Chakravyuh mein phasna (चक्रव्यूह में फँसना).
A phrase from Indian mythology meaning "trapped in a maze." It symbolizes feeling stuck in a cycle and drained from navigating endless challenges or transitions.
The relentless stream of geopolitical events and global pandemics in recent years have ‘trapped’ procurement specialists inside a hypothetical maze, with many feeling worn out from consistently adapting, renegotiating budgets, and justifying delays in transit times and price increases to customers and an ever-growing number of c-suite executives.
Not only have internal stakeholders expanded to include representatives from sustainability, IT, and risk management departments, organizations are also growing their supplier networks to mitigate risks associated with single-source suppliers.
Diversified networks and ongoing market volatility make for complex supply chains – which adds additional pressure to already time-poor professionals.
With market volatility showing no signs of slowing down, how will you avoid total procurement burnout?
Procurement – a core driver of strategic value
If 2024 taught us anything, it’s that there’s no escaping the maze. The geopolitical space is too fragile, supply chains too interconnected and complex, and freight rates too susceptible to volatility.
What you can do is give yourself a ‘bird’s eye view’ of the challenges ahead.
Without this view, you will continue to operate in a reactive state. And truth be told, the only people that benefit from shippers having access to limited, unreliable, or outdated data are the carriers.
The more you know about your business, the more you will know about your customers. Combine that information with the market intelligence and benchmarking abilities offered at Xeneta and you will move yourself back into the driving seat going into contract negotiations this tender season.
Investing in full visibility into your supply chain means investing in a holistic, data-driven approach to freight procurement and tendering. It means gaining clarity over procurement decisions and alleviating a significant amount of pressure when it comes to internal alignment, cost savings and schedule reliability.
And this is when procurement specialists really step into their own.
Hunker down, or grow – which will it be?
If we continue with the analogy of a maze, Xeneta is the bird’s eye view you’re missing.
Xeneta’s data offers insights into the offered and blanked market capacity across the largest global trade corridors, rate movements in relation to carrier rates, market rates and rates from your own suppliers, schedule reliability data for ports and carriers, and a detailed breakdown of fuel, congestion, and peak season surcharges on the largest global trade lanes.
All in a single platform for a 360 view of your key trade lanes.
With the ocean freight market suspended in an unpredictable state, reserving 2025 budget to invest in greater freight data transparency could be the difference between a year ‘hunkering down’, or a year of growth.
Here’s why:
500 million datapoints – strength in numbers
Without real-time market data at your procurement team’s disposal, chances are, they’re negotiating with blind spots. There's only so much internal knowledge can provide, and your people and margins should be given the best chance to hit and exceed company targets.
How can you do this?
Drawing actionable insights from 500M+ ocean freight rates is an essential way to start.
Xeneta's crowdsourced market data (contracted rates from BCOs & FFs) represents $60B+ in freight spend and over 500M+ real-time ocean freight rates to peer benchmark your bids against, at a multi-lane level with speed and accuracy.
Shippers using Xeneta have secured as much as a 30% rate reduction on a single trade lane, equating to $1.5M in annualized savings. The average reduction in annual freight spend sits at 6.5% for Xeneta customers.
Freight Forwarders using Xeneta improve tender win-rates by ~10% on average, while simultaneously strengthening relationships with customers and suppliers.
More importantly, you remove the risk of:
- Wasting time chasing freight prices that no longer exist
- Incorrect cargo levels being advertised leading to unnecessary frontloading on the spot market—increasing rates for both short- and long-term contracts
- Less bargaining power in tender conversations
- Unexpected transportation costs (rerouting, port congestion, shipment delays, surcharges, etc.) that eat into your bottom line
- Not having the data you need to justify these extra costs to senior management
Looking beyond historical data
Relying predominately on historic tender performance for current tenders can be problematic.
No two trades are alike, and with significant rate variations across different trades in 2024, what’s acceptable for one route may be unreasonable for another. Shippers and freight forwarders need to reassess each trade individually and use fresh, reliable data to make strategic decisions before committing to long-term contracts or committing to frontload goods on short-term rates.
For those looking further ahead for answers, the Ocean Market Rate Outlook feature has been developed with you in mind. Its purpose is to offer a future outlook for the ocean freight market, underpinned by machine learning, expert analysis, and insights from the community.
Xeneta’s distinct approach draws on extensive historical market rate data, along with operational and macroeconomic indicators to explain the market development provided in the outlook.
Internal alignment
Due to the reliance on non-domestic manufacturing, supply chains are significantly more susceptible to the knock-on effects caused by global events. And because these events cause long-term disruptions to shipments – at great expense to shippers, LSPs, businesses and consumers – costs associated with shipping are more regularly making headlines and drawing interest from a wider panel of senior executives.
As costs increase and internal stakeholder pressure mounts, justifying additional procurement spend or the competitiveness of your freight spend becomes an uphill struggle.
The Peer Comparison feature gives Xeneta customers a clear understanding of their position in their industry in a visually appealing format, allowing for much easier reporting and internal alignment with senior decision makers.
It’s also important to remember that news outlooks tend to focus on popular trade routes, or those with the most public interest at time of broadcast. While this gives your stakeholders indicative data on market movements, it often ignores the nuances of the situation, or the knock-on effect to other parts of the supply chain.
Xeneta fill this gap by giving you full access to the data not readily available in the market, and drawing intelligence from this data to streamline market analysis. Not only does this save you time, the added transparency can also address stakeholder concerns and help you act on data-backed decisions at the right time for your goods.
Prepare for a rocky start to 2025
Unlike the Red Sea, negotiations between the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) and the US Maritime Alliance (USMX), Trump-associated tariffs, the impending Gemini and the Premier alliances, and Chinese Lunar New Year are events that shippers can prepare for.
Because every supply chain is unique, the thing that’s less easy to plan for is the ripple effects caused by industry responses to these disruptions, and how new disruptions can compound the effects of long-standing events on your operations.
These blind spots can keep shippers on the backfoot during 2025 tender negotiations, and when the impact is finally made public, it will be too late to move into an advantageous position.
Procurement professionals should be prepared to walk into a market that needs immediate, and constant, monitoring. And part of this preparation is investing in real-time freight intelligence that streamlines the information that matters most to you. Without this critical step, you risk ‘chakravyuh mein phasna’ – getting stuck in a relentlessly reactive cycle. Which is an unnecessary and exhausting position for any procurement specialist or team to find themselves in.
Get back in the driver’s seat with the ‘2025 Ocean Freight Outlook: Navigating Capacity Shifts and Rate Dynamics’ webinar, recorded November 12th, 2024. Over 30mins, Peter Sand and Emily Stausbøll address the key geopolitical and regional disputes shippers should plan for in 2025, and steps you can take to mitigate risk.
Short on time? Download a copy of the 2025 Ocean Outlook report here.
