Matt Silver

Great insights from our recent panel on how AI is transforming grocers' #supplychain alongside Alonso from Radius Networks | Flybuy, Tim from Grocery Doppio, and Matt from SpartanNash Check out the full panel (link in comments below) Incisiv

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My partners at Metafora have hit the technology aspects of the RXO acquisition of Coyote, but several strategic benefits are expected to have a significant impact on the freight markets as they recover. Here are some key advantages: 1. Salesforce Synergies: • Expanded Customer Base: RXO can leverage Coyote’s customer portfolio for cross-selling and upselling, enhancing market reach and revenue potential. • Unified Sales Strategy: Integrating the sales teams allows for a more coordinated approach, leading to improved customer segmentation and targeted marketing. 2. Network Optimization: • Load Matching: Coyote’s platform can help reduce empty miles and improve asset utilization within RXO’s network. • Data Integration: Combining data allows for better forecasting and demand planning, effectively addressing network inefficiencies. 3. Last-Mile Delivery: • Expanded Capabilities: This acquisition enhances RXO’s service offerings with efficient last-mile solutions, meeting the increasing customer demand for faster delivery. • Route Optimization: Coyote’s technology improves delivery efficiency, reduces costs, and minimizes environmental impact. 4. Technological Enhancements: • Advanced Technologies: Integrating Coyote’s technology enhances operational efficiency and service levels for RXO. • Innovation: Joint initiatives can lead to the development of new solutions to address market challenges. With the acquisition of Coyote Logistics, RXO strengthens its market position and capabilities, providing comprehensive end-to-end logistics solutions, optimizing its network, and enhancing customer satisfaction. This strategic acquisition positions RXO for continued growth and innovation as the freight markets recover. Let's go! Second half of 2024 M&A will be interesting! #Logistics #SupplyChain #MergersAndAcquisitions #Innovation #MarketGrowth #FreightTech

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Despite hype that the current freight recession is over (e.g., https://lnkd.in/gSqkfYu5), William Cassidy at Journal of Commerce, reporting from the Traffic Club of Chicago (https://lnkd.in/gZvn5-Nh) shared that shippers and brokers are taking a more cautionary tone. As I’ve said repeatedly, I don’t expect a true market shift to occur before late Q1 or early Q2 2025. Consistent with the need for caution (and patience), data for October’s industrial production wasn’t encouraging in many sectors. Two charts (made using the new improved visuals from FRED). Thoughts: •Top plot shows seasonally adjusted industrial production of fabricated metal products. The past few months have seen sharp declines in production (it is now ~2.5% below 2017 levels). As can be seen, drawdowns in fabricated metal production in 2015 and the especially steep drop in 2019 corresponded to freight recessions. While some of this may be due the Boeing strike (which cascades upstream to fabricated metal products), as can be seen, production has been trending down since mid-2022. •The bottom chart shows seasonally adjusted wood product production (e.g., sawmills, millwork like making windows, producing plywood, etc.). Production has been effectively flat since about October 2022, around 5-6% below 2017 levels. You will note how production started falling in Q4 2018, which was the same time the FOMC had started raising interest rates (and housing cooled). Implication: during normal economic cycles (like today), it takes many months for manufacturing activity to meaningfully lift itself off a trough. Carriers, remember that in 2017 we didn’t see the market turn until June, and that was with manufacturing starting from a better position at the time President Trump took office (e.g., lower interest rates, consumers in better financial condition, fracking activity much more elastic to oil prices). As November and especially December exhibit seasonal tightening, we won’t truly know if the freight recession is over until mid-January (and that assumes no extreme weather events like in January 2018 or January 2024). My belief is that we are in what I’d term “freight cycle limbo” in that the down cycle that started in Q3 2022 has indeed bottomed out, but we aren’t yet in a true upcycle. That upcycle will wait till late Q1 or early Q2 2025 to materialize. #supplychain #supplychainmanagement #freight #trucking #shipsandshipping

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LTL carriers hate Curbside Deliveries E-Commerce brands hate curbside delivery service Consumers hate the curbside delivery experience -------------------- Rocket is making significant progress fixing this problem. We reverse engineered it. Focusing on consumer delivery experience and our E-Commerce clients love it. We are fixing a business problem for them by hyper focusing on the niche of delivery options, tracking, carrier rates, and TMS options with gray glove home delivery as the main focus Small problem, small market (relative to the larger freight brokerage), but meaningful revenue growth for Rocket and no market saturation on the horizon

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When you find yourself in a market where every dollar matters, you must make sure your dollars are driving efficiency. More importantly, You MUST be able to articulate that return. That is where workflow AI has helped the most... We have been able to scale up, without the need to increase headcount for a manual process, making the ROI highly measurable.

