Author Archives: admin

Real-time pricing vs. spot pricing: What’s the difference?

Demand is not linear and sometimes that creates gaps in coverage

The most fundamental difference between real-time pricing and spot pricing is that one is by design and the other is by mistake.

Traditional spot pricing – sending loads to auction – is sourcing capacity for loads that are not covered by mistake.
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You can totally see right through me

If you’ve been in logistics long enough you have seen ups and downs. When I bought my first truck in 2001 diesel could still be found for under $1.00 per gallon in parts of the country, so I decided to buy 30 more. Since then we’ve all been through the Great Recession, fuel at $5.00 per gallon, economic collapse of banking and normal systems, new transportation regulations starting with hours of service through current on-board recorders,
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“Sorry, we are not adding any more brokers.”

If you are in the logistics business then you are probably on one end of either giving or receiving that statement regularly. And, I understand why so many transportation buyers take that position. The brokerage business model is based on the back-haul: a carrier in Los Angeles has a customer in Los Angeles who needs them to take a shipment to Kansas.
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Your Routing Guide is a Living Document – the Only Constant is Change

Do you know of any transportation capacity planners who hold their RFC event, make sure their capacity commitments meet their projected volume demand, award shipments to 3-5 carriers on every lane, go live with implementation, and then go home for 9 months because their work for the year is done? The reality is that the routing guide is a living document – subject to change each and every week throughout the year.

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Real-Time Is The New On-Time

Have you ever had a carrier tell you that they were running late to their delivery appointment – after the appointment time had already passed? It leaves you wondering how long before the appointment they knew that they were behind schedule.

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Nobody Doesn’t Want Straight “A’s”

Have you ever had a report card on which you did not want to receive straight A’s? In strategic business partnerships, much like grade school report cards, much like customer KPI scorecards, everybody wants straight “A’s.” Nobody doesn’t want them. We want A-players, A-teams, A-performance indicators, A-response time, A-communication, A-service.
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