Next year it will be 20 years since Chad and I founded Reveel. When I reflect on the past two decades and consider the current shipping landscape, one thing stands out: Even for an industry as dynamic as logistics, these are truly transformative times.

Change of course is nothing new. One can even make a strong argument that it is the one constant in our industry. But it is difficult to remember, with the exception of the pandemic, a time when the logistics function was shaped by more significant shifts at the same time. Nor has logistics ever been more important.

That came through loud in clear in our recent double-blind survey of 150 supply chain and logistics leaders. The respondents represent a diverse cross section of logistics leaders, with 37% allocating between $2 million and $10 million for parcel shipping, 42% setting aside between $10 million and $50 million, and more than a fifth – 21% – budgeting to spend more than $50 million this year.

Whether they are to fulfill consumers’ online orders or provide B2B customers with crucially needed supplies, those are big outlays for even the largest of companies, something another finding put in clear focus. Respondents noted that logistics commands a significant share of operational costs –  22% on average.

With such a significant impact on costs, and therefore profitability, logistics acumen and performance is clearly mission-critical, which is why the changes we are seeing today are so noteworthy. Some of these are of course geopolitical, with the tariff war being but the most recent example.

But many of the most impactful changes logistics professionals are grappling with come from the carriers themselves. More than ever before we are seeing carriers overtly move towards dynamic pricing strategies as they openly try to optimize their networks by dictating what kinds of parcels they want to handle, preferences that are made clear by shipping costs.

Where this gets particularly problematic for logistics leaders is that the levers carriers are using to do this – new surcharges and fees on everything from zones to package dimensions – are increasingly frequent and implemented with little and sometimes no warning. This is a significant departure from the status quo, and one that puts shippers and logistics teams that lack real-time visibility over their shipping activity and the ability to proactively react at a dangerous disadvantage.

More to the point, it demands that logistics teams have options – something that also came through loud and clear in our survey: A jaw-dropping 91% of respondents plan to expand their carrier network in the next year. 

Given the changes we are seeing, this move to a multi-carrier network makes sense for most businesses. But it also makes it even more important that shippers and logistics teams proactively manage parcel spend. And it includes risks, such as inadvertently falling out of a minimum-volume tier for discounts, that can have costly ramifications. 

Fortunately, our Parcel Spend Management (PSM) 2.0 technology puts the capabilities logistics teams need to proactively stay on top of such challenges at their fingertips. With it, shippers know exactly what is happening in their shipping operation at any given moment – whether it’s how a suddenly introduced surcharge will impact their costs, how carrier contracts compare with one another, which parcels are best shipped by which carrier, and numerous others forms of shipping intelligence high-performance logistics teams need for data-based decision making. 

Perhaps most importantly, with powerful analytics and modeling capabilities PSM 2.0 not only enables logistics teams to know what’s happening, but to effectively act on that knowledge. In times of significant change, few things are more important.  
To learn more about the parcel shipping landscape, what’s driving costs and steps businesses are taking to address them, read our full survey, or sign up for a free demo of PSM 2.0.