Published October 2016

Sponsored by:

Written By:

Eric JohnsonResearch Director American Shipper

Data Analysis By:

Zach ColeData Analyst American Shipper

A Clear View of Supply ChainVisibility Benchmark Study

Inaugural Edition

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For years American Shipper has gauged the international transportation

market on its attitudes toward supply chain visibility, but the issue has always

been a tangential one to broader disciplines that we have examined.

At some point, it became incumbent on us to delve deeper into visibility as its

own discipline, because supply chain visibility has clearly moved from the

realm of luxury to necessity for most multinational shippers. Chalk it up to the

way parcel companies provide detailed visibility milestones for the smallest

and lowest of value packages. Or to the sheer volume of sensors, tracking

devices, GPS signals, and other data feeds now available.

The market expects to have visibility into the movement of its goods, and it

expects that visibility to be complete, accurate, and real time. And if we’re

talking true supply chain visibility, those expectations can extend upstream,

from before goods have even become freight, and downstream from the

distribution center to a store shelf or customer.

But visibility is far from a perfect science. Both quantitatively and qualitatively,

we have been told that major gaps exist in transportation visibility. And

visibility deteriorates when you move into other areas of a global importer or

exporter’s operations, like customs compliance, production, or movement of

raw materials.

This is American Shipper’s inaugural look into visibility as its own function, and

our findings were quite interesting. For one, the perspective of respondents

that use an outsourced means of visibility doesn’t drastically differ from those

that have used a proprietary system or those using their carriers’ track and

trace tools. Which suggests that some form of visibility is better than none,

and that the real dividing line is not necessarily how a company gets visibility,

but that it simply endeavors do so.

This report is based on responses to a 22-question survey from 229 shippers

and logistics services providers (characterized in this report as 3PLs for

simplicity’s sake). Respondents were polled from Aug. 8 through Sept. 26,

2016, and asked about their perspectives on supply chain visibility from a

strategic and technological basis.

Since visibility can mean so many things to so many people, we should note

that this report is primarily concerned with inbound freight transportation

visibility—that is, the movement of goods from an origin production facility or

distribution center, to the receiving DC or warehouse. This report does also

touch on the ancillary elements of transportation visibility.

Executive Summary

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Shipper Visibility Strategy

The State of Visibility

Visibility is not seen by shippers purely as a means to reduce freight costs, and

this is important. Visibility is most often seen as a way to build a company’s

supply chain agility. That is, a way to understand when something is about to

go wrong in order to pivot. That might mean shifting to a new route, use of a

different mode, or instigating a replacement shipment. A quarter of respondents

said visibility’s biggest benefit is to reduce the risk to their supply chains.

In terms of what visibility milestones are important to shippers, nearly two

thirds of respondents track five or more visibility milestones, but 72 percent say

no more than five milestones are critical. That means shippers are tracking a lot

of uncritical milestones.

What’s more, in terms of container visibility, respondents identified three key

milestones—the point at which the vessel departs the origin port or arrives at

the destination port, or when the container is discharged from the arrival

terminal. These are the key milestones that set other wheels in motion for

global shippers.

Meanwhile, more than half of respondents see visibility as only a monitoring

tool, not a decision-making tool. That dovetails with what with other data in this

year’s report suggested that visibility and execution are often seen as distinct

functions.

In terms of how shippers define visibility, the percentage of respondents this

year who defined visibility as purely track and trace more than halved from

when we asked this question in 2013, while the percentage of respondents

who believe business intelligence and analytics were part of visibility increased

more than tenfold. Almost three-quarters of respondents now define visibility

as at least giving them an end-to-end view of their supply chains.

There really is no one visibility platform that predominates. Only 11 percent of

respondents use a visibility tool tied to their TMS (again reinforcing the findings

in Figs. 3 and 5, while fewer than one in five respondents are using a

standalone tool from a software provider. If anything, the most common

method of visibility is the use of carriers’ track and trace tools.

Little surprise that global, and secondarily, domestic transportation modes are

the areas most illuminated by visibility. Also little surprise that one in two

respondents cited inventory as one where visibility provides key data.

