Author: Peter Gyde, SVP Partnerships at Freightify

Near sourcing is happening. Here is my case for the rise of the SME forwarders in a new reality of shorter supply chains.

The linked McKinsey 👇🏼 report finally puts some numbers to the mega trend the industry has debated for the past years. The short summary is that it’s happening and seemingly picking up pace. Why?

Geopolitics headline the immediate supply chain agenda related to shipping costs and predictability, COVID, Russia, Panama Canal, Red Sea to name a recent few. On top of that add increasing labour costs in Asia, speed to consumer and CO2 footprint reduction requirements as additional themes high on management teams sourcing agenda when debating where to invest in the next supply chain strategies.

Exhibit 6 in the linked McKinsey report show some interesting breakdowns . Europe and US are clearly reducing their dependencies in Asia, while the pattern for other geographies are less pronounced, and in some cases like Brazil the exact opposite.

Efficient and reliable logistics is about operational expertise in the local market. Today these local markets are often equal to connecting manufacturing to far away consumers thus relying on globally connected networks of service providers with whom there is trust. Enter the global freight forwarder (GFF) community at an edge offering a “one throat to choke” proposition to the cargo owners.