Supply chain professionals are looking forward to a much-deserved extended weekend during the Fourth of July holiday. However, CargoNet, an industry cargo security firm, reports that extended business closures can create an advantageous operating environment for cargo thieves. For the past five years, the firm has analyzed cargo theft data in the United States and Canada from July 1 to July 7and found 130 cargo theft events in 27 different states, with theft most common in Texas, California, and Florida.

As retailers struggle with re-opening strategies it’s clear the new normal will be something we have never experienced.  Consumers in many areas of the world have tightened their wallets and eliminated discretionary spending because of lost jobs, lower wages and uncertainty about how long the COVID-19 pandemic will last.

If necessity is the mother of invention a worldwide pandemic is the mother of cutting through government red tape.  Vaccine approvals are basically getting rubber stamped and that’s a good thing.  Automated vehicles are ramping up in anticipation of increased demand in this new environment as well.  UPS will use drones to fill prescriptions for residents of The Villages in Florida, one of the country’s biggest retirement communities, amid a lock down to halt the corona virus.  The time-sensitive 

Eighty-five percent of supply chain managers expect their outsourcing budget to increase by more than 5% in 2020, according to Gartner, Inc. A sizeable portion of that will be aimed at choosing multiple third-party-logistics (3PL) partners.

The question no longer is whether to outsource; it's what to outsource and how much. Evaluating different outsourcing strategies has become a priority for global managers. To be effective, the supply chain outsourcing strategy needs to be aligned with the overall logistics priorities. Supply chain leaders are realizing that updating their technology systems, increasing speed to customer and improving visibility are their most important goals for next year. We are in the thick of the digital era and new routes to market and technology-enabled products and services are rapidly disrupting industries and business models. To respond to these accelerated and evocative changes, logistics leaders need not only understand the foundational elements of good overall strategy, but also rethink how their logistics outsourcing strategy is assessed and developed.

If your organization is considering a 3PL relationship here are several potential benefits to consider:

Improve global capabilities. 3PLs have on-ground knowledge of local markets, regulations and government agencies, and understanding of capacity constraints.

Reduce costs. 3PLs can help reduce excess carrying costs, return goods cost and lost sales. They can also help manufacturers move more material with fewer assets while still meeting customer requirements. In some cases, manufacturers can realize savings when consolidating warehouses and/or using shared facilities operated by 3PLs.

Celadon Transport, a division of the Celadon group filed for bankruptcy protection this week just days after two former officials were charged in an accounting fraud scheme. The Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing by the Indianapolis based Celadon Group left more than 3,000 drivers jobless and, in many cases, stranded drivers across the U.S. after their company gas cards were cancelled.  Another 500 administrative jobs are expected to be eliminated through the bankruptcy.

Celadon's former president and chief operating officer, William Meek, 39, and its former chief financial officer, Bobby Lee Peavler, 40, were indicted on conspiracy and other charges. They knew the value of a substantial portion of Celadon's trucks had declined and that many trucks had serious mechanical issues that made them unattractive to drivers, according to the indictment.

Earlier this year, Celadon agreed to pay $42.2 million to settle securities fraud allegations stemming from falsely reporting profits and assets. The company's stock was trading at less than 3 cents a share on Monday, down from a 52-week high of $2.83 last April 11. Celadon said it was the largest provider of international truckload services in North America, and its bankruptcy filing means 3,300 trucks and 10,000 trailers will stop rolling.

Among the big companies that failed in 2019 are New England Motor Freight, which employed more than 1,400 drivers. HVH Transportation, Falcon Transport and LME have all shuttered operations this year, too. Part of the problem, according to Donald Broughton, principal and managing partner of data firm Broughton Capital, is that spot pricing has dropped, which is hurtful to smaller companies that operate in the spot market instead of the contract market. Spot prices refer to shipping prices as they currently exist.

Trade tariffs, as well as slowdowns in a variety of markets, including housing and auto, contributed to the drop, Broughton had told FOX Business. He predicted companies would continue to fail into 2020 because of the weak pricing environment.

Additional pain for the industry could be coming next year in the form of labor laws designed to protect contracted workers from being misclassified. In California, for example, starting in January a law will go into effect that will make it harder for companies to classify workers as contractors, which the California Trucking Association has said could put 70,000 owner-operators in the state out of work. The group has sued to prevent the law from taking effect.

New Jersey is considering similar presumption-of-employment status legislation, which has caused alarm among the state’s trucking industry, as well.

What Shipper Can Do To Protect Shipments

The thousands of trucks stranded Celadon trucks likely have customers shipments onboard which will not be delivered anytime soon.  Getting that freight delivered will likely cost significantly more than the original rate.  The most damaging aspect of getting caught in a bankruptcy like this one is that thousands of customers supply chain has been significantly disrupted.