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How 3PLs View Visibility

It’s encouraging to see that a healthy proportion of respondents are also

getting visibility into the financial and compliance-oriented parts of their supply

chain. Visibility is often thought of as a tool to track freight transportation, but

it can be so much more than that if a company structures its processes to be

tracked. That’s especially true if visibility is tracked from production to

compliance to transportation to finance in a single flow.

This benchmark study confirms what American Shipper has heard anecdotally

for years, that for shippers and 3PLs alike, container terminals are largely black

holes of information, while drayage and rail can also be problematic.

According to their responses, visibility is worst in modes where consolidation

takes place (LCL and LTL) and best in modes where a shipper is moving a full

container or truck.

While in theory this makes sense—the fewer individual shipments, shippers,

and service providers tied to a move, the more straightforward it is—the reality

is that LCL and LTL are key parts of many shippers’ strategies and visibility

must improve in those areas. It’s incumbent upon visibility software companies

and service providers in those modes to make shippers’ visibility performance

standard across modes.

More than half of 3PL respondents have built their own visibility tool, likely

seeing them as differentiating tools in fragmented and competitive

marketplace. Another 30 percent use visibility software from a third party, and

while this has traditionally been handled via white label arrangements, it’s

becoming more common for 3PLs to use promote their use of certain software

brands as a way to win customers.

Shippers now expect 3PLs to give them visibility (if they want it), and the

scope of what they expect grows daily. Yet two-thirds of 3PLs have moderate

to no understanding of what it costs them to provide visibility, while the vast

majority of 3PLs have to bundle visibility into a larger basket of services to

their customers.

To emphasize this point, most 3PLs don’t have a total cost picture of what it

cost to provide visibility, while few can even price that service separately as a

line item. This creates huge cost uncertainty for logistics providers, and as

visibility expectations grow, it seems plausible to think cost uncertainty will

grow along with it.

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Table of ContentsExecutive Summary ................................................................................................................................................................................. ii

Section I: Introduction .............................................................................................................................................................................. 3

Section II. Shipper Visibility Strategy ...................................................................................................................................................... 4

Section III. The State of Visibility ........................................................................................................................................................... 10

Section IV. How 3PLs View Visibility ...................................................................................................................................................... 15

Section V. Takeaways ............................................................................................................................................................................. 18

Appendix A: Demographics .................................................................................................................................................................... 19

Appendix B: About Our Sponsors .......................................................................................................................................................... 20

> Amber Road ....................................................................................................................................................................................... 20

> Trax Technologies .............................................................................................................................................................................. 20

Appendix C: About American Shipper Research ................................................................................................................................... 21

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FiguresFigure 1: Biggest Benefit of Supply Chain Visibility .................................................................................................................................... 4

Figure 2: Most Shippers are Tracking Too Many Milestones ...................................................................................................................... 5

Figure 3: Visibility Tool Allows Changes to Transportation Plans ................................................................................................................ 6

Figure 4: Is Visibility an Orchestration Tool? .............................................................................................................................................. 7

Figure 5: Is Visibility a Monitoring or Decision-making Tool? ..................................................................................................................... 7

Figure 6: Definition of Visibility .................................................................................................................................................................. 8

Figure 7: Many Shippers Aren’t Able to Quantify the Value of Visibility ....................................................................................................... 9

Figure 8: Visibility Platform—Shippers ................................................................................................................................................... 10

Figure 9: What Systems Feed into Visibility ............................................................................................................................................. 10

Figure 10: Areas of Current System-enabled Visibility ............................................................................................................................. 11

Figure 11: Transportation Visibility Blind Spots ........................................................................................................................................ 12

Figure 12: Modes Where Visibility is Best and Worst—Shippers ............................................................................................................. 13

Figure 13: Data Robustness from Visibility Provider ................................................................................................................................ 14

Figure 14: Visibility Latency Level ........................................................................................................................................................... 14

Figure 15: Visibility platform—3PLs ....................................................................................................................................................... 15

Figure 16: Is Visibility a Core Service Offering to Shippers? .................................................................................................................... 15

Figure 17: 3PLs Have a Visibility Pricing Problem .................................................................................................................................... 16

Figure 18: Business Lost Due to Visibility Offering? ................................................................................................................................. 17

Figure 19: Modes Where Visibility is Best and Worst—3PLs ................................................................................................................... 17

Figure 20: Industry Segments ................................................................................................................................................................. 19

Figure 21: Company Size ........................................................................................................................................................................ 19

Figure 22: Job Titles Surveyed ................................................................................................................................................................ 19

Secti

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Section I: Introduction

For years American Shipper has gauged the international transportation market

on its attitudes toward supply chain visibility, but the issue has always been a

tangential one to broader disciplines that we have examined.

