Freight forwarders have invested heavily in digital platforms, yet many still struggle to translate data into faster, more consistent decisions. New Magaya and Adelante SCM research suggests that competitive advantage increasingly depends on integrating technology, people and processes into a decision framework that can respond quickly to supply chain disruption.
Tech Adoption Without Orchestration Discipline
Magaya and Adelante SCM surveyed 125 freight forwarders and customs brokers and found a sector that has invested in systems but has not yet embedded them into the core of how work gets done. Around two-thirds of respondents said operational volatility is higher today than three years ago, yet only 13% rated their data-driven decision-making as excellent. That performance self-assessment points to a structural issue rather than a tooling gap.
Digital integration remains shallow. Just 11% of respondents described their organizations as highly integrated across customers, carriers, partners, and regulatory platforms, and only about a quarter characterized their connectivity as strong in related research excerpts. Many operations still run with fragmented data, partial process automation, and manual handoffs that slow response and create blind spots at critical moments.
Artificial intelligence sits in an even earlier phase of maturity. Only 2% of organizations reported AI embedded across their operations, while 17% acknowledged they have no AI plans at all. The remainder are experimenting in pockets or scoping future use cases, but few have moved from trials to embedded decision support in planning, pricing, routing, or compliance workflows.
This pattern mirrors wider transport and logistics trends, where industry reports show broad investment in transportation management systems, visibility tools, and automation, but uneven progress in connecting those assets into an integrated operating model. The bottleneck is not access to software. The constraint is orchestration logic, clear ownership of decisions, consistent data models, and repeatable playbooks that convert signals into action at network speed.
Customers are already behaving as if that orchestration capability exists. Executives interviewed for the report described clients who expect immediate answers, real-time shipment status, and reliable arrival estimates without needing to understand process complexity. Several leaders noted that integration with customer data and workflows has become central to their value proposition, with shared datasets and co-designed processes aimed at improving end-to-end efficiency.
From Moving Freight To Engineering Decisions
The research frames a decisive shift in expectations. Execution quality is now treated as a baseline condition, not a differentiator. The report highlights that leading providers are being judged on how well they help their customers navigate uncertainty, advising on routing options under disruption, quantifying trade-offs between speed and cost, and exposing risk in supply and demand plans before issues surface.
Magaya’s chief executive described this transition as a move away from pure service provision toward decision support rooted in technology, expertise, and visibility. Adrian Gonzalez of Adelante SCM emphasized that the emerging standard is the ability to provide visibility, insight, and foresight, a continuous view of what is happening, what might happen next, and what to do about it. That expectation aligns with broader enterprise trends where control towers, digital twins, and scenario engines are being deployed as cross-functional decision layers.
The workforce implications are significant. Survey respondents ranked proficiency with AI and automation tools as the single most important skill for the coming two to three years, with data analysis and decision-making close behind. That emphasis suggests a move away from transactional execution roles toward orchestration roles that interpret machine output, manage exceptions, and align logistics choices with commercial and financial objectives.
Priority lists from the study read like a blueprint for this transition. Respondents flagged the need to increase decision speed, expand AI use, accelerate digital integration, convert raw data into usable insight, and strengthen customer partnerships. These themes echo across adjacent research into resilient and intelligent networks, where decision velocity and cross-functional coordination consistently surface as defining attributes of high performers.
For organizations outside forwarding and brokerage, the findings illuminate a familiar pattern. Technology investment often outpaces the redesign of operating models, metrics, and talent. Systems are deployed, but decision rights remain ambiguous, data is not harmonized, and teams lack confidence in algorithmic recommendations, which keeps escalation volumes high and response times slow.
Digital Maturity Depends On Decision Governance
As freight forwarding platforms become more connected through APIs, AI and real-time visibility, the value of digital investment increasingly depends on consistent decision governance. Standardized data, clearly defined ownership and repeatable decision rules help ensure that routing, pricing and exception handling remain consistent across customers, partners and regions. Strengthening these foundations enables technology investments to support faster responses as market conditions, regulations and customer requirements continue to evolve.