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Studying empty container movement has always been a reliable supply chain predictor. Recently, a surge of empties into Los Angeles signals demand outpacing supply on the West Coast. As trucking sector instability and strong demand could tighten capacity in Q4, it's crucial to stay ahead. Since 2020, BlueCargo as been a key resource for understanding these trends, enabling early container returns and mitigating per diem risks at the Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex, the nation’s largest. #ports #congestion #supplychain

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Visibility is the biggest pain point in the freight industry. Using a mature Tracking and Visibility system can relieve those pain points.

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Excited to talk about how AI is transforming grocery #supplychain at Grocery Doppio’s upcoming virtual event joining a panel alongside Alonso Vargas from Radius Networks | Flybuy, Tim Denman from Grocery Doppio, and Matt Van Gilder from SpartanNash to share insights on how grocers are leveraging #automation and AI to fulfill shopper demands more efficiently and outpace the competition Register using the link in the comments below Incisiv

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Ally Logistics proprietary API pricing engine has been sub-branded as CapacityNOW since going live in 2021. Why did we choose to sub-brand? We wanted to build market trust in our technology over time and seperate our tool from the generic. As a company that moves ~60% contract truckload freight, we were hellbent on making our complimentary API offering extraordinarily reliable for our customers. We also felt that some brokers might execute API rates poorly, providing another incentive to differentiate our offering. That aforementioned reliability was validated when recently viewing our Q2 E2Open scorecard: - Exactly 0 load givebacks - 99.3% primary tender acceptance - E2Open Platinum provider status Can't wait to see our team stack up those 0's in quarters to come! Interested in having a convo? DM me anytime or hunt down my team next week at E2Open Connect.

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We call the first product we released at Cargado a "load board" because that’s a term that everyone in this industry understands and when you say “marketplace”, everyone immediately thinks of what some of the digital freight brokers/marketplaces tried to do, connecting shippers and carriers and taking a cut of the transaction while trying to magically automate away every job a broker does, which you just can't do. The reality is that this product is nothing like any load board that you’ve ever used before, and it isn’t even JUST for loads! You can post spot freight and consistent opportunities, and you can post freight that you’re bidding on and are in search of a truck-in-hand. It's like running a mini-bid at the lane level and getting all your carriers and rates in one place. Oh, and it was built specifically for cross-border Mexico freight, with all the distinct bells and whistles that come with operating that complex type of freight. Reach out for a demo! Join the waitlist at cargado.com for the first invite-only cross-border load board.

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What consumers need to know about tariffs is that FreightWaves seems bent on advancing an incorrect narrative that tariffs won't increase consumer prices (https://lnkd.in/gwQdw4RK). Here are some flaws with this article posted yesterday: •Amiti et al. (2019; Journal of Economic Perspectives https://lnkd.in/gdGZGUE5) report, "In the wake of this increase in trade protection [following the Trump Tariffs], the United States experienced substantial increases in the prices of intermediates and final goods, dramatic changes to its supply-chain network, reductions in availability of imported varieties, and the complete pass-through of the tariffs into domestic prices of imported goods." Complete pass-through = consumers paid higher prices because we didn't see cost of imported goods from China decline. Simple economics here. •As noted in the quote above from Amiti et al. (2019), we will see a reduction in the variety of goods that are imported under tariffs. That is a negative for consumer welfare, as it reduces choice. •There is no evidence that tariffs resulted in an increase in manufacturing employment in industries that received tariff protection (https://lnkd.in/gVUDYjrU), and industries targeted for retaliation shed payrolls. I'm sorry folks, jobs lost to offshoring are gone forever. Let's stop living in the past and wanting to assemble small electronic appliances and apparel in the U.S. again. •Tariffs on imported intermediate inputs used by U.S. manufacturers hurt the largest, most productive, highest wage paying U.S. manufacturers (https://lnkd.in/gjYznBsx; https://lnkd.in/gxr7PiFB) and were found to reduce export growth (https://lnkd.in/gzXUjgGJ). Implication: Craig, I challenge you and anyone and everyone FreightWaves to debate me on the effectiveness of tariffs in spurring manufacturing activity and generating economic welfare for the average American. I'm happy to discuss on this thread or on a live program. I dare anyone who thinks they can ball with me on this topic. #supplychain #supplychainmanagement #shipsandshipping #freight #trucking

