...
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Real-World Collaboration with Academia
It’s tempting to write off university research as too ivory tower, especially in such a pragmatic business as freight management. But in our experience academic studies that are tied to real-world...
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8 Things About Procuring Transportation Your Carriers Won’t Tell You
Service providers react in many different ways to transportation procurement events. Applauding is not often one of them. In general, carriers don’t particularly like procurement events for reasons...
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Transportation Procurement Events: More Than a Necessary Evil
Last week I explained why carriers don’t tend to welcome transportation procurement events with open arms. Now let’s consider the more upbeat side of these exercises. In my experience there are...
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Large or Small, Shippers Can’t Afford to Overlook These Truckload Buying...
Freight network size matters when deciding on the best method for procuring truckload transportation. However, certain procurement principles need to be factored into your buying strategy regardless...
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How Can Cross-Border Shippers Balance Cost and Service? Automate and Collaborate
Striking the right balance between cost and service is an enduring supply chain challenge. But this balancing act has become trickier over recent years as the volume of cross-border movements has...
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Is Your Transportation Budget Destined to Fail?
You start the year with what you thought was a realistic transportation budget. Yet, by year end, it’s all gone wrong. Why do transportation budgets fail? While there can be many contributing factors,...
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6 Best Practices Used by Winning Procurement Teams
6 Best Practices Used by Winning Procurement Teams One of the greatest college basketball coaches of all time was John Wooden. In a 12-year period he coached UCLA men’s basketball team to 10 national...
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In Search of the Rarest of Birds: The Market Freight Rate
In Search of the Rarest of Birds: The Market Freight Rate Logistics departments spend a significant portion of their time negotiating rates for moving their cargo in particular lanes, yet one of the...
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The Glaring Information Gap in RFPs
A request for proposal (RFP) for a transportation management system (TMS) typically includes probing questions about providers’ capabilities and the technical specifications of the systems they offer....
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How to Prepare for Tight Truckload Capacity
In the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey—and as Hurricane Irma moves closer— truckload capacity is tighter than it has been for years, giving some shippers challenges in covering freight. Here are the...
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Why Truckload Lead Times Matter and How to Improve Them
First come, first served is a familiar statement to most of us. Maybe the phrase reminds you of a free tchotchke given out at the local baseball game. Or maybe you’re reminded of events that serve free...
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Key Points for You to Consider in the TMS Procurement Process
There are many reasons a company might be in the market for a transportation management system (TMS). Often at the top of the list is the need for streamlined shipping processes and visibility to all...
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