With competition among motor carriers steep as ever, gaining the attention of shippers and winning loads requires diversification. Carriers are leveraging all options available to them, capitalizing on both their annual contracts and the spot market to keep their trucks full and moving.
While the capacity surplus seems to show signs of easing, the need to outpace the competition and win loads in their desired lanes will remain a top priority even as the market shifts.
For shippers, predicting when volumes will surge has become tougher than ever in recent years, which is in part fueled by the advent of e-commerce and hard-to-predict consumer behavior.
To meet these demand surges and ensure quick customer service, businesses often need to add spot-market capacity to their strategies. They need as many options among top-quality carriers as possible that can also deliver on time and meet their varied customer requirements.
“The traditional contract model that shippers used to use can only take them so far and they cannot fully rely on the spot market. Shippers have to account for new lanes, excess volume, and unexpected disruptions on a daily basis. And to address these challenges, the shippers are looking for innovative ways beyond the traditional contract and spot processes. Shippers are asking themselves when does it make sense to establish a contract with carriers and when does it make sense to go into the spot market. Carriers can benefit from having dedicated access to shippers for dynamic freight options at par with contract carriers. This way a carrier may be competing only against a handful of other carriers a shipper may be working with, on a lane as compared to thousands of other carriers on public load boards, ” said Ravi Wesley, industry strategy director at Blue Yonder.
An API integration between Ditat TMS and Blue Yonder is making it easier for shippers to tender loads and carriers to accept them in a unique way.
Ditat TMS, a platform for freight brokers and motor carriers designed to automate a company’s logistics and improve performance, and Blue Yonder, a leader in supply chain intelligent supply chain software, have made it possible to help bridge Ditat’s carrier network and Blue Yonder’s Dynamic Price Discovery capabilities.
The integration allows for both the benefits of a contract model within a spot market-like scenario, Wesley said. Ditat’s carriers have access to participating Blue Yonder shippers, and shippers are able to see Ditat carriers’ rates in real time as part of their load-tendering workflows. Shippers instantly see carriers with capacity in their required lanes and see true market rates in real time. This helps them make better decisions about when to switch back and forth between spot and contract markets.
“Working with Blue Yonder prompted us to accelerate the development of our quoting module, which we plan to expand and improve,” said Ivan Demkovitch, president at Ditat.
Ultimately, the integration lets carriers be seen by more shippers and removes the traditionally time-consuming process of spot market booking. At the same time, they can work with well-equipped shippers backed with Blue Yonder’s technology stack that brings unparalleled efficiency to the table.
“We are constantly innovating and modernizing freight management and providing more ways for shippers to adapt to disruption. We bring in more dynamic and real-time freight management capabilities, and that’s where we benefit from connecting with logistics providers,” Wesley added about the integration.
Carriers using Ditat TMS can sign up for the Blue Yonder integration via Ditat.