Freight has always been one of procurement’s most complex categories. But in recent years, many sourcing leaders have noticed a shift: even well-negotiated freight programs are delivering less predictable outcomes.
This isn’t because procurement teams are negotiating poorly. It’s because the operating environment has changed.
Freight No Longer Behaves Like a Traditional Sourcing Category
Most procurement categories are governed by relatively stable inputs. Pricing may fluctuate, but underlying structures remain consistent enough for negotiated terms to hold.
Freight is different.
Carrier capacity shifts rapidly. Service expectations evolve. Accessorial charges expand. Network disruptions alter routing and mode decisions. The result is that freight outcomes increasingly diverge from negotiated assumptions even when contracts remain unchanged.
Procurement teams are discovering that control based solely on rate negotiation is no longer sufficient.
The Limits of Traditional Procurement Levers
Historically, procurement relied on:
- Competitive bid events
- Rate benchmarking
- Volume commitments
- Contractual enforcement
Those levers still matter — but they no longer guarantee predictable results on their own.
In many organizations, freight outcomes are now shaped as much by execution, data quality, and invoice interpretation as by contract terms. This creates a gap between what procurement negotiates and what ultimately gets paid.
Control Is Shifting From Negotiation to Oversight
As freight has become more volatile, leading procurement teams are redefining what “control” means.
Instead of focusing exclusively on rates, they are asking:
- Are negotiated terms consistently enforced at the invoice level?
- Do we have visibility into where variance is coming from?
- Can we explain freight outcomes clearly to finance and operations?
Control today is less about locking in price and more about governing how freight behaves over time.
This realization is often what triggers procurement teams to reassess their freight audit, TMS, and claims partners.