The operating environment for moving freight has changed so fundamentally that the best practices built for a stable, consolidated carrier environment are no longer adequate to manage shipping in today’s market, according to a report conducted by Incisiv on behalf of shipping intelligence company Reveel.
Shipping has become one of the fastest-moving cost centers in any given business, because carrier rates change more frequently, surcharge structures continue to expand, and delivery expectations keep rising.
Today, according to the report, “State of Enterprise Shipping 2026,” 56% of enterprise shippers manage three or more parcel carriers, and 22% manage six or more. Incisiv says this diversification is a deliberate strategic response driven by the need for pricing leverage, service resilience during peak disruptions, and competitive delivery performance in a time when carriers are no longer focused on gaining market share. This has introduced more complexity that the old operating model, which has not kept pace with the speed of the market, was never designed to handle.
Incisiv’s report, based on a survey of 240 logistics, supply chain, finance, procurement, and IT leaders between May 21 and June 26, 2026, found that nearly half of shippers still review surcharges and accessorial fees only periodically or rarely, despite carrier rate and surcharge changes being the most widely experienced operational challenge last year.
The data suggests organizations are better at validating contracts than optimizing them. Some 78% review contract compliance on a monthly or quarterly cadence, yet only 13% continuously benchmark carrier rates and 15% continuously model surcharge impacts, the report concludes. This indicates that while most organizations have structured processes to monitor adherence to existing agreements, relatively few continuously evaluate whether those agreements remain competitive or proactively quantify the cost impact of changing carrier pricing, Incisiv says.
In the survey, when asked what would create the greatest long-term value, shippers selected faster issue identification (52%) and greater cost predictability (50%) nearly as often as improvements to delivery performance itself (46%). Shippers value knowing sooner and understanding cost impact as much as the delivery outcomes those capabilities enable.
“The findings make one thing clear,” the report’s authors say. “Shipping performance now depends on aligning operational cadence with the speed of the market. The capabilities organizations have invested in must be supported by continuous monitoring, automated execution, and cross-functional integration.”
