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Supply Chain Now
How to Reduce Freight Spend Without a Full RFP
00:57:07
Freight costs are rising - but most shippers aren’t capturing the savings hiding in their own data. In this episode of Supply Chain Now, Scott Luton and Kimberly Reuter talk with Shannon Vaillancourt, President of RateLinx, about how companies can uncover 5–15% in transportation savings in weeks, not months, without running a full RFP. They discuss common overspending traps, the power of clean, unified data, optimizing carrier mix, and making smarter, data-driven decisions to reduce costs while improving operational efficiency. The episode unpacks key strategies for optimizing transportation spend without launching a full RFP, including identifying hidden costs across carriers, modes, and accessories, optimizing carrier mix with clean, unified data, and realizing anywhere from 5 to 15% in transportation savings in weeks rather than months. Listeners also get insights on managing LTL versus parcel shipments, evaluating carrier performance beyond on-time delivery, and understanding ...
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A
You have to focus on your payment data. I think too many folks are looking at the shipping data. They're not looking at the freight payment data, which is what you're really paying. That's what you've got to really try to harness is that data. Because I see too many of these companies where they're just putting a total charge on a GL line for freight. That doesn't cut it anymore.
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B
Welcome to Supply Chain now the number one voice of Supply chain. Join us as we share critical news, key insights and real supply chain leadership
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from across the globe.
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B
One conversation at a time.
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C
Hey, good morning, good afternoon, good evening wherever you may be. Scott Luton and the one and only Kim Reuter here with you on Supply Chain now. Welcome to today's live stream. Hey Kim, how you doing today?
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D
Good. How are you?
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C
Wonderful. Melting away. The heat's coming.
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D
It's too much. It's too soon.
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C
Too soon. That's right. We've enjoyed the spring and I bet our guest is going to have something to say about the heat out there in Arizona, but we'll get that. Second folks, we've got a great conversation teed up here today. We're talking about saving freight, saving freight expenses without launching a big old rfp.
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A
Right?
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C
That's a headache. We're going to touch on a wide variety of topics from how to identify those hidden costs across carriers, modes and accessorials. I can never say that word to save my life camp. How to optimize your carrier mix and routing using clean unified data. And even better yet, how to realize anywhere from 5 to 15% transportation savings in weeks, not months. Weeks. We're diving into all that and much, much more now, Kim, given your impeccable track record of supply chain success over the last couple of. We won't break the 20 year rule. Last couple of decades. I'm looking forward to hearing your take here today. You ready to go?
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A
No.
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D
Yeah. This is one of my passions.
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C
For sure it is. I've seen you in action, my friend. I've seen you in action. So folks, we're going to get to work and we're going to start by welcoming in an esteemed guest backed by proper demand. Folks, he's a 30 plus year industry veteran and innovative founder and CEO of Rate Links, a leader in supply chain analytics and data driven optimization. You guessed it, Shannon Valencourt is back with us. You're going to enjoy Shannon's perspective, practical perspective on the opportunities that almost every supply chain organization can take advantage of as well as what's Going on out in the market. Let's welcome in Shannon Valencourt.
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A
Hey.
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C
Hey, Shannon. How you doing today, my friend?
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A
I'm doing well. How are you doing today?
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C
I'd be doing better if I could pronounce accessorials that. It gets me every single time. Shannon and Kim, I know you got
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A
to say it slow syllable. Hey, be careful with that one. That's why you got to say it slow.
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C
Hey, anything over three syllables, maybe sometimes over two syllables really gets me. But really quick. Now, Kim, we were talking pre show because Shannon Valencourt is the biggest Chicago Bears fan to the west of the Mississippi river because he's a based in Arizona where it's really hot. So I want to ask Shannon. The draft was just a month and some change to go. Shannon, what grade are you giving the Chicago Bears draft?
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A
You know, it doesn't matter anymore what happens. They're going to get an A grade from me as long as they keep Ben Johnson. Okay, we have the, we have the best coach, we got the best quarterback in the league. So the rest of it doesn't matter. Okay.
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C
I like that.
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A
It's like whatever they're going to do, we're good with, so we trust them. Especially after last year's draft, everyone's like, why they pick Colston Loveland, why they get another tight end? That's silly. They picked the wrong one. No, they didn't. Not even close.
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C
I like that, Frank. Confidence in team leadership and, and Kim, I'll tell you what, you are not a Bears fan, but I hope you were able to enjoy the draft somewhere, have a beer and talk supply chain with somebody. Kim, was that on your docket during the NFL draft?
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A
It was.
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D
I wouldn't say I was really paying attention to the draft so much, but definitely the drinking and the talking supply chain were part of it.
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C
Well, in that case, we got a lot of good stuff here ahead of us here today as we talk through some great opportunities for folks out there, especially shippers. And I want to start. Shannon and Kim, I want to start by defining the problem. You know, why shippers overspend. So, Kim, now you've worked across both large enterprises and a lot of fast growing brands. So I want to ask you, why do shippers still overspend even when they already have contracts in place? Kim?
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D
So the two biggest that I see and they're actually related is the creeping and unmonitored charges, right? So especially when you're dealing in parcel freight and you have a large business, if your boxes are over dimming or over weighing or whatever, and you don't know about it. You're looking at thousands of packages, even maybe ten thousands of packages, getting these additional charges before you realize you have a problem. So that is why having real time data going against what you're actually supposed to be charged, so you can catch the problem quickly. I can't tell you how many clients I've walked into and they're like, we have $100,000 problem. And that $100,000 problem took about two months for them to get. So those are the two biggest are these unmonitored charges that are coming. They may even be in the contract. You probably even signed on for them. You just don't know that they're happening. And you can't find it because you don't have real time data.
