Exhibitor News

Freight cost benchmarking is one of the most consistently overlooked levers in supply chain optimisation. This is especially true in Southeast Asia, where rate volatility, carrier diversity, and lane-specific dynamics make it difficult to know whether the rates you're paying reflect market reality — or simply the inertia of a relationship that hasn't been renegotiated in years.

In our work with clients across Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Indonesia, we regularly find freight spend running 15–25% above current market benchmarks. The causes are predictable: legacy carrier contracts that haven't been reviewed, routing inefficiencies that accumulated gradually, and a lack of visibility into what comparable companies in the same lanes are actually paying.

The good news is that freight cost optimisation is one of the fastest-return initiatives available to most logistics operations. Unlike warehouse redesign or system implementation, rate benchmarking and carrier renegotiation can deliver measurable savings within weeks — without disrupting existing operations or requiring significant capital investment.

The process starts with a clear picture of your current cost base: what you're paying, on which lanes, with which carriers, and under what contract terms. That baseline is then compared against current market rates for equivalent lanes and service levels — revealing where you're overpaying and by how much. From there, a structured approach to carrier negotiation and contract restructuring turns the analysis into concrete savings.

For companies operating across multiple SEA markets, this process typically surfaces savings opportunities that weren't visible within any individual country operation — precisely because the regional picture is rarely reviewed as a whole.

If your freight costs haven't been benchmarked in the last 12 months, it's worth finding out what you're missing. Speak to us at Stand 407, The Business Show Asia, 26–27 August 2026, Sands Expo & Convention Centre, Singapore