The consulting firm Spend Management Experts has developed a suite of transportation spend-optimization services. The aim of the product is to eliminate small-parcel, freight, air and ocean carrier over-spending. Features include contract benchmarking and negotiation, network optimization, bill auditing and refund recovery, and freight payment. According to SME, the services help shippers to understand their unique shipping profiles and characteristics, conduct analyses based on carriers' long-run marginal costs, determine fair margins on carrier services, choose the right shipping methods with regard to specific shipping characteristics and market trends, and understand alternative choices. SME determines each carrier's margin and savings available to the shipper by combining the carrier's cost to serve with up-to-date pricing data.