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C
Hmm. And that leads to a whole bunch of bad and suboptimal decisions. Good stuff there. Kim Shannon, as a follow up question, you, you know, when companies don't have visibility into some of the issues that Kim mentioned there and others, you know, where does the technology typically fall short there?
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A
I think it's on, on the integration. I've always been a big proponent of the integration. You know, pulling all the data together into one spot and not only connecting it together, but showing it to the user in a way that they can understand it, I think is important. What's interesting is that not everybody can consume numbers the same way. So, you know, as an engineer, I look at numbers and they, they jump off the page to me. So I've done this with customers where I'm, I'm going through their data and I'm showing them the reports and I'm like, oh my God, look what's happening. I'm like, it's just, it's screaming at me. And they're like, what? I don't, I don't see it. And it's because not everybody can consume numbers the same way. So it's like you've got to not only pull all the data, connect it, you got to present it to them in a way that they understand very easily and can see it. Yep.
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C
And, and you know, you make a great point because that overspending isn't number one. It's not always obvious to anybody. And then kind of to your point, Shannon, it's not always obvious to everybody in the organization, you know, because we all have different superpowers, different skill sets. Some people, like Shannon and Kim, are great at math. Some folks like myself, not so much. And it can oftentimes also be buried down deep into the data. So I want to talk about where those savings are oftentimes really hiding and of course, the opportunities that are at hand. So, you know, Kim, when you look at a shipper's network, what are some of those first red flags that tell you there's money being left on the table?
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D
The first is if they don't have data. Right. So first and foremost is I want to see you're monitoring your KPIs, how do you know what's going on? And then we start digging into it. And the biggest opportunities I see are underperforming carriers. And this sounds really weird because it seemed like it would be really obvious if you have six or seven different carriers and one is underperforming.
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C
But.
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D
But it is very, very hard to identify an underperforming carrier in a large network and identify why they're underperforming. And when you can get to that, then you can start having meaningful conversations. But I have worked with so many shippers that have one or two bad carriers in their network, and they're actually afraid to get rid of them because they won't have a backup or they won't have a second or whatever the situation is going to be. But they. And they also can't have meaningful conversation because they can't actually identify the problem kind of in the circle of low performance that they can't get out of.
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C
So, Shannon, that begs a question, you know, especially with you and the rate leaks team, how do y' all help surface those opportunities quickly that Kim's talking about without requiring that headache of a full sourcing event?
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A
I always find that the customers have good contracts, they have good pricing in place. They're just not using it. And that's where we can, you know, show them the opportunities that are there by, by just optimizing themselves within their current agreements. You know, you think about if you have a company that they put all their rates in place and let's say that they're about 90% optimal. So nine out of 10 times, you know, they're, they're using the most optimal carrier based on the rates and, and their requirements that are in place, that's still a big number. If you're missing the 10% opportunity out there. And that's where having that visibility to see what is the 1 in 10, you know, because that's where. That's where us as, as people, that's where I always, you know, us as humans, we have a bad time with trend analysis because we're like, what? Nine out of ten times, I'm. I'm doing the right thing, so I'm getting an A, right? It's like, well, when I was in college, well, some of my classes, that wasn't an A as an Engineer. It was 94, so. And that was ridiculous. But, you know, you could argue with them all day long, man. And they're like, look, nine out of ten is not good enough as an engineer. So. But here, that's where people are like, only one out of ten times. You know, just like, we would fall into that trap sometimes with. I would see this on LTO with floor charges, and they're like, oh, my God, our floor charges are out of control. And I'm like, well, how often does that happen? They're like, half the time. I'm like, yeah, but it only accounts for 10% of your spend. And they're like, yeah, but it's half the time. Again, that's where you got to have the data. They're showing them the right way because unfortunately, where most people just can't feel the. The patterns the right way, they can't see the trends.
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D
And. And that's what I see is unless you have. Unless you're like Shannon and I, and you were born into supply chain and have been doing this since tablets were made of stone, you don't know, and you can't see the trends. And that's a lot of what Shannon's talking about here is sitting down with the customer and saying, one, here's a trend that you're not seeing. Two, here's what's causing your trend. Here's the thing that's happening five steps back. You know, that happened five steps ago that actually made this happen. It didn't happen by what happened yesterday. This was caused by the way that your container was packed in China. This was caused by the contract. This was caused by how you booked it. This was caused by all of these other things that. That happened four or five steps ago. And because you're not a supply chain expert and you haven't been doing it since the beginning of time, you can't see it. And what Shannon is able to do is help you identify that problem before you get the $100,000 bill.
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C
Well, that's a perfect segue, Kim. Perfect segue. You're describing a bunch of situations, and we. We've all been talking about some different conditions, the different reasons why these mistakes and these bad decisions happen. Now we're going to kind of segue into how shippers can actually uncover and act on these opportunities. Right. 10 may not sound like a lot, but that could be a massive, massive opportunity. And better yet, how they can act on these opportunities again without an rfp. So Kim, when you beep up into an organization and you see that the data is messy because you're the deacon of data, we've established that over, over the course of the last couple years. What's the first step to turning that to something actionable?
- [12:27]
D
The first thing we have to do is figure out what the KPIs are, what are we trying, what do we need to monitor first and foremost? And you will be surprised how many companies I walk into and they're like, we just monitor the eta or we just monitor when it's supposed to show up at the warehouse. They're not monitoring customs clearance, when's the freight's available, when it was picked up, when the carrier was notified. They're not monitoring any of that. They're just waiting for a truck to show up at the warehouse. And when it doesn't show up at the warehouse, they're like, well, we don't know what happened. And so that is the level of like management and insight that you have to have in supply chain to keep from having that $100,000 surprise bill is what is going on? Where is your data coming from? You have to have a master data. That's another thing I run into all the time, multiple sources for data, one source for data, a daily report that is published and is reviewed and a weekly review with management. Like you have to have that to know what's going on.
