DESCARTES MacroPoint

Real-Time Capacity Matching for Freight

Creating a Competitive Advantage for Logistics Service Providers

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Logistics service providers (LSPs) are seeking strategies to help navigate the capacity crunch and become more competitive in today’s volatile freight market. Relying on their own data and networks is not enough. LSPs need to find available capacity both inside and outside their carrier networks, know which carrier is the right one to call first, and book loads faster to gain a competitive advantage. Easy, secure access to capacity information can make it happen.

The Business Challenge

Why is capacity tight? Simply put, higher freight demand, driver shortages, and ELD mandates have severely limited capacity on the road. Increased volume can be tied to economic growth, specifically e-commerce, which has impacted distribution patterns to meet changing consumer demands.

The lower supply of available capacity is attributed to the growing driver shortage, along with additional government regulations such as the electronic logging device (ELD) mandate. The combination of these factors is driving capacity constraints and pushing up rates. Because large shippers are pushing back on rate increases or passing costs on to consumers, it’s safe to say that margin compression is on the horizon, requiring brokers and 3PLs to become more competitive.

• Finding capacity is a less-than-optimal, manual process of selecting carriers based on tribal knowledge that requires making many time-consuming calls.
• Private web portals get limited participation due to industry fragmentation, resulting in incomplete, stale, or invalid information.
• Traditional load boards make it difficult to qualify carriers, and understanding capacity availability outside of their network is a guessing game with limited data available.

How Does Capacity Matching Work?

Capacity Matching vs. Digital Freight

Expand Your Capacity Network

Addressing the Problem

Securing capacity can be challenging, but data-driven technology solutions can help bridge the gaps created by today’s market. While exploring solutions to help address these gaps, LSPs should consider technology solutions that will:

1. Automate the manual sourcing/booking process
2. Increase efficiency, speed and savings by eliminating time-consuming phone calls to locate and book capacity.
3. Visualize market conditions
4. Unlock an expanded capacity network
5. Leverage only verified data

Unlocking an Expanded Capacity Network

LSPs typically work with a fixed set of carriers where they have formed relationships. Understanding capacity availability outside their existing network is often speculation built on very limited data. To stay competitive in today’s dynamic market, LSPs must optimize their booking process to become more agile. This requires connecting with a broader set of carriers to access more capacity information. Capacity matching tools can help by creating an interconnected network that provides an efficient, safe space to share capacity data.

The Benefits of Capacity Matching

Capacity matching solutions provide both market information and the ability to share verified data, bringing efficiency to the sourcing and booking process. This can translate into both financial and operational benefits for LSPs:

• Increased Revenue by booking more loads.
• Stronger Relationships through reduced deadhead miles and increased backhauls.
• Lower Rates by gaining visibility to capacity 24-72 hours ahead.
• Expanded Network to cover loads faster and more efficiently.
• Accurate, Reliable Data to reduce service failures.

How MacroPoint Can Help

Market Visualizations

See capacity both in and out of your carrier network to map current loads and learn more about market conditions.

Automated Capacity Matching

Enter loads that will be automatically matched to open capacity within your existing carrier network.

Capacity Co-op

Descartes MacroPoint Capacity Matching enables LSPs to efficiently source/book capacity by creating an interconnected, secure space to share verified capacity data.