How a global tire manufacturer keeps ocean rates 17% below the market across three regions

A multi-regional ocean freight network, an early tender cycle, and a market that moved 94% in five months

This global tire manufacturer ships finished tires and production material across a worldwide ocean network, with freight procurement teams operating in the Americas, Japan, and EMEA. Its annual tender runs earlier than most of its peers, opening in December and closing by March, which means contracted rates are locked in while the market keeps moving for the rest of the year.

Rate administration adds its own weight. The team maintains around 1,000 bunker codes updated quarterly, manages a six-month rolling bunker adjustment mechanism, and contracts ocean and drayage separately across regions. Without an independent reference, every carrier conversation about rates, surcharges, and allocations ran on the carrier's own numbers.

That gap became acute in 2026. Disruption in the Middle East pushed the short-term market up 94% between February and July, with spot rates on some corridors rising more than 300%. Carriers introduced emergency bunker and war risk surcharges, including one demand of $3,000 per FEU for rerouted cargo, and the team needed evidence to determine which claims reflected the market and which did not.

How Xeneta Helped

Benchmarking, tender data, and a quarterly analyst partnership shared by every regional freight team

The manufacturer uses Xeneta's Ocean platform as the common reference across its three regional freight teams. Rate benchmarking shows how every contracted rate compares to the market, corridor by corridor and carrier by carrier, while peer comparison data places overall performance against other automotive sector shippers buying on the same lanes.

The tender benchmark tool sits at the center of the December-to-March tender cycle. The team uploads its global rate card, maps incoming bids against market benchmarks lane by lane, and identifies where incumbent pricing diverges from what the data supports. Market Rate Outlook adds a forward view over the following six months, informing both tender timing and budget conversations with leadership.

Around the platform sits an analyst partnership. Xeneta Advisory delivers a quarterly leadership report reviewed live with the global team, covering tender outcomes, corridor performance, supplier positioning, and market direction. Schedule reliability and transit time data extend the same independence to service quality, and the team has worked with Xeneta analysts to model index-linked contract structures for volatile corridors.

How It Works

From tender preparation to surcharge disputes: one benchmark carries every carrier conversation

Ahead of each tender, the team sends its global rate card to Xeneta and runs incoming bids through the tender benchmark tool, comparing each carrier's pricing against the market on every lane. The data separates genuinely competitive bids from pricing that only looks competitive, and the quarterly leadership report tracks how contracted rates hold up against the market as the year unfolds.

The same data resolves questions a headline benchmark would miss. When one incumbent carrier showed rates 9.4% above the market average while every other top supplier priced below it, lane-level analysis traced the gap to specific Japanese port pairs and special equipment surcharges rather than general overpricing, which changed how the team approached that carrier in the next tender round.

During the 2026 Middle East disruption, the team used Xeneta's surcharge and bunker adjustment data to assess emergency surcharge demands against actual market conditions. That evidence supported a position of paying only what contracts require, including an ongoing challenge to a $3,000 per FEU war risk surcharge that other carriers on the same routing chose not to impose.

Outcomes

First quartile performance, sharper tenders, and surcharge demands met with evidence.

The Broader Impact

Why one independent benchmark matters for a three-region freight operation.

With procurement teams in the Americas, Japan, and EMEA buying against the same volatile market, a shared benchmark does more than measure performance. It gives every region the same answer to the same question, whether that question comes from a carrier, a forwarder, or the leadership team. Decisions that once rested on supplier narratives now rest on data every team can see.

The same intelligence carries the relationship beyond benchmarking. What began as rate comparison now extends to tender evaluation, surcharge validation, schedule reliability, and index-linked contract modelling, with each quarterly leadership review turning the data into corridor priorities and executive-ready market context. For a freight operation that locks rates in March and lives with the market all year, that continuity is the point.