Click here to nominate your Shipper of Choice
FreightWaves announces the Shipper of Choice Award, which will highlight the top 25 shippers in America as voted on by carrier-members of the Truckload Carriers Association (TCA) and the Blockchain in Transport Alliance (BiTA).
The winner of the award will be unveiled at Transparency19 in Atlanta this May.
“The Shipper of Choice Award is all about increasing transparency as we highlight innovative best practices that keep freight moving and contribute to a healthy freight community,” said Craig Fuller, founder and CEO of FreightWaves. “The phrase ‘shipper of choice’ gets tossed around a lot, but for the first time, the industry will actually quantify and rank the best shippers.”
FreightWaves and TCA are committed to strengthening their ongoing partnership through initiatives like the Shipper of Choice Award. The organizations currently exchange data to enhance the experience of SONAR and Truckload Indexes.
According to TCA President John Lyboldt, “This award fills a large void in our industry. Too often, industry participants focus on the negative – what’s wrong with our collective supply chains. Instead, we feel this award will focus on the positive in this massive population. As a by-product, we expect more and more shippers to seek to attain this recognition in the future. It is very much complementary to our work with the Best Fleets to Drive For initiative – recognizing those carriers doing culture-building things for their employee and contractor teams.”
Katz, Sapper & Miller (KSM) will manage the Shipper of Choice vote to ensure a credible and independent process. KSM previously managed voting for FreightWaves’ Freight.Tech 25 Award.
“We are honored to assist FreightWaves, TCA and BiTA in recognizing the top shippers in America,” said Tim Almack, partner-in-charge of KSM’s Transportation Services Group. “The Shipper of Choice award honors those shippers who not only know what is important to carriers and their drivers, but also bridge the knowing-doing gap and actually take actions to collaboratively work with carriers and drivers to eliminate inefficiencies in the supply chain.”
The nomination process is now open and will close on March 1. There are no restrictions on nominations; a shipper can nominate itself or other shippers, and carriers may also nominate shippers.
Voting for the award will open on March 10th via www.freightwaves.com, www.bita.studio, and www.truckload.org in conjunction with the 81st Annual TCA Convention in Las Vegas (March 10-13). Voting will close on May 1st, and winners will be announced on May 8th at Transparency19.
To vote, carriers will complete a short five-question survey on each shipper, ranking qualities such as flexibility and detention on a five-star scale, with possible total score of 25 points. The shipper with the highest score will receive first place while runners-up will be awarded based on score.
“Each shipper will have shown their commitment to the professional driving force by providing accessible facilities, treating drivers with professionalism, optimizing driver’s time by keeping detention to a minimum, and by providing consistent processes for loading and unloading,” said Jeff Seibenhener, a FreightWaves market expert. “To become a Shipper of Choice, each shipper will have proven to be the best at doing their part in the supply chain.”
The award reveal in Atlanta will be delivered via a sealed envelope presentation by KSM.
Following Transparency19, FreightWaves’ editorial staff will publish a feature article on each Shipper of Choice.
Arlen Stark, FreightWaves’ Executive Vice President of Research, stated, “All three organizations – FreightWaves, BiTA and TCA – are proud to begin this award, and look forward to the announcement of the winners!”
A total of 25 shippers will receive a Shipper of Choice Award. A shipper can nominate itself or other shippers, and carriers may also nominate shipper(s). Nominations are an open call via www.freightwaves.com, www.bita.studio, and/or www.truckload.org. There are no restrictions on nominations other than the nomination form must be completed and submitted via one of the three aforementioned websites.