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We're building Manifold Freight to address many of the biggest issues I've seen over many years managing sales and account management teams. Managing multiple TMS systems, endless load offer emails and multiple broker boards ensure your teams time is inefficiently spent. Inefficiencies mean your teams aren't performing their core function, brining in the freight to optimize your capacity and grow revenue. It's simple. I've seen it over and over. Even the best reps miss the best loads for your trucks and carriers. Our product solves for having to your teams manage multiple load board logins, emails etc. We aggregate all the necessary information for you to take action on in a quick and easy interface. The feedback from users and potential clients has been amazing. We solve their critical issues. Get a hold of us for a demo. We'll show you how we're helping our customers grow revenue and improve profitability. https://lnkd.in/gK35KTPs #freight #truckload #truckloadcarrier #freightbroker #trucks #truckdriver

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🗞️Fun Fact: More than 75% of 321 fulfillment providers are using a shelter Immex. That equals risk for your brand. At #GrupoBustamante we benefit from over 30 years of shelter manufacturing and refinishing services. 💰We are supporting established brands to generate over USD 1M in savings not only from deferring duty but from truly redesigning their Nearshoring strategy. If your provider is doubling down only on 321 fulfillment. That was the strategy 3 years ago… 📑 Picture this… your b2b orders and distributor size shipments being USMCA compliant and duty free. 📱 Happy to connect to discuss how Integrated3PL can establish a hybrid model of 321 fulfillment and USMCA compliant transactions for your brand. #nearshoring #321fulfillment #reshoring #Tijuana #grupobustamante #CAM #i3pl #integrated3pl

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Now that we are halfway through July, I wanted to look at where the dry van truckload spot market was at. Using data from DAT Freight & Analytics, I’ve calculated the dry van spot market cycle indictor as broker buy contract rates less dry van TL spot rates divided by the average of the two series. One chart below. Thoughts: •Historically, when this ratio falls below 10%, we tend to see a bull market pricing cycle begin, which is picked up well the Bureau of Labor Statistics primary service producer price index for general freight trucking, long-distance, truckload (https://lnkd.in/gUXXNHrd). Conversely, anytime we see the series move above 15%, we enter a bear market pricing cycle. Key dates for bull cycles labeled in black, bear cycles in red. These dates mirror swings in observed contract & spot rates picked up by BLS. •The bad news for carriers is that July’s reading of 15.8% is well away from the 10% threshold. As such, there aren’t signs of the market being ready to turn. •For the market to turn, we need more freight demand. Unfortunately, as I’ve been noting frequently, demand conditions just aren’t great now. For example, Cass Shipments, which tracks the trucking ton-mile index quite closely, fell in June to the lowest level since the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic (https://lnkd.in/gAZb34hZ).  As I’ll share next week, machinery manufacturing and wholesaling is especially weak. Implication: I continue to see few signs that the dry van truckload sector will enter a bull market pricing cycle in 2024. It increasingly looks like any capacity tightening felt in June was just a return of seasonality. Continued weakness in pricing and freight demand reinforces my emphasis on why domestic manufacturing activity must be front and center in discussions about freight demand, with less attention given to retail sales. #supplychain #supplychainmanagement #freight #trucking #economics #markets

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Maybe it’s just the time of year, but securing January meetings with transportation leaders during peak season amps me up. It’s not just about new business—it shows a real openness to exploring tech-enabled providers, even if Warp doesn’t end up winning the deal. It’s just awesome to see big companies rethinking supply chains that have been stuck with the same old legacy players and opening up to fresh, tech-driven solutions. With holiday restocks coming in hot, now’s the perfect time to rethink your strategy for the future. If limited agility, flexibility, or service from your current replenishment partners has you feeling anxious, this could be your moment to explore tech-enabled options. Modern solutions are essential to meeting today’s supply chain demands, and we’re here to help elevate your store replenishment network—whether you’re ready to connect now or in the new year!

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If I were sitting at KKR or Shopify holding the senior debt at Flexport, I’d be benchmarking the asset and asking serious questions. Between NFI partnering with Transfix and UNIS rolling out Item.com as cash flow-positive competitors, both backed by large real estate balance sheets, I’m struggling to understand Flexport’s business case if/when they seek additional capital. Both competitors have developed automation, integrations, and partnerships in a fraction of the time. Most importantly, they have a proven track record of self-funding innovation with sustainable cost structures and the best tech talent I’ve encountered, consistently leaving their VC-funded competitors barely visible in the rearview mirror. My takeaway: When leaders focus on building a superior product rather than merely promoting it, the product always wins! #transloading #ecommerce #warehousing #distribution

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