Logistics Services Provider Selections

Managed Services engagements can span the breadth of transportation, and / or warehousing and fulfillment operations. In these models, the LSP takes on more strategic ownership of the administration of transportation planning, freight billing, fulfillment orchestration, etc.

For customers where supply chain is not necessarily a core capability, strategic relationships with global 3PLs offering a full portfolio of services are good ways to streamline visibility and management as an extension of your organization, and continued consolidation in the 3PL space has delivered a number of strong options for strategic relationships.

Dedicated warehousing or transportation engagements mean that the assets are assigned exclusively to a single client with service level agreements in place, often with process oversight of the client and a fair level of transparency into KPIs and cost drivers.  Typically, dedicated warehousing includes the leasing of and infrastructure ownership in addition to operational management and administration.

Dedicated relationships can also extend to brokers that act as an intermediary to connect shippers with carriers to arrange the movement of freight without owning trucks or other transportation assets.  While freight forwarders extend into complex shipments domestically or often, internationally.

In other cases, large companies prefer to standardize their approach to best practices and reserve options in terms of contracting for operational administration.  In these cases, real estate is owned or leased, infrastructure is procured, and IT systems are managed by the client organization, with 3PLs providing operational management and labor.

The advantage here is two-fold – client organizations can compare and contrast two or more providers operating similar footprints to ensure benchmarking, drive continuous improvement, and manage the risk of under-performing sites with the threat of cancelling contracts and replacing a 3PL overnight (no infrastructure change is required, and often, the labor will simply roll into the new 3PL rather than search for a new position).

Contract services for public warehousing or contract carriers can reserve expected amounts of capacity with set service level expectations. These contracts often expect to see more variability in their demand and require some level of flexibility.

Spot market transportation contracts are transaction-based arrangements in which shippers secure capacity at current market rates These engagements offer agility but come with less cost certainty and fewer service guarantees compared to dedicated or contracted capacity.

Warehousing options are more complex with the preparation of space and labor for processing deliveries and shipments, so short term public warehousing options are typically the best path, though extra capacity in under-utilized warehouses offer the opportunity to secure space.

Whether you are outsourcing to leverage a third party’s capabilities, cost structures, or reach, or to streamline financials associated with real estate or HR, global logistics providers can offer a combination of carrier and brokerage services, customs clearance, public and/or dedicated warehousing, and value added services alongside the administrative services to manage the business on your behalf.  Robust customer portals offer visibility and increasingly historical perspective on performance trends and billing histories.  Contract flexibility is offered through cost-plus, transactional, and gain share agreements.  QBRs align performance reviews with perspectives on improvement opportunities and innovations to ensure that customers have awareness and control over trends.

Asset-based carriers such as trucking, rail, ocean, and air freight companies that own and operate the physical transportation capacity can serve a variety of purposes depending on supply chain networks and required movements.

• Truckload Carriers – A truckload carrier is a transportation provider that moves freight in a single truck dedicated to one shipper’s goods, typically filling the entire trailer with that shipment. Because the truck is fully loaded with one customer’s cargo, TL shipments usually travel directly from origin to destination without intermediate stops or transfers, offering faster transit times, lower handling risk, and simplified logistics compared with less-than-truckload (LTL) shipments.
  • Linehaul carriers focus on the “middle mile” of the supply chain, often transporting full truckloads (TL), less-than-truckload (LTL) shipments, or intermodal containers efficiently over regional or national routes. Their value lies in speed, network reliability, and cost-effective movement of freight across long-haul routes, often connecting with local carriers or last-mile providers for final delivery.
• LTL and Parcel Carriers – Less-than-truckload carriers that consolidate multiple shippers’ freight into shared linehaul networks for pallet-level shipments, and parcel carriers that handle small-package distribution with high-frequency pickup and delivery operations.
• Modal Transportation Providers – Ocean, air, and rail carriers move freight across global and domestic supply chains.
  • Ocean carriers provide high-volume, cost-effective international movement across seaborne trade lanes
  • Air carriers deliver rapid, time-critical transport across global aviation networks
  • Rail carriers offer high-capacity, fuel-efficient movement along fixed inland corridors.
  • Intermodal service providers that coordinate container movements across rail, truck, and sometimes ocean modes under a unified service modes
  • Drayage providers that handle short-haul container movements between ports, rail ramps, distribution centers, and local facilities.

