The Top 4 Freight Procurement Technologies to Look For in 2023

Changes are on the horizon – especially for freight procurement teams. 2023 might be when shippers finally shift from a reactive to a proactive approach to start managing the industry challenges. To do so, leveraging new future-proofed technologies becomes a matter of make or break.

Here are 4 key technologies expected to shape freight procurement in 2023 and give their adopters an upper hand in such a volatile market.

1. Digital rate management: from manual to digital processes, centralizing all freight rates

While freight procurement processes stand out as highly complex, most supply chain professionals still rely on Excel to source, compare and analyze freight rates. So, if you are among the Excel users, this is the sign you needed to make the shift to digital.

You are probably familiar with the daily battle of collecting freight rate data from fragmented spreadsheets, making it time-consuming, difficult to negotiate rates, respond quickly to market volatility or control costs.

Logistics leaders are increasingly recognizing the urgent need to centralize rate management, turning this into a major digitalization trend for 2023.

Leveraging an advanced & user-friendly digital rate engine empowers you to manage current and historical freight rates across all modes of transport within one global platform. By simplifying the time-consuming freight procurement complexity, it enables you to maximize your performance through centralized, efficient and effortless rate management.

2. Autonomous freight procurement: gain execution power and stay ahead of the market

Automation is reaching all industries, and freight procurement is no exception. So, if you were also dreaming of eliminating the manual effort of market monitoring and tendering, 2023 could be your year!

Forward-thinking procurement teams are already leveraging autonomous procurement to gain higher execution power, and 2023 will be the decisive year for its broader digital adoption.

The latest autonomous procurement capabilities in the market enable you to maximize your competitiveness by instantly identifying lanes with savings potential and tendering them effortlessly at the right time. With this next-generation solution, you can dynamically scan the market for cost-optimization opportunities and execute spot or tender requests in a fully automated manner.

Plus, such an autonomous technology solves one of the main challenges in the industry: gaining breakthrough visibility on freight rates and acting instantly when the market starts changing. This means that you could tender automatically to get the best rates, responding quickly to market shifts such as the recent drop of 14% in air cargo or the continuous collapse of ocean freight rates.

➡️ Get the Ultimate Guide to Autonomous Procurement and discover how this future-ready technology is changing the world of procurement today. 

3. Automated transportation assignment: manage disruptions proactively and increase speed

Managing disruptions while executing real-time should be one of your main focus areas this year – and not only if you want to remain competitive, but also to ensure profitability.

McKinsey reports that supply chain disruptions cost organizations on average 45% of one year’s profits over the course of a decade. So, if you want to achieve cost-effective logistics procurement over the long term (while making your CFO happy), smart transport allocation becomes a must-have technology.

The automated transportation assignment solution allows you to allocate your business to carriers without any manual effort, integrating your awarding process with your rate management system. By centralizing both workflows, it enables you to find the best possible rates and service providers automatically, based on your specific criteria (such as fastest, cleanest, or cheapest).

The potential of this technology goes beyond the technical capabilities, which are already game changers. The most added value lies in the increased agility to manage market disruptions by assigning transport in real-time & according to flexible business rules.

4. Advanced analytics & sustainability dashboards: make your data actionable and upgrade your visibility

From market benchmarking to freight procurement, data fuels the entire supply chain. However, while data is at the heart of logistics management, few manufacturers today are fully capable to collect real-time industry data on rates, lanes, shipments, CO2 emissions & volumes – and further develop it into prescriptive and predictive analytics.

If you want to stay ahead of the game, turning data into actionable insights should be already part of your strategy. Advanced freight procurement analytics and sustainability dashboards are top technologies for 2023, as they allow procurement teams to bring freight data to life, ensure end-to-end visibility, all while keeping a close eye on sustainability targets.

By gaining higher transparency into the supply chain data, you can generate an enhanced analysis for supplier quotes and market benchmarking, while building your own comprehensive scenarios and integrating strategic criteria such as CO2 emissions.

Analytics-driven logistics management will become increasingly critical to upgrade your decision-making and be for sure one of the determining trends to come out on top in 2023.

Amid the changes foreseen for 2023, the shippers that invest smartly in the right procurement technologies will be the ones to capitalize on market opportunities. If you want to stay at the forefront of logistics innovation, now’s the time to move a step further through digital freight procurement.  

Want to know how you can make the most of today's market? Download the whitepaper below to uncover the top 5 opportunities that you can leverage in 2023 and how to benefit from them.