#Top10 Global Customs Brokers Globally & their Tech

International trade is inevitable and the key to building a successful, diversified, and risk-proof supply chain. Unfortunately, waiting until the last minute to find another broker will amount to a nightmare. At the same time, the industry is experiencing record-breaking demands with multi-billion dollar corporations setting the bar extremely high for end-consumer expectations.?? ??

According to Business Wire,

“the global business scenario is witnessing a major boost in trade activities that include import and export of commodities across countries. Such a boost in international trade activities is creating the requirement of a faster customs clearance process along with the necessary accurate documentation and compliance with customs regulations. This is resulting in the outsourcing of customs brokerage services to customs brokers who are equipped with a detailed knowledge of the tariff schedule and the listing of duty rates for import items. This will drive the spend momentum in the customs brokerage industry that will exceed 8% between 2017-2022.” 

Thus, knowing the top brokers is key for logistics partners and clients to ensuring available capacity, knowing options, executing, and surviving the climb. Whether you're a small to medium-sized, independent, or even a large multinational, this article provides a strong lens to start forming their own operations and customer-facing strategy. ??

And after an extensive review of ratings and public information for the top 10 customs brokers, which work well with freight forwarding software, as compiled from reviews at Clutch, here are the leaders..."Drumroll, please!"

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1. CH Robinson

Over recent years, CH Robinson has solved logistics problems for companies and industries around the world from the most complex to the simplest. They use their level of expertise combined with multimodal transportation management to deliver the best services to clients. 

They also recently announced early this year, a new innovation initiative, double downing on their investment into C.H. Robinson Labs – “Robinson Labs works hand in hand with the company’s technology team of more than 1,000 data scientists, engineers, and developers”. They’ve also spent U.S. $1B on tech! They invest in their people and formally named Tim Gagnon earlier this year, a company vet. I had the fortune of speaking with him a few months ago, and it was apparent that he knows how to invest and actually apply the same technology commercially. This is something many large corporations fail to do - effectively commercialize or use the tool in their own day-to-day operations which are key to maximizing results.

2. Total Quality Logistics

TQL is one of the biggest freight brokerage firms that operate both locally and internationally. Headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, they're a third-party logistics company with full and less than truckload capabilities. The organization also offers services in dedicated contract carriage, freight brokerage, intermodal and drayage, supply chain consulting, and transportation management. It was recently ranked as the second top brokerage firm by TTNews in North America, but still some $7B+ short in revenue compared to CHR, and $200M ahead of XPO. 

While they are not investing at nearly the same rate, TQL also provides its own tech for its clients – TQL Trax which is a portal and mobile app that provides operational business support.

3. XPO Logistics

XPO is one of the most successful companies in the world, providing pivotal supply chain solutions. They have specialists in freight brokerage, expedited transportation, global forwarding, contract logistics, and supply chain management. The experts make sure they offer the best services to clients as well as exceptional leadership under Bradley Jacobs who continues to lead the organization successfully - embracing and investing heavily in tech while building a top M&A portfolio as well.

These folks are also investing US $550 million dollars…annually into technology efforts. The focus of their tech team “four areas of innovation: automation and intelligent machines, visibility and customer service, our digital freight marketplace and dynamic data science.” also have digital consumer solutions

4. Coyote Logistics

Coyote Logistics is one of the largest third-party logistic providers in the world. It can match up to 10,000 shipments in a single day. Coyote Logistics was founded in 2006 with a mind of offering the best customer service in the industry of freightage transportation. They are now a UPS company.

When you visit their website, it’s also apparent that they also take tech seriously. Their homepage is very well designed, customer-centric, and engaging. Their shippers and carriers also get access to their suite of tools starting with CoyoteGo. 

5. Echo Global Logistics

Among the top 10 customs brokers, Echo Global Logistics is the number one leading provider in technology-enabled transportation and supply chain management in the world. The echo provides freight brokerage and management solutions in all the major modes. Echo ensures it manages and maintains its web-based technology that complies with its transportation data.

Surprise! They also have their own TMS that they offer to their clients complete with a shipper portal. Yes, another portal called Echoship but also they provide digital resources on how to engage and use that portal (sometimes these things need a manual).

6. Worldwide Express

Worldwide Express is a third party logistics company that helps small and medium-sized businesses ship smarter. WWEX has logistics experts who will help you practically ship your freight so that you will save your time and money. They also have a streamlined shipping platform that helps you have a track of your shipment.

The tech focus based on their site is their platform, Speedship, and e-commerce where you will find even more resources on how e-commerce companies can deliver better customer experiences. This is critical and seems to be a common thread throughout these top 10 players. 