• Transportation brokers connect shippers with carriers to arrange the movement of freight without owning trucks or other transportation assets. Brokers leverage their networks to find available capacity, negotiate rates, and manage logistics on behalf of shippers, ensuring that goods are transported efficiently and cost-effectively. Their value lies in flexibility, market knowledge, and the ability to quickly match supply and demand across different transportation modes, helping shippers avoid the complexity of managing carriers directly.
• Freight forwarders arrange the transportation of goods on behalf of shippers, often for international or complex domestic shipments. Unlike a broker, a freight forwarder may handle documentation, customs clearance, consolidation, cargo insurance, and coordination across multiple modes of transport—such as ocean, air, rail, and truck—to deliver freight from origin to destination. Their value proposition lies in simplifying cross-border logistics, ensuring regulatory compliance, and optimizing cost and transit time by managing end-to-end movement and carrier relationships.
• Cross-border logistics providers that manage customs brokerage, compliance, and multimodal flows across international borders.

• Dedicated warehousing 3PLs deliver customized storage and distribution solutions for a single client, operating facilities, labor models, and processes tailored to that customer’s volume profile, product requirements, and service-level goals. Their value proposition centers on control, consistency, and the ability to design purpose-built operations that support high service levels, integrated systems, and long-term cost efficiency.
• Public warehousing 3PLs provide shared, multi-client facilities that offer flexible space, variable labor, and pay-for-use pricing models. They create value by allowing companies to scale up or down quickly, avoid fixed facility costs, and enter new regions without long-term commitments. Their standardized processes and shared network infrastructure make them ideal for variable demand, seasonal businesses, and dynamic inventory profiles.
• Co-packing service providers focus on packaging, kitting, labeling, bundling, rework, and customization activities that prepare products for retail or direct-to-consumer channels. Their value proposition comes from specialized equipment, high-precision labor, and the ability to execute rapid packaging changes or promotional variations at scale. By integrating with warehousing and transportation flows, they reduce handling, accelerate speed-to-shelf, and support more agile merchandising strategies.

Our value proposition lies in helping the leadership team through the critical success factors for an outsourcing project, which includes vetting the 3PL prospect’s understanding of the business requirements, fit of their requirements to standard templates, ability to deliver on the ask based on strength in the function and region, and the structure and pricing of the

process that translates detailed operational requirements, including product specific and customer specific data, into formats that the potential partners can consume, price into their contracts, and ingest into their systems and process templates.  Making the implications of your unique business needs clear out of the box is a critical step.

• Stakeholder Alignment & Program Charters – Interviews with key stakeholders are combined with SCT-led education on the current Warehouse Management technology landscape with a focus on your critical business needs and opportunities. Aligning on key objectives for the project through a high-level review, or a detailed Opportunity Assessment will allow SCT to build consensus and shared vision across the organization for WMS project objectives to ensure alignment during the requirements definition and vendor selection.
• Requirements Definition – Detailed process walk-throughs through each area of the business and user persona allows SCT to align current state capabilities to best practices, identifying the list of critical capabilities needed from a warehouse solution as well as additional capabilities and considerations.  The output is a prioritized list of requirements to be used in an RFI/RFP, along with any near term improvements that can be achieved prior to a more formal project.
• Service Level Expectations – Performance expectations cover the full spectrum of operational, financial, service, and compliance requirements that define how the provider will be measured. Common elements include service-level commitments for on-time pickup, delivery, and order accuracy; inventory accuracy targets such as cycle-count performance, shrink control, and location accuracy; and productivity benchmarks for warehouse labor, throughput, and transportation planning efficiency.
• Visibility and Analytics Design – As SCT lays out clear expectations for visibility tools of day to day operations (inventory levels, order status, etc), KPIs, and trend analysis for metrics such as labor spend, capacity utilization, and performance against service level expectations.
• System Architecture & Security – SCT defines expectations for system connectivity, data integration and system access to ensure the timely receipt and processing of information.  Security compliance expectations are increasingly critical in the 3PL industry which has seen substantial ransomware attacks in recent years that have disrupted their clients.
• Critical Differentiators – SCT’s elevation of critical requirements and differentiators across functional requirements and provider approach can be leveraged in weighted scorecards as an effective tool to socialize priorities across different stakeholder entities within the organization and to ensure that priorities are aligned when selecting a vendor and solution.

SCT Advisory provides RFI and RFP support for third party logistics provider selections by capturing and prioritizing key business requirements, facilitating the organizational alignment on program objectives while orchestrating the selection process with the right group of providers given the required capabilities, budget and culture fit.  Our unique value proposition combines the depth of familiarity with the solutions required to support the operational requirements and how they can be configured or customized to achieve process objectives and operational results, combined with an understanding of the effort required to translate requirements into provider templates and identify required changes to be budgeted and planned for.  We drive aggressive plans with the partners, while setting realistic expectations and contingency plans with our clients.

