News / Strategic partnerships not so important to shippers these days

© Anar Mammadov

Are ties between forwarders and cargo owners weakening? The 2026 Third-Party Logistics Study unveiled by the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals reveals a divergence of the two sides on their relationships.

Although 88% of the shippers surveyed described their engagement with 3PLs as “strategic”, only 55% of their logistics spend goes to strategic partnerships, the remaining 45% classified as transactional spend.

“Many 3PL-customer relationships that are described in terms such as partnerships and ‘win-win’ are not as strategic as may be intended,” the authors of the study concluded.

While 3PLs focus on visibility, customisation and value-added services, shippers prioritise solving operational challenges and reducing costs, the study indicates.

Bob Imbriani, SVP international at forwarder Team Worldwide, observed that shippers had developed a more flexible attitude to strategic partnerships. They still seek them, but do not regard them as exclusive as before.

“Today they form alliances but deviate quite often when they see a lower rate,” he said, adding that “it was never 100% exclusive; it’s probably gone from 90% to 70% or 60% exclusive”.

Mr Imbriani noted that cargo owners had shown greater loyalty to their customs brokers and to warehouse providers, and attributes the change in part to the impact of tariffs, which has put pressure on cargo owners to squeeze cost out of supply chains.

Industry veteran Ram Menen remarked that when capacity was short of demand, “everybody was making big bucks out of each other at the expense of the shipper”, but in the wake of the US trade war “the boot is now on the other foot”.

“Shippers are now more in control and, in this day and age of digitalisation, it’s easier to shop for cheap(er) rates online. Loyalty is scarce,” he added.

Forwarders continue to strive for deeper ties with customers, said Mr Imbriani, adding: “It’s still attractive to get 50% of their business, and you may get more. You can’t say, ‘we won’t work with you if you don’t give us more.”

ITS Logistics is keeping its strong focus on building stronger customer relationships.

“We’ve seen this progress despite the headwinds,” said chief commercial officer Josh Allen.

ITS has built a system around the customer journey to deeper ties, with defined chapters, definitions and a road map, which begins with an initial assessment in how far an individual customer is focused on objectives that open the door to progress beyond a tactical engagement.

In the process, relationships evolve from single-barrelled engagements to multi-threaded contacts at various levels, from operational and field to procurement and senior leadership levels, he said.

Notwithstanding the current headwinds, the fundamental reason for cargo owners to seek closer ties with logistics providers has not changed – to leverage supply chain as a competitive element for their business, he explained. This is where he sees opportunities for forwarders.

“To compete in today’s marketplace, you have to elevate relationships, your offering and your capability, and when you solve real problems or when you create real value for the customers, that’s when you get opportunities to do the things they really care about, versus some of the entry point opportunities,” he said.

The rising need to share data should establish firmer links between business partners. System integration has traditionally been viewed as a kind of glue bonding logistics providers with their clients, but this has lost some of its sticking power in the advance of apps, Mr Imbriani observed.

“Today it’s much easier to integrate, adapt and utilise. Now it’s more plug and play,” he said.

ITS’s roadmap for building strategic relationships includes such links, all the way from little integration to shared investments in technology.

“There’s no better environment than where both have skin in the game,” Mr Allen said. This happens only with a small percentage of ITS’s customers, he noted, adding that the probability of advancing to this level is higher with shippers that have significant size and “real problems to solve with millions of dollars to scale”.

As the 2026 Third-Party Logistics Study indicates, money for such efforts is in short supply at shippers in the present market. This also shows in levels of financial arrangements beyond transactional remuneration. While 44% of 3PLs are using-gain sharing agreements, only 16% of shippers are embracing this.

Mr Imbriani said that gain-sharing was not happening at the moment.

Mr Allen is philosophical about the mix of strategic and transactional relationships with customers.

“You have to have a mix of both. Tactical relationships are your green shoots, your [strategic] relationships in three years,” he said.

Ashok Thomas, president of Global Supply Chain Logistics, reckons the rising tide of data and the ability of AI to sift through them will help elevate relationships to a more strategic level, as they will reduce deals based on shippers’ bargain hunts for lower rates.

Mr Menen envisages a major shift in the landscape as younger actors, who are comfortable with real-time/online trading, are taking over the controls. Armed with up-to-date rate information and AI, they will be buying services directly from airlines and forwarders, and “virtual transactions will be the norm of the day,” he predicted.