Reducing Global Logistics Costs with Benchmarking and Shipping Container Pricing Transparency

The multi-modal container company, as we know it today, just turned 60 years old on April 26, 2016, when shipping innovator and entrepreneur Malcom McClean shipped 58, 35-foot trailer vans, later called containers, from the Port Newark-Elizabeth Marine Terminal, New Jersey, to the Port of Houston, Texas.

Today, well over 90% of all non-bulk cargo is shipped in containers worldwide with the shipment volume being measured in the hundreds of millions of containers.

This leads to the realization that container prices are a logistics cost that companies should be managing closely for potential opportunity.

Even for large shippers, who already negotiate directly with container companies, rather than through brokers or forwards, the question is how do they know where they stand on the contract rates they are paying?

Therein lies the challenge.

As large as the shipping container market is, historically there has only been “after the fact” static data to benchmark pricing against.

There has never been transparency in the marketplace allowing participants to compare their quoted price to the existing market price in order to benchmark where they stood.

That lack of transparency is about to change.

We first consider the capabilities that Best-in-Class companies have in place to minimize their global logistics spend and trade costs compared to their competition, and then review how a new benchmarking solution is significantly changing the container pricing landscape with dramatic results.

This Aberdeen Group Best-in-Class report, takes a look at the capabilities that Best-in-Class companies have in place to minimize their global logistics spend and trade costs compared to their competition, and how Xeneta is significantly changing the container pricing landscape with dramatic results.

Highlights

• Supply Chain leaders are concerned about escalating supply costs while dealing with customer demands and increasing complexity.
• Given the nature of an international pricing market, the challenge for shippers is gaining visibility to how quotes compare to the rates received by other companies.
• "Getting a price quote is not the issue, understanding the best rates for a given lane is the question," Bryan Ball, Vice President and Group Director, Supply Chain and Global Supply Management Practices
• Electrolux shipping approx. 180K containers per year gains value from Xeneta's pricing transparency with its dynamic snapshot of the shipping market at any point in time.