• Sourcing Strategy, RFP Oversight, & Vendor Selection – As project scope is defined, evaluating the potential vendors and high level requirements the focus the engagement on the best short list of potential partners streamlines the process and encourages focus on partner agility, working relationships, and defining implementation scope as opposed to vetting their ability to deliver against requirements.
• RFP Management – Managing vendor communications, scoring responses, consolidating evaluations, and tracking contract progress can be time-consuming and complex. Our proven methodology streamlines this process, keeping it efficient and transparent—while providing clear updates and recommendations to your executive team.
• Provider presentations and demonstrations of standard templates are a critical step in vetting the solutions and ensuring consensus on success factors and preferred vendors across the organization which is critical to the success of the overall program.  SCT provides vendors with guidance on your organizational priorities and while presenting what we see as critical differentiators to you for a 360-degree view of the options to choose from.  Briefing sessions following the demonstrations translate vendor positioning into valid expectations, and roundtable discussions unveil any reservations from the team that can be addressed in future conversations with the vendors.
• Program Planning – Company-wide projects require careful collaboration, roadmap development, milestone planning, and executive engagement. With hundreds of supply chain projects completed, SCT knows which questions to ask, critical success milestones to track, and KPIs to monitor—helping you build a strategic program plan that drives lasting value across your organization. Following vendor demonstrations, as the preferred solution is materializing, Scoping workshops allow our customers to dig deeper into capabilities and setup requirements to more fully develop an appreciation for solution capabilities and the effort required to achieve them.  SCT facilitates workshops with 1-2 vendors to walk through the day in the life of warehouse operation (end to end given the surrounding system architecture), implementation methodology, roles and responsibilities, and critical success factors.
• Scoping, Scheduling, and Roles & Responsibilities – Aligning project and program objectives with high level estimates of effort allows a best in class approach to take shape.  Iterations allowing the evaluation of complexity and projected results allow refinement of scope to deliver optimal value.  Considerations of staff availability and supplementation options allow time and cost tradeoffs to be evaluated, delivering an ideal balance of speed and value.
• Program Justification & Business Case Preparation – If needed, investment priorities will be scoped and sequenced, providing clarity on transformation strategies and business justification.  Cost estimation and returns on investment will be combined into a time phased justification for your program, and combined with soft benefits and insights to socialize effort & procure funding.

SCT’s advisors integrate with your project teams to help extend conversations related to outsourced logistics project design and its successful delivery.    Embedding ourselves into regular conversations with program stakeholders provides a third-party view of progress and a supportive yet challenging voice seeking to provide optimal impacts and value realized from of your LSP relationships, while minimizing the disruptions that might result in the process.  Participating in or leading steering committee meetings provides a third party view free from internal politics on the readiness for system cutovers as well as the ability of the solution to achieve value.

• Industry Best Practices – Our advisors have succeeded in guiding some of the most complex environments through global design contemplation efforts the balance operational efficiencies with throughput while protecting agile processes prepared to address the needs of channel growth, shifting demand, and the prospect of merger and acquisition impact to operations.  Throughout design and continuously as issues arise and parking lots are addressed our advisors provide invaluable insight into industry recognized best practices and opportunities to improve existing processes. Managing the balance of delivering the best solution and deferring potentially disruptive changes to the business delivers a high value outcome with opportunity to grow from a foundation of success.
• Implementation Methodology – Following the critical elements of a best in class methodology assures operational readiness and business preparations to absorb the extended capabilities that implementations have to offer. Our advisors, through years of experience, ensure the rigorous exercises of data cleanliness, testing thoroughness, and robust training are executed in alignment with the appropriate milestones.
• Change Management – Change management is perhaps the most critical element assuring the success of an implementation. Preparing the business for the impacts of process and technology changes, while championing the positive impacts it will have on the personnel and the business can go miles towards driving the correct outcomes. SCT works with client leadership to build awareness of pending change and communicate effectively across stakeholder groups while preparing them for a successful transition.
• Program Leadership Alignment & Coaching – Ensuring stakeholders maintain a clear line of sight to both project success and program objectives is critical.  Opportunity often lies beyond your typical cadence of status reporting and milestone presentations.  With ongoing and frequent dialogue beyond the mechanics, our advisors will cultivate a dialogue with project stakeholders deliberating project risks related to people, process, and technology, adding rigor to change management and calibrating scoping decisions to balance results with objectives around schedule and costs.
• Steering Committee Oversight & Support – Formal, objective reviews of program success prove useful to calibrating program investment.  Our advisors, extracted from the day to day challenges of operations and project management, provide a useful rudder to steer your program to achieve its longer term vision, and serve as a reality check when responding to trends and anticipating potential disruptions.