The best way to protect yourself against insolvent and even under achieving carriers is to vette them annually.  Review financial statements, credit ratings, customer experiences on social media and verifiable on time percentages.  Another option is to employ a 3^rd party Logistics Firm to help with routing decisions.  At Land Link Traffic Systems carrier vetting is a standard procedure.  We take every precaution to route our customers freight with a financially healthy carrier with above average performance.

The most recent edition of the Cass Freight Index Report issued this week by Cass Information Systems highlighted another month of freight transportation shipment and expenditure declines in September. The Cass freight index is widely considered the most accurate barometer of industry activity and trends.

September shipments, at 1.199, were up 0.8% compared to August and down 3.4% annually, marking the tenth consecutive month of annual shipment declines.

Shipments initially turned negative in December 2018 for the first time in 24 months, when it fell 0.8%. January and February were down 0.3% and 2.1%, respectively. As previously reported, the December and January shipment readings were up against respective all-time highs reached in December 2017 and January 2018, coupled with stabilizing patterns in nearly all underlying freight flows.

The culprit is generally considered to be weakness in spot market pricing for many transportation services, especially trucking, which is consistent with the negative Cass Shipments Index and, along with airfreight and railroad volume data, strengthens concerns about the economy and the risk of ongoing trade policy disputes. This weakness and decreases in the prime lending rate are supporting arguments for a looming recession.

The CASS report highlighted concerns regarding inflation and concerns about contract pricing and cancellation of transportation equipment orders, with four key factors playing a role, including:

1. Almost all modes of transportation used their pricing power to create    capacity, which first dampened and has now killed pricing power.

2. Spot pricing (not including fuel surcharge) in all three modes of truckload freight (dry van, reefer, and flatbed) has been falling for 15 months. Spot pricing, using dry van rates as a proxy, fell dramatically from its peak in June 2018 (more than $0.50 a mile) to at one point in May falling to more than 30.0%below contract pricing (a level Cass declared unsustainable). The highly discounted pricing available in the spot market has attracted an increased amount of demand, which has deteriorated pricing in the contract market (which is down $0.20 a mile or -9.7% in the last 14 months), and has begun to close the gap between contract and spot.

3. The cost of fuel (and resulting fuel surcharge) is included in the Cass Expenditures Index. Since the cost of diesel has been negative over the last 4 months on a YoY basis (down -5.4% June, down -5.8% in July, down -6.6% in August, down -7.9% in September), it is increasing the negative amount of pricing reported.

4. Whether driven by capacity addition/creation or lower fuel surcharges (or a combination of both, which is our best guess) the Expenditures Index has continued to decline: the September 2019 Index is down -4.5% from its peak in September 2018.

What To Expect

In the first half of 2019, around 640 trucking companies went bankrupt, according to industry data from Broughton Capital LLC. That's more than triple the amount of bankruptcies from the same period last year — 175.

The slow down in trucking has especially affected small carriers, who operate largely on the spot market. Trucking loads can either be picked up on demand through the spot market, or through a pre-arranged contract. The contract market comprises the vast majority of the trucking market, according to the American Trucking Associations.  Trucking has been in a recession since the first half of 2019, according to ACT Research. That fact doesn't surprise truck drivers, dozens of whom have seen their earnings slashed this year.

Spot market rates have crashed in 2019, while contract market rates haven't seen the same dip. According to the most recent Chainanalytics-Cowen Freight Indices report, dry van spot rates are down 16.1% from the same period in 2018. Contract rates in dry van are down 8.1%.

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Buoyed by surging demand, LTL carriers are revving up for a strong 2018, warning that tightening capacity means sharply higher rates in what is anticipated to be possibly the highest demand market in a dozen years. It is a generally unanimous feeling among Logistics market analysts that the current environment of consistently steady industrial and retail demand, the tightening of overall trucking capacity throughout the industry, and LTL’s special operational niche all are factors in creating the perfect storm of premium price points and strong demand.

In revising the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Trump administration will seek tax equality and the ability to reimpose tariffs if a flood of imports from Canada and Mexico causes "a threat of serious injury" to U.S. industry. According to an administration draft proposal being circulated in Congress by the U.S. trade representative’s office, the U.S. would keep some of NAFTA’s most controversial provisions, including an arbitration panel that lets investors in the three nations circumvent local courts. The administration also will seek to eliminate a requirement in the trade deal that anti-dumping and anti-subsidy disputes be settled via a special dispute panel. Some U.S. industries including lumber have complained that the current agreement protocol is ineffective in stopping unfair subsidies. Additionally, the U.S. wouldn’t use the NAFTA negotiations to deal with foreign currency policies or to hit numerical targets for bilateral trade deficits, as some trade industry watchers have been urging.

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Amazon has been reshaping Logistics for many years.  They are now poised to leverage today's technology to redefine the supply chain process.  Logistics providers everywhere would be well advised to pay attention.