Leaf was featured for our use of AI to analyze transportation contracting practices and provide actionable insights for shippers to coordinate across the industry and implement long-term contracting. This recognition underscores Leaf’s commitment to helping shippers, carriers, and brokers better navigate market uncertainty and gain business reliability, while eliminating waste in the transportation industry. 

Today, 30% of trucks drive empty due to a lack of coordination, presenting an enormous opportunity to improve efficiency and reliability. On top of this the transportation market continues to see increased volatility that makes it difficult to plan ahead with certainty. Leaf was purpose built from day one to address these concerns with Adapt, which uses an AI-based approach to transportation data analytics. 

We’re using Adapt to coordinate multi-shipper moves that eliminate empty miles at scale, and to introduce a portfolio approach to contracting that gives our customers transportation stability. Our long-term Flex contracts allow shippers, carriers, and brokers to see beyond the typical 24-48 hour contracting window. By contracting over a longer time horizon, our customers gain 98% on-time performance while securing up to 20% cost savings through eliminated empty miles.

Our next step in addressing market volatility and empty miles is our Flex Fleets offering. We introduced Flex Fleets earlier this year as the first multi-shipper flexible dedicated fleets. These offer the same high level of service as traditionally owned or leased dedicated fleets, with the agility to adapt to market demand.  

At Leaf, we’re working to build the future of transportation and solve freight’s coordination problem. We are optimistic about the future of our industry, and being named a “Mover & Shaker” is confirmation we’re on the right path together with our customers.

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We were proud to sponsor this year’s Young Professionals Video Contest & Scholarship. CSCMP young professional and student members submitted videos across several topics that included: unlocking the global supply chain, sustainability, and technology in supply chain. There were impressive submissions by many young professionals, showing that the future of our industry is in good hands. Leaf CEO Anshu Prasad presented the winner at the Young Professionals reception – congratulations to Paige Ruhlman, Supply Chain Program Manager at Cisco, for her submission about unlocking the global supply chain. 

We also took part in the EDGE session series to present “How Ball Took a Portfolio Approach to Freight and Increased Service”. Leaf’s Head of Strategic Operations & Account Management, Margie Hamlin, and Leaf Advisor Mark Shaughnessey presented about how Ball, a major aluminum packaging and aerospace company, found success in working with Leaf to dramatically increase their performance while also realizing savings. At the same time, Ball was able to achieve meaningful scope 3 carbon emissions reductions associated with their transportation. 

Leaf participated in the Supply Chain Exchange Exhibition, where we had a chance to meet with conference attendees to share the work we’re doing to coordinate the transportation industry, and to learn about other advancements in supply chain. We enjoyed the opportunity to connect with so many forward-thinking professionals in our industry, and look forward to CSCMP EDGE 2023!

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Leaf’s CEO, Anshu Prasad, and Head of Product, Chuck Toye, met with participants in the Executive Master’s degree program focused on the intersection of government and industry. The class is composed of O5/O6 level officers from the US Army, Navy, and Air Force; GS-15 level professionals from Departments of Commerce, Homeland Security, and Defense; as well as International Fellows from Germany, Poland, and Ghana. These supply chain experts were keen to discuss the current state of affairs in transportation, the short-term patches being applied to today’s strains, and learn about longer-term solutions to the fragile and unreliable transportation grid.

The discussion revealed interesting observations about the differences between transportation in the private and public sectors. While Leaf leaders presented on the challenges facing the private sector in terms of unenforceable RFP contracts and an opaque view of true supply and demand, the NDU students noted how much more smoothly this works in the public sector where they control both the supply and demand. However, the participants admitted that their streamlined and reliable military transportation planning process does break down when the military has to operate in a “public-private” situation. In those scenarios, these same military leaders have to procure for-hire private trucking capacity for their domestic bases, and compete with private sector shippers in an opaque and less-than-reliable market for transportation services.