At some point, it became incumbent on us to delve deeper into visibility as its

own discipline, because supply chain visibility has clearly moved from the realm

of luxury to necessity for most multinational shippers. Chalk it up to the way

parcel companies provide detailed visibility milestones for the smallest and

lowest of value packages. Or to the sheer volume of sensors, tracking devices,

GPS signals, and other data feeds now available.

The market expects to have visibility into the movement of its goods, and it

expects that visibility to be complete, accurate, and real time. And if we’re talking

true supply chain visibility, those expectations can extend upstream, from before

goods have even become freight, and downstream from the distribution center to

a store shelf or customer.

But visibility is far from a perfect science. Both quantitatively and qualitatively, we

have been told that major gaps exist in transportation visibility. And visibility

deteriorates when you move into other areas of a global importer or exporter’s

operations, like customs compliance, production, or movement of raw materials.

This is American Shipper ’s inaugural look into visibility as its own function, and

our findings were quite interesting. For one, the perspective of respondents that

use an outsourced means of visibility doesn’t drastically differ from those that

have used a proprietary system or those using their carriers’ track and trace

tools. Which suggests that some form of visibility is better than none, and that

the real dividing line is not necessarily how a company gets visibility, but that it

simply endeavors do so.

This report is based on responses to a 22-question survey from 229 shippers and

logistics services providers (characterized in this report as 3PLs for simplicity’s

sake). Respondents were polled from Aug. 8 through Sept. 26, 2016, and asked

about their perspectives on supply chain visibility from a strategic and

technological basis.

Since visibility can mean so many things to so many people, we should note that

this report is primarily concerned with inbound freight transportation visibility—

that is, the movement of goods from an origin production facility or distribution

center, to the receiving DC or warehouse. This report does also touch on the

ancillary elements of transportation visibility. As a starting point, readers of this

report may want to directly refer to Fig. 6, where we discuss respondents’

definition of visibility.

Supply chain visibility has clearly moved from the realm of luxury to necessity for most multinational shippers

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Section II. Shipper Visibility Strategy

No company will invest in something that doesn’t provide it value, and so a

natural starting point for this new benchmark study on visibility was to

understand what the biggest benefits of this capability might be. As Fig. 1 shows,

visibility is not seen by shippers as a means to reduce freight costs, and this is

important. Visibility is most often seen as a way to build a company’s supply

chain agility. That is, a way to understand when something is about to go wrong

in order to pivot. That might mean shifting to a new route, use of a different

mode, or instigating a replacement shipment. A quarter of respondents said

visibility’s biggest benefit is to reduce the risk to their supply chains.

Slightly surprising is that inventory reduction is not seen as a major benefit of

visibility. We have often heard that having a complete picture of in-transit goods

helps a company better manage its inventory.

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

UncertainInventoryreduction

Transportationcost reduction

Supply chainrisk reduction

Supply chainagility

38%

26%

16%13%

7%

Shippers do not see visibilty as a tool for cost reduction

Figure 1: Biggest Benefit of Supply Chain Visibility

97 total respondents

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One of the most important facets of global supply chain visibility is knowing just

what needs to be tracked. This is an issue that affects both service providers,

and the users of visibility. Simply put, a shipper needs to know how many

milestones should be tracked and which ones are absolutely vital. Also

important is not tracking too many milestones, something that afflicts 3PLs and

visibility software providers alike. A visibility tool can create voluminous amounts

of data, and for the tool to create actionable intelligence, the data needs to be

curated. Key milestones generally act as triggers to other downstream supply

chain processes.

Fig. 2 shows that 63 percent of respondents track five or more visibility

milestones, but 72 percent say no more than five milestones are critical.

That means shippers are tracking a lot of uncritical milestones.

