Management Consultancy · Service
Freight procurement
Tender design, carrier selection and cost baselining — as method, not as phases.
At a glance
What it is
“The buyer already knows there is a discovery phase. What they need is the scoring matrix.”
A principal, Kaelo Management Consultancy
What’s included
Four areas of scopeCost baselining that makes bids comparable
Rates are quoted against different assumptions and are not comparable as received. A usable baseline decomposes by lane, mode, weight-break and accessorial, so that a cheaper linehaul carrying heavier accessorials is visible as the more expensive option it is.
Tender design before tender launch
Scope, lot structure, bid format and the award rules — decided and written before the RFQ goes out. Tenders that are restructured mid-flight lose credibility with carriers, and carrier goodwill is a real asset in a tight market.
Scoring built on stated weights
Rate, transit reliability, capacity commitment, customs competence, claims history, systems integration and financial standing. The weights are a commercial decision and should be argued explicitly rather than emerging from a spreadsheet nobody owns.
Award, and the part everyone skips
Implementation, rate-card loading, and the review cadence that catches drift. Most of the value negotiated in a tender leaks back out in the first two quarters after award.
How the work runs
Baseline
Current spend decomposed properly, before anyone is asked to quote.
Design
Lots, scope, bid format and award rules agreed in writing.
Run
Question bank issued, responses normalised, scoring applied as designed.
Hold
Post-award review cadence, with the drift check built in.
When to come to us
- 01 You are approaching a tender and your current spend is not decomposed.
- 02 Bids keep arriving in formats you cannot compare.
- 03 You have run tenders that delivered savings on paper and not in the accounts.
What we do not do
- Publishing universal scoring weights. They are network-specific and anyone offering you a standard set has not looked at your network.
- Running a tender purely to reprice an incumbent. Carriers price that behaviour in.
- Awarding on linehaul rate alone.
Phase names where the weights should be.
On procurement and diagnostic queries the incumbent pages describe a methodology in the abstract and hand over nothing usable. The searcher came for an artefact.
Related reading
What goes in the matrix, and how to argue the weights. →
The question bank, and the answers that should end a conversation. →
Decision rights first. Everything else is downstream. →
DSO, DPO and DIO — and which one is actually yours to move. →
The vertical practice: forwarders, brokers, carriers, 3PLs and relocation firms. →
Common questions
