What should supply chain and logistics leaders stop doing — and what should they start doing instead? That’s the question at the heart of a special Talking Logistics series featuring insights from sponsors of our Logistics Leaders for T1D Cure team. We asked each contributor to identify one practice organizations need to leave behind, what they should do instead, and how technology and service providers can help accelerate the transition. The following commentary is from our Mile Marker Sponsor, Uber Freight.
Agility is one of logistics’ most common promises, and one of its least defined.
For years, the industry has equated agility with better visibility — the ability to flag disruptions as soon as they occur. But seeing a problem and solving it quickly are two different capabilities, and that is the gap where many networks get stuck.
To remain competitive over the next few years, supply chain leaders must move beyond the status quo. Here is what organizations need to leave behind, where they need to pivot, and how the right partners can accelerate that transition.
What to Stop Doing: Relying on Reactive, Disconnected Visibility
Supply chain teams need to stop treating visibility as a standalone solution.
Historically, supply chains relied on static databases to track fixed plans. While the industry’s transition to real-time data has given businesses the tools to see disruption as it happens, many networks are still running on a patchwork of disconnected solutions.
Visibility answers what is happening, but it doesn’t tell you what to do about it. Knowing a shipment is at risk doesn’t make it easier to shift modes, find capacity, or reroute freight. For organizations that rely on disconnected technology, providers, and manual workflows, every disruption simply adds another layer of complexity. If rerouting freight or changing carriers requires finding a new provider and creating additional handoffs, real-time visibility only gets a team so far.
What to Start Doing: Designing for Structural Agility
To build a supply chain that can compete, organizations need to start building agility directly into the structure of their networks, well before a disruption hits.
Real agility is structural, not reactive. It requires moving from a “patchwork” approach to a unified operating model. Shippers should prioritize network design that connects planning, optimization, and execution, allowing them to adapt when conditions change without having to rebuild their entire strategy.
This means asking the hard questions today: Can freight move between carriers without renegotiating contracts? Are alternate modes already built into execution? Is there a playbook for disruptions, or is the team starting from scratch every time a crisis occurs?
When agility is designed into a network, businesses can respond to market volatility — such as shifting cross-border regulations or tightening capacity — without compromising service or ballooning costs.
How Technology and Partners Help Accelerate the Transition
The bridge between insight and action is built through orchestration.
Technology and service providers should be helping shippers move beyond just identifying problems to automating the response. This requires three core pillars:
- Built-in decision intelligence: Instead of relying on manual, reactive firefighting, networks should use live data to automate decisions. Advanced optimization capabilities can apply a customer’s rules, rates, and shipment data to proactively identify cost-effective routing opportunities, including consolidation and mode conversion, before those opportunities pass.
- Flexible, pre-built capacity: Agility requires options that can be put into motion immediately. Forward-thinking businesses are shifting away from rigid, “set-it-and-forget-it” annual bid cycles. By partnering with real-time capacity aggregators, shippers can integrate alternate modes and carriers into their network ahead of time, ensuring they aren’t caught competing for spot-market capacity during a crisis.
- Network-wide coordination: Complex operations, such as cross-border logistics, require a partner who can manage the entire process, from automated customs documentation to carrier communication. By working with a single accountable partner who coordinates directly across the entire shipment route, businesses can reroute freight or secure capacity as conditions change, without rebuilding their execution process from scratch.
The Path Forward
Real agility comes down to a simple question: when conditions change, how quickly can your supply chain respond?
The businesses that come out ahead are those that have built the flexibility to respond into their networks. By evaluating whether your current operating model supports this level of flexibility — and partnering with an orchestrator who can connect insight with execution — you can stop firefighting and start building a foundation for stable, predictable operations.
Peter Rio is Vice President, Client Growth & Success, at Uber Freight.
Beyond Visibility: What Supply Chain Leaders Need to Stop Doing — and Start Doing
What should supply chain and logistics leaders stop doing — and what should they start doing instead? That’s the question at the heart of a special Talking Logistics series featuring insights from sponsors of our Logistics Leaders for T1D Cure team. We asked each contributor to identify one practice organizations need to leave behind, what they should do instead, and how technology and service providers can help accelerate the transition. The following commentary is from our Mile Marker Sponsor, Uber Freight.
Agility is one of logistics’ most common promises, and one of its least defined.
For years, the industry has equated agility with better visibility — the ability to flag disruptions as soon as they occur. But seeing a problem and solving it quickly are two different capabilities, and that is the gap where many networks get stuck.
To remain competitive over the next few years, supply chain leaders must move beyond the status quo. Here is what organizations need to leave behind, where they need to pivot, and how the right partners can accelerate that transition.
What to Stop Doing: Relying on Reactive, Disconnected Visibility
Supply chain teams need to stop treating visibility as a standalone solution.
Historically, supply chains relied on static databases to track fixed plans. While the industry’s transition to real-time data has given businesses the tools to see disruption as it happens, many networks are still running on a patchwork of disconnected solutions.
Visibility answers what is happening, but it doesn’t tell you what to do about it. Knowing a shipment is at risk doesn’t make it easier to shift modes, find capacity, or reroute freight. For organizations that rely on disconnected technology, providers, and manual workflows, every disruption simply adds another layer of complexity. If rerouting freight or changing carriers requires finding a new provider and creating additional handoffs, real-time visibility only gets a team so far.
What to Start Doing: Designing for Structural Agility
To build a supply chain that can compete, organizations need to start building agility directly into the structure of their networks, well before a disruption hits.
Real agility is structural, not reactive. It requires moving from a “patchwork” approach to a unified operating model. Shippers should prioritize network design that connects planning, optimization, and execution, allowing them to adapt when conditions change without having to rebuild their entire strategy.
This means asking the hard questions today: Can freight move between carriers without renegotiating contracts? Are alternate modes already built into execution? Is there a playbook for disruptions, or is the team starting from scratch every time a crisis occurs?
When agility is designed into a network, businesses can respond to market volatility — such as shifting cross-border regulations or tightening capacity — without compromising service or ballooning costs.
How Technology and Partners Help Accelerate the Transition
The bridge between insight and action is built through orchestration.
Technology and service providers should be helping shippers move beyond just identifying problems to automating the response. This requires three core pillars:
The Path Forward
Real agility comes down to a simple question: when conditions change, how quickly can your supply chain respond?
The businesses that come out ahead are those that have built the flexibility to respond into their networks. By evaluating whether your current operating model supports this level of flexibility — and partnering with an orchestrator who can connect insight with execution — you can stop firefighting and start building a foundation for stable, predictable operations.
Peter Rio is Vice President, Client Growth & Success, at Uber Freight.
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