What’s more, in terms of container visibility, respondents identified three key

milestones—the point at which the vessel departs the origin port or arrives at the

destination port, or when the container is discharged from the arrival terminal.

These are the key milestones that set other wheels in motion for global shippers.

Container discharge from destination terminal

The 3 Most Critical Transportation Visibility Milestones

63% are tracking more than 5 milestones ...but most shippers have 5 or fewer milestones that they feel are critical.

46%

17%

9%

Fewer than 5

5-10

More than 10

Uncertain

1 (0)

2

3

4

5

6 to 10

More than 10

Uncertain

29%16%

18%

12%26%

9%

7%

13%

Ship departed from origin port

Ship arrived at destination port

Figure 2: Most Shippers are Tracking Too Many Milestones

90 total respondents

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Some visibility tools are part of a transportation execution system, so there’s a

seamless connection between events tracked and plans being executed. Or

alternatively, when an issue arises, an integrated visibility system can trigger a

change in transportation plans.

But often, a visibility tool is a separate layer in a shipper’s basket of

transportation systems. The question is whether the information generated in that

visibility layer merely informs the user, or can be put into action in a separate

transportation execution system.

In Fig. 3, we see that half of respondents have visibility capability but no execution capability, while another 26 percent have both a visibility tool and TMS, but little connectivity between the two.

This scattershot approach to the undeniable ties between visibility and

transportation execution is problematic if companies are managing transportation

on their own. Our analysis is that

many of the companies indicating

they have visibility capability but no

internal execution system are

getting track and trace data from

their service providers (3PLs or

carriers). Whether those service

providers have an integrated

approach to visibility and execution

is hard to know from our research

this year, but will be a point of

emphasis in next year’s study.

Figure 3: Visibility Tool Allows Changes to Transportation Plans

13%Our visibility tool is integrated with our TMS or other execution tool

Our visibility tool is not integrated with our TMS or other execution tool

Our visibility tool is part of the same system as our execution tool

We have a visibility tool but no execution tool12%

26%49%

90 total respondents

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One thing that’s nearly certain is

shippers largely see visibility as a tool

to orchestrate their supply chain.

Having a visual picture of in-transit

cargo provides benefits both tangible

and intangible, but this seems more to

be about what supply chain were

without visibility than what they are

with them. Without a solid

understanding of global cargo

movement, shippers were making

decisions in the dark. With even some

of the lights on, shippers can start to

manipulate their supply chains in

small, but important ways.

Which leads to a key distinction when it comes to visibility: do shippers see it as

a tool help them monitor their supply chains, or one that influences decisions

about those supply chains? This might seem like nuance, but there’s a big

difference. People at home watching the status of a flight in transit through a

flight-tracking website are monitoring. Yes, the information from that tracking

exercise might influence a decision (if the flight is delayed, they’d know to pick up

their loved ones an hour later). But think about the role of air traffic controllers in

comparison. They are monitoring that same flight’s path, but can also directly

impact the course of that flight if there’s potential weather ahead or if the gate at

the arrival airport is tied up.

Supply chains that use visibility for

monitoring are like the folks at

home, while those using visibility

to affect in-transit cargo are like

air traffic controllers. That said,

more than half of respondents see

visibility as only a monitoring tool.

This dovetails with what we

uncovered in Fig. 3, where

visibility and execution are often

seen as distinct functions.

Figure 4: Is Visibility an Orchestration Tool?

Yes

No 

Uncertain

8%

75%

17%

89 total respondents

Figure 5: Is Visibility a Monitoring or Decision-making Tool?

Monitoring

Decision-making

Uncertain

5%

56%39%

97 total respondents

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In American Shipper’s 2013 Global Transportation Management Benchmark

Study, respondents were asked to define what visibility meant to them, and their

answers fell largely into four categories. In this initial study into visibility, we

returned to this theme, and Fig. 6 shows just how far the market has matured in

its expectations of visibility.

Most notably, the percentage of respondents this year who said visibility is purely

track and trace more than halved, while the percentage of respondents who

believe business intelligence and analytics were part of visibility increased more

than tenfold.

Almost three-quarters of respondents now define visibility as at least giving them an end-to-end view of their supply chains.

