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 and clear in our recent State of Shipping survey of 240 logistics, supply chain, finance, procurement, and IT leaders, conducted by Incisiv on behalf of Reveel. The survey found that most shippers have the technology to manage multi-carrier complexity but still run it on a quarterly or annual cadence, while carrier pricing and surcharges now change weekly.
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 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: 56% of shippers are currently managing 3 or more carriers and 22% manage six or more.
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, Omnicarrier Decision Intelligence 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.
To learn more about the parcel shipping landscape, what’s driving costs, and the steps businesses are taking to address them, read our full survey, or sign up for a free demo of our Shipping Intelligence Platform.