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C
All right, so Shannon, from a rate links perspective here, now that we've kind of heard from Kim talk about, some of the things are very common out in organizations. You know, what are the most important insights, reviews shippers need to focus on to start optimizing spend? Shannon?
- [13:44]
A
Well, you've got to see how it's made up first and foremost. You know, if you don't understand what's driving your total charge, it's going to be hard to manage because you could have after the fact accessorial charges that are causing, you know, the creep in your spend. Or it could just be like, like Kim said, could be master data where when you're shipping it and you're doing your routing and optimization, you've got bad master data. So you thought it was a certain size, a certain weight and it wasn't. So that could change the carrier that you end up ultimately using. It's like we see, unfortunately we see that Quite a bit. So that's where, by having all this again integrated together so I can see what, what you thought it was because that's where I always talk about the shipment record is, is hopeful. So when you wake up in the morning, get your first cup of coffee, everything's great, man, you've got your plan, it's going to be awesome today. That's what you hope it's going to be. And then reality hits and it's like, so how do you reconcile the two? And that's why by pulling this all together, you can show that, you know, here's the real problem. It's again, it's not a maybe it's not even a rate issue. Again, optimize within your own rates first before you try to go out and, and reduce the rate. It's like, because I could give you a reduced rate, you're not going to use it. It's in. And here's why you're not going to use it because of all of these things that we're seeing. Bad master data. Or maybe you've got a bad process that's not allowing you to use that carrier at the right time. And it's like here you just went and wasted your time and probably upset a carrier or two that you're going to need because of that.
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C
Kim, Hope and Pray is not part of a proven optimization strategy, is it?
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D
It is not. I can tell you that for sure. I've never seen that work out. And Shannon's talking is kind of touching on something that's sort of important. Well, not sort of really important because RFPs take months. Okay. I hate, personally, I'm not an RFP person. They take forever. Big consulting company, RFPS are like six month processes. And here's the thing, and Shannon just said this, you can have the best contract, you can have the most amazing contract in the world. But if that carrier is not a carrier that you can use, or if you're not monitoring that they're sticking to that contract, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. And so one of the things that we always talk about, you know, we're talking about rate links, right? Kind of the tail, not the tail end, but the, well, sort of the tail end of the logistics piece and the supply chain piece. But here's the thing, we don't know what buyers are thinking in supply chain and the logistics portion. We have no idea what buyers are thinking. And we all know they're a little crazy, right? They don't. They're not completely Logical. They make weird decisions. They buy, you know, 40, 40 footers of salt for no reason. And then, and then they, and then they're like, oh, go pick it up. Right? So that is why you have to have one visibility. Know who your carriers are and where they're performing best. Right? You don't want to send your ltl carrier to pull up, pull up 40, 40 footers worth of, you know, salt. Yeah, they'll do it, but they're not going to be best at it. So you need all of this visibility in one place so that you can manage and you can flex with the business because we all know the supply chain is the last to know when something's coming.
- [17:19]
C
All right, Kim, we're going to be walking through here in just a second. What all of this really looks like in practice, what Shannon and Ken both are talking about. In practice, we're going to make this conversation very actionable, which is so important now that we've really set the table. But first I want to say hello. Edgar, Great to see you, Edgar. He says great day for Kimberly, Shannon and Scott, all the way from the Silicon Valley Valley of logistics in Aguas Calientes, Mexico. I hope I said that right. But Edgar, welcome in love to get your take on what we're talking about here today. Okay, now we've set the table. Shannon and Kim and Shannon, I want to talk about what Rate Links actually reveals when you analyze the treasure troves of shippers data. Right. What are the first insights that typically stand out?
- [18:11]
A
Shannon, you can see the quality of the data and I think that's important to understand too. Do they have good quality data and where are the gaps that they have? So in order to have good quality data, it has to explain data has to describe the situation that you're looking at. So from a freight perspective, you think of the different modes. That's a lot of different data points that you have to capture and be accurate on. So does it first of all, you know, handle all that and then, you know, does it also have the additional context that's required? You know, one thing that sometimes is overlooked is routing requirements. So you know, who exactly are you shipping to? Why exactly did you do that? You know, without knowing the exact customer or even an order number perhaps you can't make the right decision on it because I've seen that happen too where people have, have run their analysis and they're like, oh my God, there's you know, 30% of savings in here. And then you find out that all that Savings is because they have a routing exception. You know, they're shipping to retail, perhaps. And it's like you got to use one of these three carriers. So you know, are they at least using the most optimal of those three? That's something to understand. By showing a 30% savings, you're not using any of those three. So that's why when you put it in place, all of a sudden you don't end up saving the money you thought you did. So that's where I always think about the context. Because it's not just, you know, a shipment to shipments, a shipment. That's not how it is. You have requirements. Sometimes it could be based on the item, the value, how likely it is to be damaged. You have to use certain carriers to do stuff. And it's like you got to optimize within that. That's what I'm looking at when I look at the data is again, how many of these data points can I see? So that way we can help drive decision making for them.
- [20:12]
C
All right, so Kim, you're nodding your head a lot of at what Shannon was saying. Pull out one very important nugget that he was sharing.