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

All of the above withbusiness intelligenceand analytics tools

True end-to-endsupply chain view

Simple trackand trace

Shipment Details

6%

22%25%

21%

2016

201348%

26%

4%

47%

The way the market views visibility has changed significantly in 3 years

Figure 6: Definition of Visibility

94 total respondents

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Only half of respondents say they can quantify, in dollar terms, the value of

visibility. This is a major hurdle in terms of securing internal investment for

visibility improvements. But it also highlights the need for visibility providers,

be it 3PLs or software companies, to delineate this value in ROI terms, not

abstract terms.

Figure 7: Many Shippers Aren’t Able to Quantify the Value of Visibility

94 total respondents

Visibility provides ROI, and the value is quantifiable in dollar terms:

Agree Disagree Neutral/ uncertain

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Section III. The State of Visibility

Visibility can be delivered to shippers in a variety of ways, and Fig. 8 underscores

this. There really is no one platform that predominates. Only 11 percent use a

visibility tool tied to their TMS (again reinforcing the findings in Figs. 3 and 5),

while fewer than one in five respondents are using a standalone tool from a

software provider. If anything, the most common method of visibility is the use

of carriers’ track and trace tools.

Depending on the breadth of a shipper’s

network and the number of carriers it

uses, that’s not necessarily the most

efficient way to capture visibility.

Tracking shipments through multiple

carrier portals creates problems of

unevenness (one carrier may track a

certain milestone while another doesn’t)

and data structure (those milestones all

exist in their own world unless the

shipper is applying some technology that

homogenizes data from each carrier

track and trace portal, which seems

unlikely in most cases).

“Data in” and “data out” are two incredibly important elements of any visibility

initiative. And Fig. 9 shows the variety of systems that feed into a shipper’s

supply chain visibility. Of note, more than 20 percent of shippers say they have

no visibility capability. Clearly, ERPs are the most common system that feeds

visibility tools, but shippers use a variety of other internal tools to provide

visibility. In other words, visibility is not just about internalizing outside data

feeds. It’s about matching that external data with critical shipment information

to create a picture of in-transit goods.

Figure 8: Visibility Platform—Shippers

39%

11%

13% 19%

7%

5%Standalone system from software provider

Through my TMS

Use carriers' track and trace tools

Proprietary visibility system developed in-house

Provided by 3PL(s)

Don't Have a Visibility System

97 total respondents

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50%

Global Trade Management System (GTM)

Global Transportation Management System 

Don't Have a Visibility System

Warehouse Management System (WMS)

Domestic Transportation Management System (TMS)

Ocean Booking Portal

Inventory Management System

ERP 43%

29%

28%

28%

26%

22%

22%

12%

Figure 9: What Systems Feed into Visibility

135 total respondents

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While Fig. 9 addresses the internal areas where systems feed into visibility, Fig.

10 highlights the “data out” component. Namely, the functions in which visibility

provides information. Little surprise that global, and secondarily, domestic

transportation modes are the areas most illuminated by visibility. Also little

surprise that one in two respondents cited inventory as one where visibility

provides key data.

It’s encouraging to see that a healthy proportion of respondents are also getting

visibility into the financial and compliance-oriented parts of their supply chain.

Visibility is often thought of as a tool to track freight transportation, but it can be

so much more than that if a company structures its processes to be tracked.

That’s especially true if visibility is tracked from production to compliance to

transportation to finance in a single flow.

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%

Final mile delivery

Sourcing

Trade compliance processes

Supply chain finance (payment of suppliers, logistics providers, carriers)

Inventory

Domestic transportation modes (truck, rail)

Global transportation modes (ocean, air) 73%

65%

49%

45%

32%

27%

12%

Figure 10: Areas of Current System-enabled Visibility

97 total respondents

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Visibility, in theory, provides a crystal clear view of a company’s supply chain, or

some aspect thereof. But in practice, nearly every company with visibility has one

or more blind spots—areas where it loses sight of in-transit shipments, or where

data accuracy is inconsistent.

Fig. 11 confirms what American Shipper has heard anecdotally for years, that for shippers and 3PLs alike, container terminals are largely black holes of information, while drayage and rail can also be problematic.

