In the current climate, inaction is not just a missed opportunity; it is a costly decision that directly impacts your bottom line.
By Rod Andrews, Category Manager, Logistics, CoreTrust
The freight market is approaching a significant turning point. After a prolonged downturn that has lasted 13 consecutive quarters, the period of historically low transportation costs is ending. While spot rates have been low, a market-wide repricing is on the horizon. Industry analysts predict a major shift in the second half of 2026, where tighter carrier capacity and normalized demand will drive rates significantly higher.
For procurement and finance leaders, a passive "wait-and-see" approach carries substantial risk. Delaying logistics optimization by even one year could mean losing up to 25% of potential savings as the market recovers. In the current climate, inaction is not just a missed opportunity; it is a costly decision that directly impacts your bottom line.
Navigating LTL Carrier Concentration and Clean Intelligence
This market pressure is intensified by the "LTL Constriction." Today, the top 25 less-than-truckload (LTL) carriers command over 90% of the market. This concentration gives them unprecedented pricing power and weakens the negotiating position of shippers. In response, leading organizations are abandoning outdated, manual procurement processes. They are adopting transparency standards that use real-time tracking, open pricing, and AI-driven intelligence to protect their margins.
Unlocking LTL Value Without Disruption
CoreTrust members managing fragmented LTL networks face a common problem: optimization typically requires time, resources, and operational disruption. Redwood changes that equation. Through data-driven analysis, Redwood identifies 10–20% savings opportunities in your existing LTL spend—without requiring system changes, carrier migrations, or infrastructure overhauls.
What sets CoreTrust members apart? It’s the strength of collective negotiating power and our core ethos “Strength in Numbers”. Through our logistics partnerships, CoreTrust members access benefits that would be unavailable to organizations operating independently:
Accelerated Execution. While industry-standard LTL optimization takes 10–15 days, CoreTrust members complete analysis in just 3 days—built into our supplier partnerships.
Integration Value at No Cost. Your system integration is handled seamlessly at no charge—a $16,000–$20,000 value included in your CoreTrust membership. This eliminates a major barrier to optimization that independent organizations must absorb.
Immediate and Parallel Deployment. Redwood Connect begins optimizing your spot shipments from day one, capturing 10–15% per-transaction savings while your strategic analysis runs in parallel. Implementation completes in 30–60 days total.
Zero Integration Risk. For CoreTrust members, optimization happens without operational disruption, system overhauls, or hidden costs. You capture available savings faster and with complete confidence in execution.
This is Strength in Numbers in action—the collective advantage CoreTrust members enjoy across every category, including logistics.
For CoreTrust members, this means capturing available savings faster, with zero integration costs and zero operational risk.
Strategic Clarity Before Execution
Before diving into implementation, CoreTrust members receive a complimentary workflow mapping exercise—a service that typically costs $20,000–$40,000. This provides clear visibility into your current transportation operations, identifies optimization priority zones, and sets the roadmap for your 30–60 day execution window. You move from uncertainty to a concrete action plan at no additional cost.
Two Optimization Paths for CoreTrust Members
Redwood LTL Optimization: For CoreTrust members focused on reducing less-than-truckload costs quickly. Data harnessing reveals hidden costs, service mismatches, and carrier inefficiencies. Plug-and-play implementation means no system integration and no process redesign. Results in 30–60 days. Ideal if LTL represents a meaningful portion of your freight spend and you need actionable insights to inform long-term carrier relationships.
GEODIS Managed Transportation: For companies with complex, multi-location networks requiring comprehensive redesign. This covers warehousing optimization, truckload consolidation, dock scheduling, and full supply chain orchestration—a lift-and-shift approach for organizations ready to transform their entire logistics footprint. Larger investment, deeper integration, broader impact across FTL, warehousing, and cross-dock operations.
CoreTrust members access both paths. Choose based on your operational scope: Redwood for immediate EBITDA lift through strategic LTL portfolio optimization—capturing 10–20% savings and carrier relationship clarity—or GEODIS for comprehensive network restructuring across warehousing, FTL, and cross-dock operations.
Protecting Margins When External Pressures Mount
Tariffs, carrier consolidation, and rising capacity costs are headwinds you cannot control. But freight optimization is a lever you can pull. Redwood quickly surfaces overcharges and rate inefficiencies, allowing you to recover 4–6% of spend within weeks. GEODIS redesigns full networks to eliminate dwell, consolidate shipments, and reduce premium carrier dependency. For CoreTrust members, both approaches are available without lengthy vendor selection or RFP cycles. The benefit: faster execution, lower risk, and proven methodologies.