- [20:20]
D
I think the biggest thing I heard him say is using the right carrier for the right product. And you know, as you said, you could have all these contracts, but you don't have somebody who specializes in perishable. As an examp, I do a lot of cold chain stuff. So, you know, do. Are you working with a carrier who can handle cold chain? Is it their specialty? Do they care about it? You know, and here's another thing I think, you know, when we talk about using data to make your decisions and really digging into that data, you know what Shannon is really putting forward here because look, almost every trucker is going to tell you they can pull it if the price is right. Let's be honest, right? Like I've never pulled a reefer in my life, but for twelve hundred dollars I will pull a reefer. I don't have reefer insurance. I don't know how to keep the genset running. I don't even know how to do any of that stuff, but I'll pull it for you. And so that's where you have to take control of the decision making and saying, I appreciate that Greg, that you want to pull my, my reefer worth of $200,000 worth of frozen crab legs, but you don't have the insurance policy to cover that if it gets stolen. And so these are the kinds of decisions that you have to be able to make. And you can't make those decisions quickly if you don't have all that information together in one spot. And then you can't manage it to make sure they did it right.
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C
Gotta protect those crab legs. Especially if it's a looting family. Oh my gosh, my kids. I believe it. I believe it.
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D
They steal seafood all the time. Yeah, well, it's.
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C
So let's talk about one lane in particular. Whether you're shipping crab legs or tulips or whatever. Common example, Shannon, of. Of a lane quietly driving up costs that a shipper mate might not catch on to on their own.
- [22:13]
A
Well, I mean, we had this happen with a customer of ours. So funny story, this is a while ago. We had a customer that they did a survey of their customers out there and they asked them, what's your favorite toilet? And they were picked as their favorite toilet. The problem was they didn't make toilets. So they said, you know what, maybe we should make toilets. So they did. And so the toilets get pulled in from, you know, Asia into the port of Long beach. And then they start shipping them out and they're all coming out of their DC in California, in Southern California. And, you know, they're using the same routing that they were using for the rest of their product, which was not toilets. So very different product. And our system showed, you know, we have a loss savings KPI where it shows what it is and it showed that it's coming out of this location. And it was. That location was specific for these toilets. And they're like, oh my God, this is great. This is the greatest thing ever. And. And at first I was like, what do you mean? You guys are spending way too much? And they're like, no, normally we would have just gone a whole year and then we would have looked at it and gone, oh my God, how come the rollout was so bad? We didn't make any money or we lost a lot more money than we thought. They're like, this is awesome. So then they were able to fix the routing and then their lost savings just, boom, dropped down to nothing. It was like $200,000 to zero overnight. And it was because they finally could measure it. And. And I always find it ironic that it was toilets because I'm like, yeah, you're freight. When. When the toilet. And they're like. And they're like, no, it did though. I mean, that's a true story. So I wish, I wish I was embellishing on the toilet thing, but I was like, wow, that was wild.
- [24:09]
C
I bet. Well, I bet you've over the course of over 20 years, you know, 30 years in industry, Shannon, as we were saying, pre show, but you got to write a book and Kim's got to write a book because there's a lot of good stories out there that you can, all of you can't share in public. You know, I think it's important to talk about how rate links help shippers evaluate carrier performance beyond just on time delivery. Shannon, your thoughts?
- [24:33]
A
The whole point of the carriers, to get the product there in, in one piece on time that you want. And I think, you know, there's a lot more that goes into it. I think everybody forgets about the, the payment of it. What about the data that you're getting from the carrier? Is it still timely? You know, we talk about data quality like I said earlier. Does it accurately describe the situation? Well, one other attribute to data quality is is it timely? So are you getting good data from the carrier that then is matching up that has your key field information in it? So how is that working and then just how are they to work with on a daily basis? There's a lot more to it than just the delivering of the product. And I think that's where capturing all that information, keeping all that into one spot so that way you can measure the true quality of the carrier is very important. And that's where I think a lot of customers forget about that and they're just fixated on getting the late deliveries marked. But it's like that's sometimes it's not the carrier's fault either. There really are every once in a while some acts of God or you held them at the dock too long or it got to a big yard and just didn't get checked in or it got checked in and didn't get to a dock on time. I mean there's so much more into this. And until you've been on a dock and experienced it, you can't appreciate how big some of these places are that, that these carriers are coming in and out of. So that's why you got to have the whole picture, I think.
- [26:09]
C
Well, speaking of the whole picture, you know, going back to you, Kim, you know, Shannon was describing some of the real time data and visibility that's that really is so available here in 2026. And we're talking pre show just how far we've come, you know, in the last couple decades. But Kim, when companies don't have this kind of visibility, what happens?
- [26:30]
D
They start getting charges. So Shannon makes an excellent Point, which is when we talk about logistics, we almost always talk about was it delivered on time? That's almost the only thing we ever focus on, right? Did it arrive on time? But the truth is, is that when there's a problem and it didn't arrive on time, there's about 20 little data points that we need to figure out what happened. Because you need to really start managing. When was it gated in, when was it gated out, when did it get to the door, how long was it at the door, when was it transloaded, where was it transloaded, what was it transloaded with? There are all these data points that go into a trucking delivery that a lot of people don't even think about, especially if they're not in supply chain. They're only thinking about, hey, did it arrive? But we need to know all of these other things in the other thing that having all of these data points does. It doesn't just help you problem solve. When you have a problem, it actually helps you avoid a problem. Because when you start doing this the right way, you attack it at the gate out, right? Oh well, that truck didn't gate out at the right time. It gated out late. Or that truck gated in late. We got to get it to a door. We've got to prioritize that over the other trucks because we need that inventory. You can start making those decisions, but you have to have all of that information. It's not just about eta.
- [27:55]
C
Yep. Well, one of the decisions I think Kim touched on in her last response, Shannon, you know, how does rate links identify when something should shift between parcel and ltl and truckload as an example? Your thoughts, Shannon?
- [28:09]
A
Yeah, and again, just having all the right information, you know, we have a lot of customers that are able to supply that data to us. So they're through the tms, they're able to to shop between them all and make sure they're picking the right carrier that will get it there on time. Because you know, what's interesting is you think about on the LTL side, a pallet of stuff. You know, if it's nicely boxed, you can fit a lot of boxes on a pallet. So from an LTL perspective, one pallet of goods is a lot of boxes. Whereas if you're going parcel, you could ship that parcel. But that's a lot of boxes. You know, imagine the parcel guy showing up. So we do, we do have a customer who will ship a 500 box shipment via FedEx for real. But they do it for a reason. And the reason is the handling. Because of where they're delivering to, you cannot get a pallet in there. But then on the flip side, I've got customers who will cap it at like 20 packages. I'll only go parcel at 20 packages or less because of the handling, not only in their warehouse but on the delivery side. So they're taking that cost into account. So yeah, LTL is a little more expensive, still going to have the right transit time to get it there. But from a handling perspective, it's going to be handled better through an LTL network all together. It's going to be shrink wrapped when it gets to the delivery point, it's going to get unloaded the right way, all that stuff. So that's where again, taking all of those accounts, this isn't just a freight cost exercise. There's a lot of other factors that go into it. And, and that's where we've done that, where we've had to look at those other factors and incorporate them into the decision making. So now you think about on your measuring side, are you doing the same measurement or are you just like, oh my God, why did this go ltl? It should have gone parcel or why did this go parcel, should have gone ltl? You got to have all of those factors in play and you have to have that type of complexity. And that's the, that's the whole picture that we talk about. Everybody's a little different.
- [30:22]
C
Kim, I want to circle back based on what Shannon has shared, what both you and Shannon have shared thus far at about halfway point of today's show because there's lots of different reasons why organizations ride that struggle bus, right? Whether they're struggling to see the opportunities, identify them, act on them. And oftentimes it can be because a lack of the correct or targeted technology or lack of adoption of technology or maybe, maybe it's just near blind spot. But why do most organizations ride that struggle bus and fail to capture these opportunities that you and Shannon are talking about?
- [31:01]
D
Well, if I really knew the answer, I could officially retire. I don't know the real answer because I haven't figured it out. Like I'm like, why would you not pay attention to this? So here's my take on it. And all these years and working in supply chain, first and foremost, supply chain is almost always managed as an expense. And so it's at the bottom, it is not ever seen as being revenue generating, which I think is a mistake, especially in E commerce because supply chain is reven generating. And so it's managed as kind of like an afterthought. And people don't think about supply chain until they get the $100,000 surprise accessorial charges. And then they're like, oh my God, what's going on with this group over here? That we had no idea what these guys do, but evidently they're doing something that's going to cost us $100,000. So supply chain is almost never in the forefront until there's an issue. And I had hoped that Covid would change that, but we have definitely gone back to that.
- [31:58]
C
So it's like what you're saying is maybe seven steps forward since the old stone age days and now a couple steps back in some cases.
- [32:08]
D
In a lot of cases, during COVID the C suite was all about supply chain. Shannon, you probably saw this too. All of a sudden I'm getting phone calls from CFOs and CEOs and they're like, oh, and CMOs. I'm like, cheese and rice. When the marketing guy calls, you know, it's bad. And so, and then like during COVID like, I could not get off the phone with the C suite. Covid stopped. Things went back to normal. I have not talked to a C. I talked to maybe, you know, old clients who, you know, who, hey, we need your help. Can you come back in? But I'm back to talking to VPs and directors.
- [32:46]
C
Cycles, Cycles, you know, so what's clearly, though, folks, if you don't get help from a platform like Rate Links, get help somewhere. And if you want to kick the tires on Rate Links, I know Shannon and the team will be more than happy to take your questions, give you a demo, give you a sense of what you could save, what, how you could enhance your performance, all that stuff. Shannon welcomes those conversations when you bring it all together, right? Clean data, lane insights, carrier performance, mode optimization, and, and, and many other things that you and Kim both have talked about. What kind of impact you typically see with your customers.
- [33:20]
A
10, 15, 20% savings impact. But not only that, you see just streamline processes and, and I think it's just, you're going to see a lot of confidence, you know, with the, the challenge is always them seeing the data. But, you know, they could quickly go out to, you know, the warehouse and make a quick change that's going to leverage what they currently have in place. I mean, you know, we've had customers where they've looked at the data and it was just a small tweak they had to make. And all of a Sudden they're saving a million dollars. Same exact carriers, they just made a slight change to how they're processing it out there. Again, no RFPs were required. They didn't have to get new rates in place or anything like that. Or they see that it's a creep on a certain charge and they'll go work on that charge, whether it's talking with the carrier or getting the right carrier to handle that freight because of the type of freight it is and with the charge they have. So that's where you can make some pretty quick impacts. And I think that's the other thing is the time to value. Because you're not doing an rfp. You know, your typical three to six month slog through an rfp, you can get these things in a week or two. So that's where the time to value makes it well worth it. I think that's what holds a lot of people back is they don't understand the full scope of it. So they don't understand the return that they could possibly get. And I don't know how because they're not quite sure where it's all coming from. To me, freight, the one thing I learned getting into this industry was there's a. It's not logical all the time. You know, as an engineer, I came in and I thought I knew a lot of stuff and I realized I quickly knew nothing and I had to really learn about a lot of stuff. You know, just how, you know, like ltl how they deficit way. And I'm like, I don't understand. I just add air, just whatever up to. And they're like, yeah. I'm like, I don't get it. But you know, that's how it is. And it's like. So you think about that you could add a little bit more onto that pallet for free. And it's like, but again, is your ordering pattern the right way? We've had customers where they looked at the data and what they saw was that they had a customer that was ordering and they were shipping to them every day. And they talked to the customer like, hey, can we just ship to you on a Wednesday? And they're like, yeah, yeah, that's fine. We always wondered why'd you ship to us every day? So then they were able to and it. And so they were able to hold it to a Wednesday. And all of a sudden the customer they thought was the most profitable they ended up, you know, was not profitable because of the everyday shipments. They then flipped them to become profitable. So again, that's where pulling all this data together is so important.
