What data do shippers need to contribute to access SCI: Custom Insights?

Participating members of the SONAR Shipper Consortium contribute tendered volume, accepted and rejected tenders, carrier information, rates, and other network activity. In exchange, they gain access to Custom Insights analytics combined with SONAR's market benchmarks and AI-driven insights on demand, rates, and capacity.

How does SCI: Custom Insights differ from the original Supply Chain Intelligence tool?

SCI: Custom Insights is an ongoing, network-focused experience that combines shipper data with market intelligence for continuous performance monitoring. The original SCI experience now operates under Manual Analysis and remains available for one-off projects like mini-bids, scenario analysis, and new lanes that aren't yet part of consortium data.

What are the main benefits of the Benchmarking feature?

Benchmarking provides lane-level analysis through two sub-features: Lane Opportunities categorizes lanes into High Risk Zone, Savings Opportunity, Carrier-Dependent Zone, and Efficiency Zone by combining pricing alignment, lane difficulty, and market conditions. Volume Compliance compares planned versus actual volume to identify freight surges, shortfalls, and shifts, critical context for understanding whether carrier performance issues are isolated or systemic.

How can shippers use Network Optimization to improve performance?

Network Analysis groups activity by origin or destination market to evaluate spend, rates, and tender compliance across facilities, then allows drilling into specific lanes to determine if issues are localized or part of broader trends. Carrier Intelligence provides network-wide performance views including average rate, acceptance rates, volume, and risk levels, with the ability to drill into individual carriers to see which lanes drive their performance metrics.

Is SCI: Custom Insights available to all shippers?

No, SCI: Custom Insights is available exclusively to participating members of the SONAR Shipper Consortium. Membership requires contributing transportation data and provides access to deeper network intelligence supporting procurement, carrier management, routing guide strategy, and transportation planning.

Technology & Innovation

Moderate

SONAR Launches Custom Insights to Turn Shipper Data Into Network Intelligence

Sep 16, 2026

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The signal

SONAR has introduced SCI: Custom Insights, a new analytics platform that integrates shipper-specific transportation data with market benchmarks to provide actionable network intelligence. Available exclusively to SONAR Shipper Consortium members, the tool addresses a critical challenge in modern logistics: converting fragmented transportation data across multiple systems into coherent insights that drive procurement, carrier management, and routing optimization decisions. The platform structures analysis across three interconnected layers, Network Health (executive-level overview), Benchmarking (lane-specific analysis), and Network Optimization (market and carrier performance), allowing shippers to identify where they are paying above or below market rates, which lanes offer cost savings, and where capacity risks exist.

By combining individual shipper data with anonymized market context, the tool enables procurement teams to distinguish between carrier performance issues and volume variances, and between structural pricing problems and temporary market conditions. For supply chain professionals, this represents a shift toward data-driven network strategy. Rather than analyzing tender acceptance, rates, volume, and market conditions in separate systems, teams can now correlate these dimensions to make faster, more informed decisions about carrier negotiations, pricing adjustments, and routing guide revisions.

The consortium model creates a network effect where participating shippers benefit from aggregated market intelligence in exchange for data contribution.

#supply-chain-intelligence

#network-optimization

#transportation-data

#carrier-benchmarking

#procurement-analytics

#sonar-shipper-consortium

#freight-intelligence

#cost-savings

#risk-management

#logistics-software

Frequently Asked Questions

What This Means for Your Supply Chain

Simulation Suggestion

immediate

What if a major carrier suddenly rejects 30% more tenders than historical baseline?

Simulate the impact of a significant shift in carrier tender acceptance rates, modeling how volume redistribution across alternative carriers would affect network costs, pricing alignment, and capacity utilization. Calculate the cost differential between accepting higher pricing with reliable carriers versus redistributing to lower-priced but less reliable alternatives.

Run this scenario

Simulation Suggestion

this week

What if freight volume on high-risk pricing lanes surges 40% above forecast?

Model the operational and financial impact of unexpected volume spikes on lanes where aggressive pricing may create service exposure. Evaluate whether current carrier capacity and pricing can accommodate the surge, or if it forces shift to higher-cost backup carriers and creates service level risk.

Run this scenario

Simulation Suggestion

this month

What if market rate benchmarks shift 15% higher than current network pricing?

Simulate the scenario where market-wide rate increases pressure shipper pricing alignment, modeling the tradeoff between accepting higher costs to improve carrier acceptance rates and maintain service levels versus holding firm on pricing and accepting potential capacity risk.

Run this scenario

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