7. Landstar System

Landstar networks work in a special way in that they have independent transport agents. They also have capacity provider’s offers and are flexible enough to reach both the locals and the globe. Landstar is unmatched in the industry due to its capacity as a service provider. 

They have an analytics-focused culture and also aim to provide their logistics partners with again, a whole slew of technology that offers solutions for carriers, shippers, owner-operators, and agents too. Complete with a ton of explainers also if you're curious what they have to offer their customers.

8. SunteckTTS/MODE Transportation

MODE Transportation out of Dallas acquired Florida-based Sunteck TTS back in 2019 with roots as an asset-less 3pl provider. The acquisition of Sunteck added to their multimodal capacities bringing together a strong combo of operations and tech. They are full-service, transportation logistics provider that operates through a network of sales, operations, and capacity specialists. Further, with the MODE side of things, the combo provides air and ocean freight forwarding, customs brokerage, freight brokerage, intermodal and drayage, inventory management and packaging, supply chain consulting, transportation management, warehousing, and distribution.

And as with any high performing, private equity-owned operation, MODE prominently features its technology as well, touting customer, carrier, and network-based tech solutions to their millions of customers.

9. GlobalTranz Enterprises

GlobalTranz is one of the best technology-driven freight brokerage companies and probably one of the more recent, prominent industry events with the acquisition of Cerasis announced earlier this year. It is specialized in full truckload, expedited, and managed transport solutions. They are efficient in that they match the demand and carrier capacity of shippers in near real-time to save on time. Their list of "GTZ " line of tech products is impressive and continues to grow longer.

This makes sense because Andrew Leto started the venture back in the early days of tech entering the logistics industry. He is a pioneer, an active angel investor according to his linkedin, and an industry champion touting tech and sharing his successes and learnings for others to follow. His interview with Craig Fuller of FreightWaves is one of my all time favorites where he tells the story of his father Vito's air freight background and turned that into ventures along with his brother Michael Leto (CEO at GlobalTranz). You may have heard of the Emerge platform which is one of those other Leto ventures driving innovation today.

10. J.B. Hunt Integrated Capacity Solutions

Last but not least is one of the biggest logistics and premier brands in North America and is recognized for its safe and reliable transportation service. In 1961, when Johnnie Bryant and Johnelle Hunt started the company in Arkansas, the container itself had not yet been patented - that only happened a year later in 1962. Its main aim and goal are to provide capacity oriented solutions to deliver to its customers and they have evolved and remained relevant even with the rapid onset of technology.

Which is another reason why J.B. Hunt 360 is also pretty much universally recognized at this point, with a whole suite of technology to arm their logistics partners with operating and network tools. And again like most of these other top tier providers, they have their own proprietary system.

Why Independent Brokers/Forwarders should incorporate Customer Experience into their Strategy:

If you haven't picked up on the tech trend outlined above, the core of these products have many commonalities and similar functions across the board.

What they were able to figure out much earlier on, is that it's all about the customer aka shipper experience. And thus as that budget opportunity presented itself, they chose to make those active, medium, and long term investments into technology.

But all is not perfect with these solutions above, at the same time. While they're critical and have been now to the growth and success of these companies, these solutions and the overhead and budgets required to stay on top of tech and man those innovation teams, continue to balloon. This is the problem with in-house solutions, once you're married to that tech, you're married to it, and the flexibility just isn't there that you would often find in a standalone saas startup, for example.

And with so many similar customer-facing solutions for the same freight market, the customers actually are dealing with monumental frustration having to remember logins, portals, interfaces, and this is why the industry is so hesitant to change and have been unable to in our perspective. These strategic moats for the above companies are great - until clients undoubtedly become upset as consumer technology becomes cheaper, better, faster, and more interoperable.

So for the independent players, the opportunity is now to close the gap. To preserve capital, while gaining access to some of the above functionality, that will also work well amongst other independent forwarders/brokers and your clients. This approach will create the right ecosystem and customer experience for the shippers, whose core needs have been largely been ignored due to legacy technology and old codebases, inability to connect to other microservices, and fragmentation in the marketplace. The big guys leading the tech pack are aware of this and are strategically moving to keep this from happening - but the majority of them around the world continue to NOT focus on the holistic, customer experience.

THIS is what we're striving to and are actively building within the small to medium, independent market segment.

So give Cargologik a shot, we want your feedback. And oh yeah - it's freemium, meaning free to try and use and we'll never lock you out of your account. We want our base using the platform and also actively seeding feedback, suggestions, and improvements as we innovate along with freight forwarders, customs brokers, shippers, and other logistics partners.

Register your Company's Cargologik account today for free and if you like it after 15-days, then give us your credit card: