The top takeaway from the rocky events of the last couple of years is that freight forwarders — and all businesses, really — need to make risk mitigation a priority.
The industry does its best to make predictions, but the reality is that no one has a crystal ball. No one could have predicted the effects the COVID-19 pandemic would have on global supply chains, nor its many aftereffects. Businesses were forced to pivot at a moment’s notice, and in some cases, those that weren’t agile enough to adapt did not survive.
For modern freight forwarders, agility and risk mitigation mean doing away with manual, siloed processes in favor of digitalization and centralization. There are opportunities to do this in many areas of the business, such as digitalizing the freight allocation management process to efficiently compare allocations with consolidated booking data.
Forwarders should digitalize rates, prioritize gaining direct access to spot rates to compare best rate options, and ensure they have access to all schedules across modes to find the best routes and alternatives. And they should provide customers with online visibility using intuitive tools to monitor and track their shipments.