- [36:12]
C
That's such a great anecdote there, Shannon. Ken will get you a response if you don't, you know, if it goes back for me to one of the other anecdotes that, that Shannon shared about a customer that, that ships all those boxes parcel.
- [36:26]
A
Right.
- [36:26]
C
But they knew why they did it. Right. And, and for that business without me not knowing much more to the story, it made sense for them unfortunately. And I know I've been there when I was in, in manufacturing sometimes we'd ship stuff just to get it out and we really wouldn't know why we were doing certain things. And kind of to Shannon's point, well, gosh, if I, if I had that option, we don't have to do it like we've done it for seven years. We send it to all you on Wednesday instead of every day of the week. Oh my gosh, it can game change your relationship just with that one customer and then you scale it across the enterprise. You're like, oh my gosh, we hit the lottery. Kim, react just to what Shannon shared there.
- [37:03]
D
You know, Shannon touched on something really specific which was confidence. And that when we can get this kind of data and people can rely on it and we can communicate that information to the rest of the organization, it helps the supply chain team build confidence. Because the truth is the supply chain is always under attack. Because when things go badly, supply chains, the first place we stop, right? This is where it happened, this is where the problem. And so supply chain is trying to problem solve and run their business and optimize all at the same time. So it can be very daunting. So be able to have all of this information together and have software that can help you make the right decision quickly is very valuable.
- [37:45]
C
Yep, I'm with you. Okay, so let's do this. You know, not long after we last got together, Shannon Valencourt we said, hey, let's run a quick poll. And we ran I think a flash poll around to members of our, our ecosystem here at supply Chain now asking what their biggest freight cost headaches were right now. And I'm going to show this up here. Look at this. So rise in freight costs came in at 48%. There were several dozen responses here. I think it was like a one day or maybe a two hour poll or something like that. So 48% too many manual processes came in at 15%. Lack of shipment visibility came at 15%. Here's that word again. Accessorial and billing issues came in at 15% and carrier performance communication came in at 4%. So, Shannon, first, any surprises? Just your observations on these responses.
- [38:42]
A
Well, what's interesting is it's, you know, rising freight costs, lack of shipment visibility. So only 15% were assessorial and billing issues. So the rising freight cost tells me they don't know the makeup of the freight. They're looking at total charge. And they're like, I don't know, total charges up. And it's like, well, why? And you know, what specific area is it up in? And they don't know that's why. That's just all lumped into rising freight costs.
- [39:11]
C
Kim, what's your reaction to this breakdown?
- [39:14]
D
I thought it was interesting that carrier performance and communication only came in at 4%, which is interesting to me because this used to be a big issue, right? Communicating with your carrier and managing their performance was horrendous. And it used to be a big, like I remember back in the day, I had a carrier I had a problem with and I had to make them the spec. We use faxes. They had to fax me back a signed receipt of the delivery orders because they were saying they weren't getting them right. So. So communication has gotten so much better that only 4% actually care about it. Right. When back in the day, that used to be the biggest issue. We were just joking when we started. Like Shannon and I remember when you couldn't track a package and if you did track the package, you had to pay for tracking. And so we've come such a long way. So that what really stuck out to me is that we at least have solved that problem, it looks like.
- [40:12]
C
Yeah. All right. And by the way, Shannon and Kim, beyond what y' all shared, you know, there's probably no end in sight. I think diesel fuel pricing, on average, I think it's $2 more than it was at this point last year. And. And you know, there's not any relief on in the short term horizon, so. So, you know, that's all the more reason I believe, Shannon and Kim, hey, why not take this step change opportunity based on the current book of business, the current customers, your current volumes, your current expenses, hey, you got a great opportunity here to find, I think as we put on the front end, Shannon, 5 to 15%. That dog will hunt. So, Shannon, let's do this. You know, folks out there know I love a good case study. I guess I'm just a big old nerd like that. So, Shannon, walk us through a real example where a shipper avoided a full rfp but still achieved meaningful, tangible savings.
- [41:08]
A
Probably a good one that we ran into was one customer where on the parcel side, they're looking at their metrics on, on their freight and they're noticing that their cost per pound is going up. And it was going up in, it was like, you know, middle of the year. So it wasn't around a rate change because, you know, that's immediately what you think. You're like, well, of course cost per pound goes up, there's a rate change, you know, January, it's like, no, this was just at an odd time of year. And so they're digging into it and they're, and they're looking at my zones haven't changed, my weight hasn't changed, my, my dimensional weight hasn't changed. You know, nothing's really changed. They're like, we don't understand what is going on. Why is our cost per pound going up? Once we started looking at the rest of the data, what we saw is that their LTL shipment counts have gone up, their parcel shipment counts have gone down. So what happened is there they moved a tier on their incentive discount with a parcel. So that's why their cost per pound went up. They lost part of their discount. And that was because you go back to the beginning, they had changed their whole distribution process. So they were trying to do fewer shipments that were bigger. That way they're going more LTL and truckload less parcel, you know, because again, the most expensive pound of every shipment is the first one. So you try to pay for that as fewer times as possible. And so what they were able to do was go back to the parcel carrier and change their incentive discounts to get back to where they were. So that was a quick, I think it took them like a week and they had that all corrected and fixed and it was like, you know, it was a pretty substantial number that they ended up saving on parcel millions of dollars for that. And it was just again, they had made this huge, you know, decision on changing how they're going to move freight. And you know, there's always a consequence. You know, there's a, there's a cause in action once you get into this level of complexity with freight that you got to look at everything and luckily they had the trends to see that. Oops, it's all of a sudden went up.
