"The traditional supply chain RFP has been broken for some time. However, the events that transpired during the pandemic, coupled with the recent downturn in the freight market, have further emphasized the need for more agility and predictability concerning the shipper/carrier contracting process."
CHICAGO (PRWEB) June 20, 2022
FreightFriend, the market-leading carrier procurement platform, announced today that it released its Mini-Bid tool to help 3PLs and shippers manage the ever-changing market volatility.
“The traditional RFP has been broken for some time. However, the events that transpired during the pandemic, coupled with the recent downturn in the market, have further emphasized the need for more agility and predictability concerning the contracting process,” said Noam Frankel, Founder, and CEO of Freight Friend. “Our 3PLs and shippers have found it increasingly difficult to manage the volatility, capacity targeting, and rate administration with their contracted carrier community. Furthermore, transactional capacity is accelerating rates and exposing these companies to increased liability and cargo risks,” expanded Noam Frankel.
Mini-Bid Function
FreightFriend spent months in product research speaking with 3PLs, shippers, and their contracted carriers to examine every use and edge case associated with the bidding process. This customer feedback ensures Mini-bid has all the functionality clients require while prioritizing the product experience for the end-users and operators.
As a result, all 3PL and Shipper community segments can utilize the tool through a hardened bi-directional integration with the 3PLs or Shipper’s TMS or as an integration-less experience for clients with technical constraints. The Mini-bid module focuses on four primary areas, all in a privatized ecosystem:
- Highly customized bids with click-through features to provide intelligent bid guidance, ease of use, and reduce friction in the bid creation process.
- Machine learning algorithms drive carrier targeting to allow companies to align their vetting and qualification criteria at a lane level with requisite details about the lane, commodity, equipment, frequency, drop versus live, and cargo value.
- FreightFriend deploys automated and company-branded outreach to the targeted carriers with available information, bid duration, and contracted period.
- Companies can collect and collate the responses to determine the breadth and depth of their route guides to deploy inside their TMS platform’s award management tool.
“We wanted to stay true to FrieghtFriend’s core principles to ensure we were not infringing upon the capabilities of our TMS partners or eroding trust with our client and partner stakeholders by aggregating and anonymizing their data. FreightFriend is a mutual friendship-based connected ecosystem built on trust. The last thing our clients want is their capacity to be cannibalized by a competitor through a marketplace introduction,” commented Noam Frankel.
In line with those principles, FreightFriend’s targeting will surface FreightFriend-approved carriers outside the clients’ contracted carrier base for targeting; however, clients and carriers must send, receive, and accept friendship requests before receiving data concerning bids or shipments.
Client Benefits
The benefit to clients using the tool is vast and varies by stakeholders. For example, shippers can quickly adapt to the market changes with their carriers and brokers or less technical proficient shippers can use this as an RFP tool for their businesses. Traditional non-asset-based brokers can source complex capacity, gain RFP guidance, and automate execution post-bid. Asset-based brokers get dual benefits through posting lane needs and optimizing their assets, while their brokerage benefits through the same means as traditional brokers. DFMs can work up-market with larger carrier segments and automate execution in their native environment to drive BTM (buy-to-market) improvements. In addition, FreightFriend is free and accessible for carriers to sign-up, set preferences, and request friendships with their existing 3PL and shipper partners.
About FreightFriend
FreightFriend is a 3-in-1 carrier procurement platform that extends the shipper and broker’s existing TMS capabilities with tools focused explicitly on capacity management, engagement, and execution. In addition, FreightFriend’s platform leverages data and complex machine learning algorithms in a trusted connected partner ecosystem driven by mutual friendships to expand and deepen relationships while automating execution.
Contact: Noam Frankel
Noam@freightfriend.com