Executive-level insights for your evolving transportation strategy

We all know how profoundly COVID-19 has impacted logistics management—and it’s far from static. The industry is burdened with unprecedented and rapid change, yet who has the time to wade through 100-page reports and dozens of sources to figure it all out? In just a few minutes you can identify, learn about, and apply timely information to your executive-level decision-making for inbound logistics, carrier management, sourcing, freight procurement, and optimization of your network, modes, and other areas. We do the cruising for you. We analyze the macro factors for every mode before summarizing their micro implications. Each issue lays them out clearly—like points on a compass—and augments the data with insights and expertise from the shipping and transportation team at Kearney.

This is a tool you’ll turn to regularly for information you can use in budgeting, forecasting, defining service expectations, and maximizing the effectiveness of your operation.

Gain a keen sense of direction

Shippers’ Compass evolves as the industry does, so you are always in touch with what matters most. Each quarterly report features the Compass Snapshot for the latest three-month period, broken out by freight segment, US market size, carrier concentration, and our assessment of the shipper market and service quality. We look at the degree of advantage that shippers have over carriers in the market, along with lane capacity availability and delivery reliability.

We analyze factors affecting the economy, including the ongoing pandemic, and note key freight-market drivers. We track fuel prices, consumer sentiment, and fluctuating capacity, among other influences you feel every day.

Then Shippers’ Compass delves into the modes. Carrier pricing may have fallen a while back but is rising today. We chart what’s happening with truckload contract rates, key demand and supply drivers, and the indexes for truckload, long-distance LTL, and intermodal. If multimodal is a major part of your world, you’ll want to follow our analysis for ocean, air freight, and rail.

We dive into parcel and last-mile, too, by looking at package volume, general freight, and parcel delivery capacity.

For every mode, we offer informed commentary on how to optimize through efficiency, collaboration, dynamic costing, risk management, and other opportunities as they present themselves. For special times of the year—such as holiday peaks—we give you playbooks and charts that show performance of major carriers such as UPS and FedEx. Shipper Solutions is our wrap-up section, where we share best practices for the short, mid-, and long term.

All Shippers’ Compass insights are depicted in succinct chunks, while the most salient data is laid out in crisp, clean charts, so you gain what you need to know in a glance.

Receive Shippers’ Compass

In today’s uncharted logistics landscape, Shippers’ Compass can point you in the right direction. It’s easy to receive—simply sign up using the button below. We’ll email it to you free each quarter.

What’s more, we’re happy to answer your shipping and transportation questions.

For a thorough look at the logistics industry, read Kearney’s 2021 State of Logistics report.