- [43:27]
C
Shannon, I'm going to ask you your biggest takeaway from that example. I know there's many others and I appreciate that you accumulate quite those examples over the last two decades. Plus, I'm Sure. But Kim, when you hear that, like for me, when I hear that, it's like take whatever opportunity, especially when you're talking about innovative technology, right. To examine the current state of the business. And all of us, it's part of us being human, I think we kind of assume certain things are locked in and we walk right past opportunities every day. And I'm not just picking on, I'm picking on all of us, including myself. We walk past so many opportunities. But what was your, what do you think is a big takeaway from the anecdote Shannon just shared with us, based
- [44:09]
D
on my own experience as well, is that an RFP is a one time event. Okay. So you go out, it's this big thing, they're always full of dog and pony shows. It's really hard to figure out what's going on. And they take months and months and months and months. And a lot of times you pay a consultant thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars to put this information together for you. And then once the RFP is done, it's done. That's it. You still have to manage your supply chain. You still have to manage that contract you just came up to. You still have to make sure the carrier is reaching those KPIs. So RFPs aren't really that valuable because it's just a one time search for a rate. It's not actually optimizing what you're doing on a daily basis. In all the examples that we have used today have been when a company introduced a new product, a new customer or a new carrier and something broke. Now if you had had visibility every single day, not just when you did your six month rfp, if you were optimizing every single day, you will catch those things because supply chain is living. It changes daily, it changes hourly. We can go from sunshine to a snowstorm. Supply chain completely screwed. That's the end of it. So this concept of we manage it once and we pay a lot of money to manage it once is dead. You have to manage it every day.
- [45:41]
C
Well said, Deacon of Data. You didn't have the Rolling Stones opening for you, Ken. That was great. So Shannon, from that anecdote you shared, or maybe in the broader sense because you've, you've got the luxury of having seen many, many companies, big, small, different sectors, all points in between, you try to tackle this thing. You know what's the biggest takeaway from that example or your experience, especially for those teams that are looking to do this themselves?
- [46:08]
A
Yeah, I mean, Kimberly, hit it right on the on the nose really, to me, the reason why I enjoy this industry and I like what I do is it's always changing. You do your one time rfp, you're doing it based on that point in time. That point in time means a lot of stuff. So based on what you're trying to accomplish that day, what you think your freight looks like. So now all of a sudden you roll those rates out, you fast forward three, six months down the line and manufacturing has decided to change how they're putting product together. All of a sudden now you go from product that has 10% plastic parts to maybe it's 40%. That just blew up. What you did on the RFP, everything changed. So you have to be measuring and monitoring this because as we've said to people, sometimes your freight characteristics change. You know, maybe I've got a big customer on the east coast and all of a sudden I've got a great sales guy who brings up somebody in the, in the west coast. Whoops, I didn't account for that when I was doing the RFP because I was more focused on the southeastern part of the country and I have my great carrier mix down there. And now I'm sending one of those guys out west and I'm like, what's going on here? So that's where I love it. There's, you know, we always used to joke back when I first started, you know, three sure things in life. You know, death, taxes and a ups rate change. Right. And, and I, and I still think that's true. But you know, there really is, you know, things in life that you can count on and it's that freight changes, man. There's, there's three sure things in life, probably death, taxes and, and just stuff changes.
- [47:55]
C
Yeah.
- [47:56]
A
And you've got to stay on top of it.
- [47:58]
C
Well said. Well said. And the Bears winning a Super bowl at least once a century. Shannon, that's it.
- [48:06]
A
So don't even.
- [48:08]
C
Only kidding. Not going to. Hey, I'm only kidding. As Atlanta Falcons fan, I've got no room to stand on. I get it. Only kidding. All right, so this has been a great, very practical, tangible, actionable discussion. So to that end. So Kim, for Tim teams out there just getting started, right. Maybe. Especially when it comes to applying innovative technology to how they ship, you know, to how they, how they boost their supply chain performance. I know we're in the golden age supply chain tech, but you'd be surprised, especially the companies I talk to all the time, we still have a lot of immaturity in industry. So Kim, what's one piece of advice you'd give to folks out there?
- [48:48]
D
Find software that makes your life easier. In supply chain, you have to use data. You have to use data. You cannot use anything else but data in supply chain. And here's the other reason. You want to use a software like rate links or any other type of software. When you can use data and you can shred and you can produce reports, you can now communicate back up the chain. And this is a big, you know, Scott, as you know, I'm a big proponent of this is supply chain not staying silent and siloed and that you're communicating back up the chain. So when you can get this data that we've been talking about here in these use cases and these examples that we've been talking about today, and you can go back to your marketing team or back to your merchandising team and say, hey, when you did this thing and you didn't tell me, this is what happened. This is how much it impacted the company. In the future, if you were telling me that we're going to have a release of specialized extra long golf clubs, that would be helpful because then I can make sure that we have the rates available for that over thing that we're going to be sending out. But again, I'm always trying to push supply chain people to communicate out. Don't just be the receiver. You have to proactively go out to the organization and tell them how it's working.
- [50:10]
C
That's right, Kim. That's a T shirtism. We got to make sure supply chain does not stay silent or siloed. It's a new T shirt coming to the SCN merch store.
- [50:20]
D
Stay silent.