How CoreTrust Members Get Started
If your primary challenge is LTL spend fragmentation, Redwood's fast-track approach delivers results without operational complexity. If your logistics network requires a fundamental redesign—warehouse positioning, truckload optimization, managed transportation—GEODIS handles the full transformation. Either way, CoreTrust members avoid vendor procurement delays and access pre-negotiated economics both partners have locked in.
The path forward begins with understanding your unique logistics profile. A conversation with the CoreTrust team will clarify what percentage of your spend is LTL versus FTL, warehousing, and cross-docking operations. From there, the right optimization strategy becomes clear—whether that's immediate EBITDA lift through Redwood's LTL focus or foundational network transformation with GEODIS. The CoreTrust team can assess your specific needs, map your opportunity, and recommend the approach that delivers the greatest impact for your operation.
Freight Optimization as Competitive Advantage
In a compressed margin environment, controllable costs matter. Redwood members capture 10–20% LTL savings in 30–60 days with zero operational lift. GEODIS members redesign networks to unlock 8–15% program-level efficiency. For CoreTrust members, both options are available without building internal expertise or navigating complex vendor relationships. The benefit is access, speed, and lower execution risk.
The market window is closing: tariff exposure through July, and rates are expected to rise significantly in the second half of the year as demand normalizes. CoreTrust members positioned now will outpace those who wait.
CoreTrust Logistics Solutions: Your Path to Clarity
At CoreTrust, we guide our members beyond reactive freight management. Strategic clarity comes first—before any implementation, CoreTrust members receive a complimentary workflow mapping exercise, a service typically valued at $20,000–$40,000. This process provides clear visibility into your current transportation operations, identifies priority zones for optimization, and lays out a concrete roadmap for your 30–60 day execution window—all at no additional cost.
We help you build a proactive and resilient supply chain with solutions focused on:
Clean Intelligence: We help you transform fragmented raw data into structured, real-time performance dashboards. These actionable insights are crucial for auditable procurement, disciplined sourcing, and ultimately, stronger exit multiples.
Predictive Visibility: By leveraging CoreTrust’s trusted logistics suppliers, we shift your operations from after-the-fact tracking to proactive exception management. This allows your team to identify and resolve potential disruptions before they affect service levels or profitability.
Immediate EBITDA Impact: Our initial Logistics Landscape Assessments provide strategic clarity on your freight operations, revealing optimization opportunities across rate structure, carrier mix, and network efficiency that inform both immediate actions and long-term logistics strategy. These can lead to a 26–40% EBITDA improvement through strategic network design, rate alignment, and service rationalization.
The Impact of Tariffs on Landed Cost Pressure
Adding another layer of complexity to freight market trends are new trade-driven cost increases. A temporary 10% surcharge on most goods imported into the United States took effect on February 24, 2026. This measure is set to continue through late July 2026. Public statements suggest the tariff could climb to 15%, though 10% is the current confirmed rate.
While some goods are exempt, many manufacturers and distributors are now facing a direct, non-recoverable increase in landed cost. This tariff exposure can quickly erode annual freight savings if transportation networks are not actively managed. Effective logistics optimization has become one of the few levers your organization can pull to combat these external cost pressures.
Companies with disciplined rate strategies and clear visibility into total transportation spend are better equipped to stabilize margins. Those relying on static contracts will struggle. In this environment, logistics optimization is more than a cost-cutting measure—it's a critical margin-protection strategy.
Strategic Synergy: A Dual-Engine Logistics Approach
To help members protect margins and prepare for the next market cycle, CoreTrust utilizes a dual-engine logistics strategy, offering two distinct optimization paths tailored to your organizational needs:
Redwood LTL Optimization: Perfect for companies focused on reducing less-than-truckload costs quickly. With Redwood, CoreTrust members benefit from data-driven analysis that reveals hidden costs, service mismatches, and carrier inefficiencies. Redwood Connect integrates seamlessly with your existing ERP and TMS systems, augmenting your current logistics environment without requiring system overhauls or operational restructuring. Operating as an a-la-carte logistics service, Redwood Connect delivers 10–20% LTL savings in 30–60 days by optimizing shipments against a pre-negotiated carrier network—all while your team maintains full control and visibility of your operations. Redwood accelerates execution: typical industry analysis takes 10–15 days, but CoreTrust members complete theirs in 3 days, with integration handled at no cost (a $16,000–$20,000 value provided free). Immediate spot shipment solutions with Redwood Connect deliver per-transaction savings from day one, so you capture value while your strategic optimization runs in parallel.
