Supply chains faced unprecedented disruptions in 2020, but the pandemic provided fresh perspectives for 2021.
During a monthly roundtable meeting, members of the Freight Market Intelligence Consortium (FMIC), a group of leading shippers who use DAT iQ for benchmarking, identified two key strategic trends.
- Variable budgets allow greater flexibility. Starting with primary carrier contract rates, top shippers are also calculating historical rejection rates by lane or carrier, then using the previous year’s spot market rates for those lanes, to build flexibility into their budget to address continued volatility.
- Mini-bids, or continuous procurement events for smaller subsets of lanes, have grown even more important with COVID-19’s capacity crunch. As tight markets continue into 2021, these more frequent bid cycles can help repair broken routing guides and contain transportation costs.
Download our 2021 Shipper Readiness Checklist to ensure you have the right tools and processes in place to effectively execute these strategies.
