The Data Challenge

As a shipper, you’re generating and capturing a ton of data around your transportation and freight, such as costs around loads, carrier OTD/OTP, lane history, and more. You may also subscribe to 3rd party data sources like DAT or Freightwaves. Some of this data is useful for RFPs, whether you’re doing those annually or more frequently. But that’s a lot of data to collect, store, and sift through if you’re just using it for (admittedly important!) seasonal contract negotiations. You also likely have a lot of other data that is underutilized or totally unused. Many (but certainly not all) shippers employ data analysts to process all of this data and produce actionable insights. Some TMS and ERP systems have some good analytic capabilities built-in. You may have a stand-alone analytics platform to aggregate data and help with this. Are you really using these solutions to their full capabilities, though? Are you looking at your data just in the bubble of what’s happening with your freight, or are you looking more broadly to see how you’re doing relative to the market? Without a person or a product dedicated to analyzing your data, you’re likely missing out on some valuable insights. How are you deciding which carriers to keep in your network, what rates need to change (and how much they need to change), and other critical transportation decisions? Are these data-based decisions, or are they based on history/experience/rules-of-thumb? As Mike talked about in a blog post last month  a lot of shippers fail to segment their providers to and may unnecessarily be rewarding carrier who don’t truly qualify to be considering...