When facing supply chain challenges like new tariffs or LTL pricing structure changes, what’s your plan?

In this week’s Two Minute Warning, we look at what’s happening in different freight markets and ask a very simple question: what’s your plan?

Recently I had a great conversation with a friend who is the CEO of a large company about things that could affect their company's freight costs and supply chain in 2025. We covered a number of topics such as:

• The imposition of tariffs. On Monday it was announced that the 25% tariffs for Canada and Mexico would be suspended for the next 30 days to give governments the chance to work things out, while the 10% tariffs on China moved forward on Tuesday.
• Truckload capacity is leaving the market. Even though demand is still relatively soft, with capacity leaving the market, contract rates are rising.
• Turmoil in the parcel markets with UPS and the USPS.  Due to the changes with SurePost, we're seeing massive increases.
• The upcoming NMFC changes to freight classification. An initial list of products that will be in scope was released in late January within Docket 2025-1 and the NMFTA will be holding a public meeting on March 3 in Florida as the next step.

After discussing all these topics, I decided to ask him a challenging question: “Could I see a copy of your strategic supply chain plan for navigating issues like these?” As expected, he acknowledged that his company doesn’t have a plan.

I told him, “Take heart, you’re not alone!” A lot of companies that we’ve talked with, despite telling us how important their supply chains are and how important logistics has become to the success of their company, don’t have a written plan for addressing supply chain developments.

This presents an opportunity for shippers: you can get ahead of the pack by simply developing plans. There are a lot of different options for doing this, and at TranzAct, we have some great resources and tools to help.

One tool we want to highlight this week is our LTL Strategic Assessment. With NMFC changes on the way, we can help you develop a plan to keep your LTL costs as low as possible. Learn how your practices and processes drive your costs, enabling you to possibly reduce your costs even if your rates go up. Simply sign up here and we’ll reach out with more detailed information about what this involves and next steps.

If you’re interested in talking about other areas of logistics management such as how to develop a strategic plan, give us a call, send me an email or schedule a time to meet.

BY MIKE REGAN, CO-FOUNDER OF TRANZACT

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