What’s interesting to note here is that 3PLs, almost across the board, have more

blind spots than shippers. That may purely be a function of the expectations

shippers place on their 3PLs to provide visibility. In other words, if shippers

expect their 3PLs or carriers to provide visibility, 3PLs will be more attuned to the

blind spots they need to illuminate to provide effective service to their customers.

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%

Airfreight

Truckload legs

Final mile

Rail legs

Less-than-truckload (LTL) legs

Drayage at destination

Port-to-port legs

Inside destination container terminals

Inside origin container terminals 44% 47%

Shippers

3PLs40% 53%

33%19%

31% 44%

29%24%

23% 38%

22% 29%

9% 15%

9%6%

Figure 11: Transportation Visibility Blind Spots

91 total respondents

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Meanwhile, Fig. 12 tells a clear story. Respondents were asked to identify the

best and worst transportation modes in terms of visibility. According to their

responses, visibility is worst in modes where consolidation takes place (LCL and

LTL) and best in modes where a shipper is moving a full container or truck.

While in theory this makes sense—the fewer individual shipments, shippers, and

service providers tied to a move, the more straightforward it is—the reality is that

LCL and LTL are key parts of many shippers’ strategies and visibility must

improve in those areas. It’s incumbent upon visibility software companies and

service providers in those modes to make shippers’ visibility performance

standard across modes.

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

LCLRail/intermodalLTLAirfreightTruckloadFCL

40%

14%

23%

7%

18%

7%12%

26%

4%

19%

3%

28%

Best

Worst

When cargo is consolidated, shippers lose visibility

Figure 12: Modes Where Visibility is Best and Worst—Shippers

91 total respondents

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On the whole, shippers find the data

robustness of their visibility providers to

be pretty sound. Three in five say their

data is satisfactory, but three in 10 say it

needs improvement, and hardly any

characterized their data as excellent. For

visibility to progress from necessity to

foundational supply chain element, data

robustness will need to continue to

improve. To that end, the data feeds that

support modern visibility tools are

improving daily, especially as more

physical infrastructure gets drawn into

the internet of things. Someday soon,

the key won’t be data robustness, but

the ability for shippers and their visibility

providers to effectively filter the data.

Part of the promise of visibility is a drive toward “real-time” information. That

means providing not just a close approximation of a shipment in-transit, but

real-time data that actually represents where a shipment is at any given time. In

any information system, latency is an issue. Sometimes, it’s not a major issue,

because the time lag between when something happens and when that event is

reflected in a system isn’t really crucial. But more and more, shippers want that

lag as close to zero so that if action needs to be taken based on information

uncovered by the visibility tool, it won’t be too late.

Fig. 14 shows that barely any shippers

get real-time visibility. The bulk of

respondents said there’s a moderate

amount of latency, and the guess here is

that this moderate amount is acceptable

to most users. But there are four times

as many shippers who say they

experience significant visibility latency as

those who say they have real-time

visibility.

This clearly has to change going forward.

Figure 13: Data Robustness from Visibility Provider

60%

Excellent

Satisfactory

Needs improvement

Uncertain

31%

4% 4%

90 total respondents

Figure 14: Visibility Latency Level

70%

No latency—the datacomes instantaneously

Moderate latency

Significant latency

Uncertain

17%

Only 6% of shippers have real-time visibility

8%6%

90 total respondents

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Section IV. How 3PLs View Visibility

American Shipper often compares the way 3PLs and shippers measure against

one another, but in the case of visibility, those comparisons can be a little less

useful. And that’s because 3PLs are not just consumers of visibility but providers

of it as well.

In fact, in Fig. 15 we see that more

than half of 3PL respondents have

built their own visibility tool, likely

seeing them as differentiating tools

in fragmented and competitive

marketplace. Another 30 percent

use visibility software from a third

party, and while this has traditionally

been handled via white label

arrangements, it’s becoming more

common for 3PLs to promote their

use of certain software brands as

a way to win customers.

Only 10 percent of 3PLs don’t offer some form of visibility tool.

Little surprise that the overwhelming

majority of 3PLs see visibility as a

service they must provide, and a

key part of what they do.

Figure 15: Visibility platform—3PLs

53%

We use a proprietary tool built in-house

We white label a visibility tool from a software provider

We don't offer a visibility tool

Uncertain

30%

13%4%

77 total respondents

Figure 16: Is Visibility a Core Service Offering to Shippers?

