NewPort Tank Containers

The Challenge

Sourcing specialist ocean freight without enough external reference

NewPort manages ocean freight across many port-to-port combinations and specialist tank container requirements. Sourcing decisions are shaped by carrier reliability, equipment availability, customer commitments, operational constraints, and market volatility, with price rarely the only decision driver.

In this environment, historical data and gut feel alone is not always enough. Some lanes are difficult to benchmark, and carrier offers can be hard to validate. For specialist operators, the risk is not only paying too much. It is making allocation decisions without enough external reference on lanes where historical data and gut feel is thin.

The challenge was knowing when to accept, when to challenge, when to contract longer term, and when to stay flexible. NewPort needed a sourcing process that gave the team stronger evidence behind those decisions.

How Xeneta Helped

An independent market reference inside the sourcing workflow

For a large global ocean freight RFP, NewPort used Keelvar's sourcing workflow together with Xeneta's ocean freight market intelligence to create a more structured, transparent, and market-backed sourcing process.

Keelvar gave NewPort the structure to manage a complex sourcing event, compare scenarios, and provide clearer supplier feedback across a large lane portfolio. NewPort used Xeneta as an independent market reference inside that workflow, helping validate carrier offers and support supplier conversations with market evidence rather than assumptions.

NewPort's procurement team applied the commercial and operational judgment throughout: customer commitments, carrier relationships, equipment realities, and final allocation decisions. The tools did not replace that judgment. They gave it better inputs.

How It Works

Market evidence brought directly into the sourcing decision

As carrier bids came in through Keelvar, NewPort's team used Xeneta's market rates dataset to check each offer against the broader market for that lane, giving the procurement team a shared, visual view of the key lanes, the carrier offer, and where it sat relative to the market, rather than a manual analysis explained after the fact.

That same market context fed into scenario planning within Keelvar, helping NewPort compare how different allocation decisions stacked up against the market before final nominations were made. Where internal benchmark history was thin, the independent market reference gave the team a stronger basis for deciding whether to accept, challenge, or push for a different contract structure.

The approach extended beyond the RFP itself. NewPort described using Xeneta on an ongoing basis for lane monitoring and to support spot-versus-contract decisions as conditions changed throughout the year.

Outcomes

A sourcing process that could hold up in the room

200–250 hours freed up during the RFP process. Combining Keelvar's sourcing workflow with Xeneta's market data removed a significant amount of manual analysis time from a large, complex global tender.

90%+ of evaluated lanes with market visibility. Independent market data gave NewPort's team a benchmark view across the large majority of lanes assessed in the tender, including lanes where internal history alone was limited.

Stronger supplier feedback and negotiation preparation. Market benchmarks gave NewPort's team a stronger foundation for carrier conversations, replacing assumption-based negotiation with evidence-backed feedback.

A stronger move toward long-term contracts where the market supported it. On Northeast Asia exports, improved market visibility supported a stronger move toward 12-month contracts compared to the previous RFP, a decision made with better market evidence rather than simply moving more volume into long-term terms.

The Broader Impact

Why connecting workflow, evidence, and judgment matters for complex ocean spend

For NewPort, the value was not automation alone, and it was not benchmarking alone. It was the decision process built around both. Keelvar structured the sourcing workflow, Xeneta showed where the market was, and NewPort's procurement team applied the commercial and operational judgment that no platform can replace.

Together, that combination helped NewPort move from manual analysis toward a sourcing process that was faster, clearer, and easier to defend, with stakeholders, suppliers, and carriers alike. The same logic applies beyond specialist tank freight: any BCO managing complex ocean spend needs a way to connect sourcing workflow, market evidence, and procurement judgment in one decision process.