The Early Buy Gets the Supply
Future-Proof Procurement: Buy Before the Boom
Summary
Industry
Logistics
Intro
When freight doesn’t move on time, the consequences are immediate: production slows, costs rise, and operations stall. Procurement is on the front line of that challenge, responsible for securing rates and coverage that keep goods flowing and risk under control.
Arkestro makes that possible. By bringing speed and consistency to complex freight events, the platform helps enterprises stay ahead of market shifts and build resilience across ocean, land, and air.
“This seems pretty simple, easy to navigate. All of the information is easy to upload into the platform”
Site Materials Manager at a Manufacturing Organization
Industry
Logistics
Intro
When freight doesn’t move on time, the consequences are immediate: production slows, costs rise, and operations stall. Procurement is on the front line of that challenge, responsible for securing rates and coverage that keep goods flowing and risk under control.
Arkestro makes that possible. By bringing speed and consistency to complex freight events, the platform helps enterprises stay ahead of market shifts and build resilience across ocean, land, and air.
“This seems pretty simple, easy to navigate. All of the information is easy to upload into the platform”
Site Materials Manager at a Manufacturing Organization
At A Glance
Speed
Risk Reduction
Reduce exposure to market volatility by securing optimal rates before conditions shift.
Coverage
Ensures reliable supplier coverage by proactively locking in primary, secondary, and tertiary carriers with built-in compliance.
Time to Value
Delivers faster impact by enabling earlier savings and performance gains—often weeks ahead of traditional timelines.
Challenge
Running a national freight event is never a simple task. Events often span six to nine months, with thousands of lanes and hundreds of carriers to negotiate. By the time those negotiations close, market rates may have already shifted, leaving procurement exposed to higher costs and increased risk, while still under pressure to deliver on-time performance and achieve savings.
The scale is daunting: three rounds of negotiation across thousands of lanes, consuming thousands of hours. And without a standardized process, every team and category manager runs events differently, making results inconsistent and slowing change management across the organization. Manual tools like email and spreadsheets can’t deliver the level of visibility, compliance, and coordination required for modern logistics.
To stay ahead, procurement teams need a faster way forward. And they need one that shortens cycles, reduces risk, and secures carrier coverage without sinking months into manual effort.
Solution
With Arkestro, the freight sourcing process looks very different. What once dragged on for six to nine months can now be completed in weeks. Events that used to drain thousands of hours are standardized and scalable across categories and teams.
Teams can negotiate competitive rates across thousands of lanes and hundreds of carriers without relying on manual processes. Predictive benchmarks keep pricing current, while automated multi-round negotiations accelerate timelines and reduce manual effort. Standardization also makes change management easier, building consistency and sophistication into the process.
Most importantly, procurement teams secure coverage up front. When freight needs to move, the rates are already in place, reducing exposure to risk and ensuring compliance with requirements around time, weight, and certifications.
Industry Examples
The results speak for themselves. Here’s how leading logistics teams are using Arkestro across ocean, land, and air:
Ocean Freight
A global enterprise used Arkestro to run a large-scale ocean logistics event. What had historically taken three to four months to complete was finished in just 39 days, with substantial savings delivered along the way.
Results
- Baseline spend of $7.25M
- 32% identified savings (~$2.3M)
- 23% recognized savings (~$1.6M)
- Cycle time reduced from 3–4 months to just 39 days
Air Freight
A global manufacturer ran an Arkestro event to secure airfreight capacity on a high-volume Asia export lane. By consolidating weight breaks with a single carrier, procurement achieved both substantial savings and stronger coverage.
Results
- 57% identified savings across all carriers
- 46% awarded savings with one carrier securing the full award
- Baseline spend of $183K reduced to $99K
- All 11 line items quoted at or below baseline pricing
Land Transportation
A global roofing manufacturer relied on a long, manual process to run yearly lane quotes, often taking six months with 8-10 people managing around 40 carriers. With Arkestro, they transformed the process into a faster, more competitive model that expanded participation and delivered significant savings.
Results
- Grew carrier participation from 42 to 282 unique carriers
- Negotiated 223,000 rates in 95% less time, saving over 4,000 hours
- Cycle time reduced from six months to three weeks
- Nearly $55M in identified savings (a 26% improvement)
- 53% decrease in reliance on spot buys
Arkestro Delivers Critical Advantages:
Speed:
Cycle times reduced from 6 months to as little as 3 weeks
Risk reduction:
Rates secured before market conditions shift, lowering exposure to cost and supply volatility
Coverage:
Primary, secondary, and tertiary carriers locked in with compliance built into every event
Time to value:
Arkestro customers see impact sooner, with new rates in place weeks ahead of traditional cycles, cutting cycle times by up to 80% and achieving savings of up to 32%.
Procurement Intelligence That Moves Freight Faster
PREDICT. PROCURE. PERFORM.
- Millions in identified and awarded savings across primary, secondary, and tertiary options
- Cycle times reduced from months to weeks, freeing thousands of hours of team capacity
- Lower reliance on costly spot buys, with broader carrier coverage and less manual effort spent on one-off requests
- Standardized processes that tie into existing systems and drive stronger supplier engagement
- Visibility across enterprise-wide spend for smarter, data-driven decisions
- Faster time to value, with negotiated rates implemented immediately
