Chainalytics and Drewry team up to create ocean buying group

A new partnership forged between two prominent global supply chain consultancies was announced today by Chainalytics and Drewry Supply Chain Advisors.

The launch of the Ocean Buying Group promises to provide an innovative ocean freight procurement solution for shippers with enhanced purchasing power, service monitoring and cost transparency.

Furthermore, say company executives, this new strategic partnership may deliver an ambitious ocean freight procurement platform that will enable medium and small scale importers and exporters to collaboratively achieve “big shipper” rates and terms direct with ocean carrier. At the same time, supply chain managers would benefit from shared intelligence for better commercial decisions.

“In the past two years, we have seen the ocean industry consolidate fast, with mergers and acquisitions, limiting competition and leverage,” said Philip Damas, head of Drewry’s logistics practice. “At the same time, rates go up or fluctuate wildly, leaving smaller shippers behind.”

In an exclusive interview, Damas added that Drewry and Chainalytics can leverage their network of offices in the U.S., Europe and Asia to build the critical mass needed to generate the cost reductions and the efficiencies much faster.

“We have worked as fast as we could to bring the solution to the market before shippers enter into new transpacific contracts this May,” said Damas. “Chainalytics is the market leader in truckload transportation benchmarking and Drewry is the market leader in ocean transportation benchmarking, so our cooperation also includes the development of benchmarking for intermodal transportation, alongside the Ocean Buying Group.”

According to Damas, the Ocean Buying Group uses some of the methods of NVOCCs, shippers’ associations and private equity groups (combined buying), 3PLs (transportation management dashboards) and cost benchmarking providers (market analytics).

“But we are the first to combine all these features and make them work for small and medium-sized shippers,” he said.