90%

Yes

No

Uncertain

6% 4%

78 total respondents

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For 3PLs, Fig. 17 addresses the most important aspect of visibility, because it gets

at a key problem they face in providing visibility to their customers. This speaks to

difficulty that 3PLs have in: a) figuring out what it costs them to provide visibility;

and b) whether they can charge customers for visibility.

These are huge considerations for 3PLs, especially as the expectations of shippers

grow. Shippers now expect 3PLs to give them visibility (if they want it), and the

scope of what they expect grows daily.

Fig. 17, however, shows that two-thirds of 3PLs have moderate to no understanding of what it costs them to provide visibility, while the vast majority of 3PLs have to bundle visibility into a larger basket of services to their customers.

To emphasize this point, most 3PLs don’t have a total picture of what it costs to

provide visibility, while few can even price that service separately as a line item. This

creates huge cost uncertainty for logistics providers, and as visibility expectations

grow, it seems plausible to think cost uncertainty will grow along with it.

Two-thirds of 3PLs don't know what it costs to provide visibility

Understanding of Cost-to-Serve in Terms of Visibility How is Visibility Priced?

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

Nounderstanding

Moderateunderstanding

Strongunderstanding

More than half aren’t able to price it separately from other services.

We price it separately for all customers

We price it separately for some

customers

It is bundled into a larger service package for all

customers

Uncertain0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

35%

12%

19%

61%

8%

49%

16%

Figure 17: 3PLs Have a Visibility Pricing Problem

74 total respondents

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Almost 38 percent of 3PLs say

they have lost business due to

their visibility offering, a sure

sign that shippers are using

visibility as a metric in choosing

between service providers.

Meanwhile, in contrast to the way shippers’ characterized visibility by mode in

Fig. 12, 3PLs see FCL and airfreight as the clear top modes for visibility, while

LCL and rail are the worst.

Figure 18: Business Lost Due to Visibility Offering?

Yes

No 

Uncertain

16%

38%

46%

74 total respondents

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

LCLRail/intermodalTruckloadLTLAirfreightFCL

51%

14%

29% 29%24%

Best

Worst

4% 4%

10% 10%

1%

7%

17%

Figure 19: Modes Where Visibility is Best and Worst—3PLs

71 total respondents

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Section V. Takeaways

Each American Shipper research initiative seeks to provide readers with

actionable recommendations. In the case of this report, the author suggests

that shippers:

1. Seek to harmonize their visibility data on a single platform. Disparate track

and trace efforts are useful to a degree, but are a drain on resources and

don’t allow companies to monitor their supply chains in a single view.

2. Move from seeing visibility as a monitoring tool to one that actively

influences decisions affecting in-transit cargo. The former is helpful, but the

latter is impactful.

3. Focus on crucial visibility milestones, and edit out milestones that don’t

trigger key downstream supply chain processes. It’s a waste for their

visibility providers or in-house teams to deliver, and it creates unnecessary

data to manage.

4. Endeavor to create real-time visibility, with zero latency.

5. Expand the edges of their visibility initiatives to include areas like trade

compliance, production, pre-production, and finance activities. The earlier a

shipper has insight into its pre-shipment activities, the better the data, and

more useful visibility will be at every stage.

The author suggests that 3PLs:

1. Rigorously determine their cost to provide visibility, especially for customers

in which pricing visibility separately is not a viable option.

2. Build real-time visibility capabilities to allow customers to connect visibility

to transportation execution functions.

3. Work internally or with software providers to illuminate visibility blind spots

to create a total, unhindered picture of supply chains.

Appendix

A: D

em

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Appendix A: Demographics

2%

23%

14%

35%

18% Discrete manufacturing

Process manufacturing

Engineering/Construction/Energy

Raw materials/Commodities

Retail/Wholesale

3PL/Forwarder/NVOCC/Intermediary

Government/Public Sector

2%6%

Figure 20: Industry Segments

229 total respondents

Figure 21: Company Size

Less than $100 million

$100 million to $1 billion

Greater than $1billion

22%

50%

28%

29%

33%38%

Figure 22: Job Titles Surveyed

229 total respondents

229 total respondents

Shippers 3PLs

11%C-Level (CEO,CIO,CFO, etc)

Executive (SVP, VP, GM, etc.)