Further work needs to be done to understand the structural, longer-term changes that can be made to have a lasting and sustainable impact on the transportation industry. Policy makers and industry leaders can work together to chart longer-term, structural changes that will benefit supply chains in a lasting and sustainable way. An independent, neutral coordination solution could have a transformative impact on reducing waste in the industry that comes in the form of scope 3 emissions associated with unnecessary empty miles. 

Leaf is building a future where all companies and government entities can transact transportation services with the ease of plugging into a power grid. By removing the difficulties presented by the current siloed transportation industry, Leaf is already a leading force for change. 

We’re working to make transportation planning more predictable and reliable. Using machine learning, Leaf creates efficient circuits that remove empty miles across the industry and the associated carbon emissions. Logistics service providers can move more freight in fewer miles so that they can maximize their asset utilization, while shippers realize a lower cost structure. 

All of the students in the NDU program have been serving our government honorably for a number of years, and it was a privilege to speak with them and discuss the current state of the transportation industry and help inform their year-end theses for the class. We also enjoyed hearing from some of the participants who had driven trucks during their careers. It was entertaining to listen to a Colonel describe the last time they drove a truck! 

Thank you, NDU!

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The typical transportation process involves the annual RFP, which helps shippers with predictable, known transportation needs. However, when it comes to handling unexpected volatility, the annual RFP often misses the mark. We created Leaf Adapt to help address this gap in transportation planning for shippers, offering a flexible solution to navigate through the challenges presented by changing business needs and market volatility throughout the year.

Adapt technology uses machine learning to continuously analyze shippers’ own network data alongside the Leaf $21 billion transportation network, providing shippers with actionable guidance for how to procure capacity across their portfolio of RFP, spot, and a new layer of Leaf Flex short term contracts. By optimizing their freight portfolio, Leaf shippers see cost savings of 10 percent or more.

“At Leaf we see the challenges of transportation planning as a coordination problem. We built Adapt to address this by creating a powerful tool for network analysis on a scale that just can’t be achieved without data science,” said Andrea Pope, Product at Leaf Logistics. “Adapt gives our shippers new levels of transportation insights, identifying coordinated opportunities that can ultimately lower their cost structure. And the most value for shippers comes from the fact that Adapt runs continuously throughout the year, identifying market shifts and business changes as they are happening. Through fresh insights and actionable next steps our shippers mitigate risk and stay very well positioned in the market.”

Shippers using Adapt get a continuous, forward-looking set of recommendations of how to best coordinate within their own networks and across the Leaf transportation network. Shippers can now identify repeatable, continuous moves and circuits that lead to better network efficiency. With 30 percent of the trucks on the road today driving empty trailers, Leaf is helping to reduce that number by increasing carrier asset utilization. This increased utilization and reduction of empty miles allows shippers to save costs and increase service levels to their customers, while providing carriers the ability to generate more revenue, and reducing the overall carbon emissions generated by the trucking industry.

To learn more about how Leaf Adapt can help your business create a forward-looking view of your transportation needs, get in touch with us at hello@leaflogistics.com.

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This article first appeared on CFO.com, authored by Leaf CEO Anshu Prasad along with Chris Gaffney and Mark Shaughnessy

Transportation seems to be the topic of conversation more often these days. From shortages on our grocery store shelves for everyday items we previously took for granted, to the news of a large container ship stuck in the Suez Canal, to more recent news of disruptions in fuel supply in the Southeastern United States, it appears that transportation has suddenly become more volatile and less reliable.

For supply chain practitioners, however, transportation volatility has been a reality for some time. For decades, sophisticated shippers such as Walmart or Coca-Cola have maintained hundreds of relationships to manage the flow of products to stores and customers, requiring a patchwork quilt of solutions. For supply chain professionals, uncertain customer demand, production, and supply variability throughput require a mix of asset-based and asset-light providers. This mix of providers handles the unpredictable surges in transportation demand and requires supply chain professionals to focus entirely on execution with little thought given to the bigger picture of imagining an alternative.

Like in other parts of our economy, COVID-19 and the resulting economic shocks have forced supply chain practitioners and company executives to examine the frailty of their underlying transportation management infrastructure. Specifically, CFOs, many of whom have had to deal with significant transportation budget overruns this past year, are challenging their supply chain and transportation leaders to learn from these latest crises to build stronger, more resilient supply chains that will better serve the needs of their companies into the future.