GEODIS Managed Transportation: Designed for organizations with complex, multi-location networks that require a comprehensive logistics overhaul. This lift-and-shift model covers warehousing optimization, truckload consolidation, dock scheduling, and end-to-end supply chain orchestration. GEODIS enables full network redesign, ideal for companies ready to transform their logistics footprint, achieve deeper integration, and realize program-level efficiency gains of 8–15%.
CoreTrust members access both optimization paths—strategic LTL portfolio optimization with Redwood, or comprehensive network transformation with GEODIS. By eliminating vendor procurement cycles and leveraging pre-negotiated carrier economics, CoreTrust accelerates execution while reducing operational and financial risk. For portfolio companies, this means measurable EBITDA improvement tied to logistics efficiency without the diversion of internal resources or extended vendor selection processes.
Through these two complementary partners, we align world-class logistics expertise to your specific operational challenges. Rather than forcing a one-size-fits-all solution, CoreTrust matches the right optimization model to your business—transforming logistics from a cost center into a measurable value driver.
These advantages are exclusive to CoreTrust members. Discover how Redwood and GEODIS can unlock logistics-driven EBITDA improvement for your organization. Reach out to the CoreTrust team today to discuss your logistics profile and schedule your complimentary Logistics Landscape Assessment—the first step toward transforming how your organization competes on cost and efficiency.
Comprehensive Managed Transportation
This model is ideal for organizations looking for complete, end-to-end supply chain management. CoreTrust logistics solutions in this area include:
Advanced warehouse and cross-dock optimization
Advanced data analysis dock scheduling to improve throughput
Reduction of hidden accessorial costs like detention and dwell
Full TMS oversight across complex, multi-node networks
Tech-Enabled Optimization
This agile approach is designed for organizations that need flexibility without a complete infrastructure overhaul. Key features include:
Advanced LTL optimization to counter carrier pricing power
Plug-and-play integration with your existing ERP or TMS
Proven scalability for private-equity portfolio companies to maximize ROI
By aligning the right execution model with your operational profile, you gain both cost discipline and strategic flexibility. This is one of the most effective EBITDA improvement strategies available today.
February Logistics Guidance: Secure Your Advantage Now
As we progress through Q1 2026, the strategy is clear: lock in your advantages while market conditions still favor shippers. The convergence of freight market recovery, carrier consolidation, and rising external costs means today’s pricing environment will not last.
Protecting margins when external pressures mount is crucial. Tariffs, carrier consolidation, and capacity constraints are factors outside your control, but with CoreTrust, you have levers you can pull. The Redwood approach rapidly surfaces overcharges and rate inefficiencies in your LTL spend, letting you recover 4–6% of costs within weeks—without system changes, carrier migrations, or infrastructure overhauls. CoreTrust members accelerate execution, often identifying 10–20% savings while avoiding operational risk and enjoying zero integration costs. For those facing comprehensive logistics challenges, GEODIS delivers full network redesign, targeting dwell elimination, shipment consolidation, and reduced carrier dependency for 8–15% efficiency gains. Unlike standard optimization workflows, CoreTrust members skip lengthy vendor selections and access pre-negotiated rates for faster, lower-risk results.
Redwood’s fast-track optimization and GEODIS’s full-scale transformation—both offered through CoreTrust—empower you to control what you can in a volatile market, turning freight optimization into a strategic competitive advantage.
Organizations that act now can:
Secure favorable rate structures before capacity tightens.
Improve service reliability without over-engineering solutions.
Build a logistics strategy that scales with growth and acquisitions.
Logistics should not be a vulnerability. When approached strategically—with clear data visibility and execution partners aligned to your operational scope—it becomes one of the most powerful EBITDA multipliers for your organization.
These advantages are exclusive to CoreTrust members. Discover how Redwood and GEODIS can unlock logistics-driven EBITDA improvement for your organization. Reach out to the CoreTrust team today to discuss your logistics profile and schedule your complimentary Logistics Landscape Assessment—the first step toward transforming how your organization competes on cost and efficiency.
Rod Andrews is the Category Manager for Logistics at CoreTrust, where he leads strategic sourcing and category development for the logistics sector. With over 13 years of specialized experience at industry leaders including Amazon, AWS, and HPE, Rod provides CoreTrust members with expert insights into complex supply chain integrations and enterprise logistics solutions. Based in the Nashville area, he leverages his extensive market knowledge to help procurement leaders navigate volatility and unlock sustainable enterprise value.