Director

Manager

Staff

18%

22%

28%

21%8%

46%

16%

20%11%

Shippers 3PLs

Appendix

B: A

bout

Our

Sponso

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Appendix B: About Our Sponsors

Amber Road

Amber Road’s (NYSE: AMBR) mission is to improve the way companies manage

their international supply chains and conduct global trade. As a leading provider

of cloud based global trade management (GTM) solutions, we automate the

global supply chain across sourcing, logistics, cross border trade, and regulatory

compliance activities to dramatically improve operating efficiencies and financial

performance. This includes collaborating with suppliers on development,

sourcing and quality assurance; executing import and export compliance checks

and generating international shipping documentation; booking international

carriers and tracking goods as they move around the world; and minimizing the

associated duties through preferential trade agreements and foreign trade zones.

Our solution combines enterprise-class software, trade content sourced from

government agencies and transportation providers in 147 countries, and a

global supply chain network connecting our customers with their trading

partners, including suppliers, testing/auditing firms, freight forwarders, customs

brokers and transportation carriers. We deliver our GTM solution using a

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model and leverage a highly flexible technology

framework to quickly and efficiently meet our customers’ unique requirements

around the world.

Our Supply Chain Visibility solutions provide multi-mode functionality that

connects importers and exporters with their overseas suppliers, logistics

providers, brokers, and carriers. This also enables supply chain partners to share

information, distribute reports, and receive alerts on milestones that are critical to

the timely delivery of goods. By gaining predictability and visibility to your global

supply chain, you can reduce out-of-stock situations as well as decrease your

safety stock inventory.

For more information, please visit www.AmberRoad.com, email

Solutions@AmberRoad.com or call 201-935-8588.

Trax Technologies

Trax Technologies is a global innovator in harnessing logistics data, services

and solutions to elevate supply chain performance. The company leverages

data science, and the power of its Logistics Performance Management

platform, to provide industry-leading data and insights. By applying advanced

financial controls and identifying new opportunities for revenue and margin

improvement, Trax makes the supply chain ecosystem more efficient and

effective. Trax operates offices in the U.S., Europe, Asia and Latin America. For

more information, visit www.traxtech.com or follow us on Twitter or LinkedIn.

Appendix

C: A

bout

Am

eri

can S

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per

Rese

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h

Visibility | Benchmark Study 2016

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Background

Since our first edition in May 1974, American Shipper has provided U.S.-based logistics practitioners with

accurate, timely and actionable news and analysis. The company is widely recognized as the voice

of the international transportation community.

In 2008 American Shipper launched its first formal, independent research initiative focused on the state of

transportation management systems in the logistics service provider market. Since that time the company

has published dozens of reports on subjects ranging from regulatory compliance to transportation

management to sustainability.

Scope

American Shipper research initiatives typically address international or global supply chain issues from a

U.S.-centric point of view. The research will be most relevant to those readers managing large volumes of

airfreight, containerized ocean and domestic intermodal freight. American Shipper readers are tasked with

managing large volumes of freight moving into and out of the country so the research scope reflects those

interests.

Methodology

American Shipper benchmark studies are based upon responses from a pool of approximately 40,000

readers accessible by e-mail invitation. Generally each benchmarking project is based on 200-500 qualified

responses to a 25-35 question survey depending on the nature and complexity of the topic.

American Shipper reports compare readers from key market segments defined by industry vertical,

company size, and other variables, in an effort to call out trends and ultimate best practices. Segments

created for comparisons always consist of 30 or more responses.

Library

American Shipper’s complete library of research is available on our Website:

AmericanShipper.com/Research.

Annual studies include:• Global Trade Management Report

• Global Transportation Procurement Benchmark

• Global Transportation Management Benchmark

• Global Transportation Payment Benchmark

• Import Operations & Compliance Benchmark

• Export Operations & Compliance Benchmark

Contact

Eric Johnson Research Director American Shipper ejohnson@shippers.com

Appendix C: About American Shipper Research

Visibility | Benchmark Study 2016

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