4 Strategic Steps for your LTL RFP

It is easy to get comfortable with carriers you are familiar with & trust.  It is common to see a large shippers consolidate there spend down to two national carriers.  However, it may be financially beneficial to include new regional carriers that may lower cost and increase transit time.  While we recommend including incumbent carriers in the bid, we also encourage exploring other carrier options we rate against your data sample.

Many carriers use the fuel surcharge as a profit center. While fuel is overlooked by many, some shippers seek to have the surcharge waived altogether which results in a violation of the PRICING GOLDEN RULE. If carriers need to hedge they will not price as aggressively and this will result in a massive increase on the linehaul as fuel is highly volatile.  The strategic tactic we recommend is standardizing the fuel surcharge rather than juggling many unique carrier tables.  This may involve utilizing a third party such as the Department of Energy so that both the shipper and the carrier reach a ‘fair’ outcome. 

The way to guarantee competitive RFP results uniquely tailored to your shipping profile is to hire a professional expert.  As a Logistics Management Company Translogistics launch RFPs every month, and have a department of experts solely focused on this important project.  We have the carrier relationships, the preferred carrier templates, and the negotiable KPIs to employ strategies that will result in favorable results for you.  Using our technology and analytics not only provides competitive pricing but can equip you with forecasting tools to understand the implications of adding/removing carriers to the penny.  A shipper for example, had us run a simulation where they moved their distribution center to various cities under consideration to uncover the price impact of freight in making the change.  It is important to drive data-driven decision making through technology, rather than firing from the hip in this competitive freight market.