“FreightWaves is releasing the beta version of SONAR SCI, which stands for supply chain intelligence, announced Craig Fuller, the founder and CEO of FreightWaves. “SONAR SCI is a groundbreaking expansion of the SONAR platform, the only freight forecasting and analytics platform. SONAR SCI subscribers have access to $80 billion of shipper-to-carrier freight spend. And these are invoices – what shippers actually pay carriers, not self-reported data – and they are submitted every evening. Not only is the data derived from actual invoices, but it is also broken down by industry-specific cohorts.”
Fuller continued, “The combination of real-time data, actual invoices that are reported nightly and by industry-specific cohorts – this is the ultimate! This data complements SONAR’s near-real-time freight contract tender data, which is why SONAR has the most accurate and representative freight analytics platform on the planet. SONAR and SONAR SCI provide real-time freight market intelligence to their subscribers.
“In my opinion, SONAR SCI is the most important release at FreightWaves since the first SONAR release. This will change the industry forever,” Fuller said. “SONAR SCI will be as disruptive in how users view the market as SONAR’s Outbound Tender Rejection Index [OTRI] was two years ago!”
Fuller added, “Intelligence is more than data or knowledge. Intelligence guides SONAR SCI subscribers with added context about where the market is going. In addition, SONAR SCI’s datasets are focused more on the contract freight market rather than the spot freight market.”
The SONAR SCI data and analytics platform has all of SONAR’s features – and more. “The beta release will definitely benefit brokers and carriers; it will particularly benefit shippers in specific industries like automotive, CPG, retail, manufacturing and more,” Fuller said.
“By integrating their transportation management systems (TMS) with SONAR SCI via API or uploading historical data via a pre-formatted CSV, SONAR SCI pushes key data into users’ ecosystems or see visually in the SONAR SCI user interface,” Fuller explained. “SONAR SCI helps users benchmark, analyze, monitor and forecast their freight spend. It will be particularly useful when conducting freight contract negotiations for longer-term freight RFPs. Also like SONAR, this beta release will become more robust over time.”
Key advantages for shippers
Fuller stated, “SONAR SCI is a unique method for shippers to gain visibility into transportation spend. SONAR SCI can change how shippers view operations and make decisions. In addition, while SONAR SCI contains massive amounts of data, it is presented in an easy-to-use, easy-to-understand dashboard.”
SONAR SCI provides data to users in real- or near-time. In addition, SONAR SCI provides context regarding rates by lane. Users can benchmark, monitor current rates and analyze historical market performance and rates, as well as market intelligence and service levels. In addition to empowering its users, SONAR SCI provides a new realm of performance and operations management.
Fuller said, “SONAR SCI is sophisticated but simple; it provides actionable, near-time data, insights and intelligence at a speed currently unavailable in the industry. SONAR SCI empowers users with a new set of critical performance management tools.”
Using proprietary data sources valued at over $30 billion, SONAR SCI generates critical information to help guide RFP decisions. It provides data from the market via SONAR, industry peers and the freight party’s historical data ingested by SONAR SCI via API or through manual upload of shipping data via a pre-formatted CSV file.
Using the lane upload feature, a user inputs a target benchmark rate, which is the impetus for nearly all the scores that SONAR SCI provides.
Lane Acuity
A key feature of SONAR SCI’s beta release is Lane Acuity. It provides users deeper insights into a lane; they can score, measure and benchmark existing RFPs or those out-for-bid, as well as lane execution inside of a supply chain. Lane Acuity looks at a lane by mode inside a transportation sector. It can also show how a user’s targeted benchmark rate compares to the industry, the overall market, peers, and at a pricing level.
With SONAR SCI’s advanced analytics, Lane Acuity scores a lane by pricing, competition and mode; that score will evolve over time (at launch, 1 to 100, in levels of 10). A lower SCI score, such as 30, indicates to the user how difficult it will be to get a lane covered at the user’s desired benchmark rate, whereas a higher SCI score, such as 70, indicates to the user that they are more likely to get that lane covered at the desired benchmark rate target.
SONAR and the subsequent SONAR SCI platform have proprietary data that comes from actual load tenders, electronic logging devices and TMS, along with dozens of third-party global freight and logistics-related index providers like TCA Benchmarking, Freightos, ACT, Drewry and DTN. In addition, proprietary data from industry peers is a key component of SONAR SCI.
Sign-up to request access to the beta release of SONAR SCI.