Four key questions help shape conversations CFOs should have with their chief supply chain officers (CSCO).

1. How will our future supply chain better serve the changing needs of our customers?

More than a cost center, transportation is often critical to how a customer experiences a company’s product. Unreliable transportation often clouds the customer’s perception of the product they’re buying, putting future growth and margin in jeopardy.

Furthermore, as we strive to better serve our customers, we must also understand how their needs are changing, and how their expectations for faster and more reliable service are increasing. How well prepared to meet these rising demands are your transportation management teams, and the systems and providers you utilize?

What additional tools and data are you using today, beyond the RFP and backward-looking benchmark datasets, to meet these needs and not risk compressing your margins?

2. How can we better budget for transportation costs in an increasingly uncertain environment?

While we’ve previously endured cycles of heightened demand and corresponding budget overruns, these peaks and troughs seem to occur more frequently now.

How can we meet today’s demands while balancing investments in the tools and data we’ll need to manage our future supply chains?

Leading shippers have taken steps to take 10% out of their budgets for 2022 and onwards. They’ve done this by investing in technology to see their demand, and the broader network of supply, in a different way. New technologies have given shippers the tools to make deep analytical analyses of their network data to uncover and take advantage of better-matched supply.

3. How can we better manage through periods of volatility?

Our supply chains are interconnected with our suppliers and often extend geographically further than they have before. This means disruptions ripple through our supply chain and transportation plans, with shutdowns and restarts consuming weeks of our bandwidth. How can we be more responsive to changing patterns of demand and supply?

Historically, this volatility was addressed through excess inventory and capital. Today’s competitive landscape does not allow this and in many cases, the balance sheet solutions were not in the right time or place to adequately address volatility.

4. How can we hire, train, and retain the talent we’ll need to help manage a more data-driven supply chain?

Talented, innovative, and ambitious professionals will be attracted to transportation if it is perceived to be valuable to the company, and a driver of competitive advantage. They also want to see sustained investment in supply chain technology and digitization, accompanied by investments in their development and training to better use these tools to deliver value to the company.

To access the full article from CFO.com, click here.

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The Gartner report states that “Promising ‘cool’ supply chain management technology, vendors like those covered in this research offer solutions that can help transform a company’s operations. When considering vendors for this research, we looked for those with solutions that could help supply chain execution organizations target digital investments in areas that can improve productivity in difficult economic times and do so with tangible returns on investment.”¹

“Leaf is honored to be named a Gartner Cool Vendor in supply chain technology,” said Anshu Prasad, CEO of Leaf Logistics. “We believe this affirms our vision and the multi-party, coordinated network we’re building at Leaf. We believe our data-driven platform will give shippers and providers the tools they need to adapt to increasing market unpredictability while identifying efficiencies, without wavering on their customer promises.”

For most large logistics organizations, transportation planning provides a significant source of uncertainty both in terms of predictable capacity and the associated cost. Leaf takes a network-first approach to address transportation planning, supported by Leaf Flex forward contracts and the Leaf Adapt platform. Leaf products guide shippers, carriers, and logistics service providers to make transportation decisions that bring cost efficiencies for shippers, while enabling carriers to keep their trucks moving and their drivers loaded to earn more.

The report notes that “across industry segments, 83% of CEOs have management initiatives to make their businesses more digital, according to Gartner’s 2019 CEO and Senior Business Executive survey.”¹ Supply chain leaders can look to the report to understand the increasing importance of digital solutions in supply chain management, and read Gartner’s recommendations for executives as they evaluate new technologies. Gartner subscribers can view the full report here: Cool Vendors in Supply Chain Execution Technologies

Learn more about the Leaf network and technology solutions by visiting leaflogistics.com.

¹Gartner “Cool Vendors in Supply Chain Execution Technologies,” Dwight Klappich, Bart De Muynck, Carly West, and Simon Tunstall, September 30, 2020.

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

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