- [50:20]
C
That's right. That's right. And by the way, I have a hard time, hard enough time swinging normal sized golf clubs. I don't want any extra large golf clubs. But Shannon, Shannon does not. Shannon swings them like the best and his sons do too. All right, so Shannon, if there's one thing, we got a bunch of shippers out there that are listing or they're watching, you're tuned in and they're fighting a good fight, right? They're trying like most like overwhelming majority of workforces, they want to show up, make an impact, make better decisions, you know, really deliver. What's the one thing that these good shippers gotta focus on? Especially if they want to see results quickly?
- [50:57]
A
You have to focus on your payment data. I think too many folks are are looking at the shipping data. They're not Looking at that, the freight payment data, which is what you're really paying and that's what you've got to really try to harness is that data. Because I see too many of these companies where they're just putting a total charge on a GL line for freight. That doesn't cut it anymore. You've got to have the freight payment data in all its glorious details laid out there and matched up with your shipment so that way you understand how that happened. You know, why did that happen? How did that happen? You know, we always talk about the three Ds, diagnose, develop deployment, you know, diagnose the problem. So when you develop the solution, it'll work. When it's deployed. Too many people are, you know, shoot, ready, aim, they deploy software and they're like, this is supposed to save me 20%. You know, put a TMS in, it's supposed to save me 20%. It's like, no, not if you're just going to automate the same decision making process that you're going through. It's just going to spend your money faster.
- [52:11]
C
And the great news, the great news out there for folks is, especially in this golden age supply chain tech, if you can avoid, as Kim was saying, the, the slick sales presentations and really dial it in on what you're looking to do, what, what success looks like, what you're looking for in a technology platform, and you're talking with quality providers that have been in industry for a long time, there are options. There's options to certainly elevate your performance and, and delight your customers like never before. And Shannon, I know that you invite those conversations, you invite all the folk, even the skeptics out there. Shannon, you, you're what, you love talking with all of them, one and all. Is that right, Shannon?
- [52:51]
A
I mean, I, I enjoy a great conversation.
- [52:54]
C
Yes, you do. Yes, you do. Yes, you do. All right, so folks, as we wrap up here today, a couple key takeaways that, that I've written down on my 12 pages of notes here today. At least we gotta identify cost leaks already in your network. That's such one of the biggest takeaways, folks. It's where you are, right? Finding solutions and finding big time opportunities where you already are using clean, unified data to uncover opportunities. You know, the deacon of data that's endorsed by Kim's position there, don't be silent and siloed. And then we can take action quickly without the need for a big old headache of an RFP that I think Kim or Shannon said it just Doing the RFP is one thing, then you got more work to do after you've done it. We don't have to do that. So take those two things to heart. And also, we've got some resources here. So first off, you got to be connecting or at least follow Shannon Valencourt and Kim Reuter on LinkedIn. I promise you, you'll be glad you did. Lots of opportunities and insights.
- [53:58]
A
There's.
- [53:59]
C
Secondly, Shannon challenged you. If you want to see how any of this works in your own network, reach out to him and the team. We'll drop a link. You can request a free saving snapshot from Rate Links. Takes a few minutes and it gives you highlights where you can reduce spend right away. So we're going to drop the link to the organization right there. And then lastly, Shannon, y' all have got another big conference coming up. Insight 2026 Y, hosted by Shannon and the Rate Links T team. How long you been doing this event, Shannon?
- [54:33]
A
This will be our third, really, fourth.
- [54:38]
C
Oh, my gosh.
- [54:39]
A
Year. I don't know.
- [54:41]
C
So feels like, like a decade or. Yeah, that's what feels.
- [54:44]
A
Yeah. I mean, it's hard to believe that we didn't do this because this one's going to be, I think, very more handson than, than the previous years. We're going to have breakout sessions. That way people can, can dig into how to do some of this stuff with the tools that they have in front of them. So I think it's going to be really worthwhile.
- [55:04]
C
I'm with you. I. I've enjoyed it when I've been out there.
- [55:06]
A
I can't.
- [55:07]
C
Y' all gotta be at least like, I don't know, 15 years doing it feels like it. But folks, coming up, October 13th, 14th in Scottsdale, Arizona. The agenda is gonna be published real soon because October is gonna be around the corner soon. And again, it's gonna be held in Scottsdale, Arizona, where I bet Shannon would welcome a nice round of golf with folks out there. Maybe between the sessions. We'll see. All right, so Shannon Valencourt, Kim Reuter. Kim, first off, want to thank you. I really enjoyed our collaboration over the years and I've seen you talking all sorts of different things when it comes to supply chain and entrepreneurship and E commerce, you name it. Really enjoyed your perspective as always. Thanks for joining us here today, Kim.
- [55:52]
D
Thank you for having me. I love being here.
- [55:54]
C
And Shannon Valencourt, once again, you're rocketing up the appearance charts. I've enjoyed our discussion since you and I sat down in Phoenix at a. Yeah, that's right. I think it was a Demska conference way back in the day.
- [56:10]
A
Yeah, way back when. It's when I first moved out here too.
- [56:14]
C
Right. And the rate links continues to innovate and grow and thrive. And Shannon, always a pleasure to connect with you. Thanks for being here.
- [56:23]
A
Oh, my pleasure. Thank you.
- [56:24]
C
But folks, you got homework. Shannon and Kim brought it today. Been there, done that perspective. You got to take one thing from today's very actionable conversation, put it into practice. These not words. That's how we're going to continue to get stuff done. And with all of that said, Scott Luton here on behalf of Supply Chain now team, do good, give forward, be the change that's needed. We'll see you next time right back here on Supply Chain Now. Thanks, everybody.
- [56:50]
B
Join the Supply Chain now community. For more Supply Chain perspectives, news and innovation, check out supply chain now.com subscribe to Supply Chain now on YouTube and follow and listen to Supply Chain now wherever you get your podcasts.