Many shippers and logistics service providers (LSPs) abandoned conventional long-term planning for growth at the height of COVID-19. Instead, they pivoted to defensive resilience strategies and reliance on modular, cloud-based optimization and automation solutions that add end-to-end shipment visibility, real-time response to manage disruption, and data analytics to optimize future performance. 

Broader digital transformation is mostly driven by large manufacturing, retail and logistics players leveraging their resources and volumes to impose supply chain integration on upstream suppliers and downstream distribution and delivery partners with different priorities or objectives. 

Small and mid-sized shippers and 3PLs struggling to stay afloat are on the lookout for separate opportunities to collaborate with compatible partners, on flexible network optimization solutions that help them meet specific needs, adapt to demand volatility and expand their market reach.

An open supply chain ecosystem, supported by a modular “logistics platform-as-a-service” (LPaaS), now allows any combination of shippers and logistics providers, of any size or level of sophistication, to build and manage their own ad hoc supply chain networks tailored to their specific needs. Parties can leverage asset-based, operational and technology strengths from multiple sources, share information and collaborate to address service gaps, lower costs, build resilience or pursue growth.

Shippers and LSPs with complementary service patterns, for example, can connect and share load, capacity, schedule and demand-sensing data in real time to match loads and balance lanes in a volume pricing arrangement. Similarly, parties can use route, loading and vehicle fuel consumption data to construct a common fuel consumption and vehicle emissions baseline per trip as a measure against ESG certification and customer requirements, and then optimize loads for fewer and shorter trips, balancing transit time against fuel savings, or avoiding idle time in traffic or at terminals.

The result in both cases: creative solutions that boost efficiency, manage costs and attract new business.

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