By Maneet Singh, Chief Information Officer & Chief Digital Officer
Doubling down on data strategy: How Odyssey is becoming a digital-first logistics company
Recently, my role at Odyssey expanded — from CIO to include Chief Digital Officer. This title shift signals a broader evolution at Odyssey: We’re accelerating investments in digital infrastructure to extend the reach of our customers and help them see deeper into their freight.
Let’s explore some of the changes we’re implementing and explain why these changes are particularly urgent now.
Addressing the tech debt problem
I’ve written at length about logistics’ tech debt problem. The industry lags in large-scale digital transformation, thanks to a sticky status quo bias: it’s tough to change what seems ‘good enough’ — especially when you have spent a lot of money to build that current tech infrastructure.
However, this ‘good enough’ mentality is quickly becoming… not good enough. Increasingly, our customers need real-time data on their freight, with the ability to make sharp decisions on the fly that carve out deeper efficiencies and avoid mishaps. Legacy technology simply can’t deliver the needed insights with depth or speed, or at sufficient scale. With new disruptions rocking the supply chain daily, from tariffs to port closures, flexibility and visibility are the new watchwords for seamless freight.
The era of digital-first freight
How do we get better visibility and flexibility for our customers? The short answer is connected technologies, supported by strong digital infrastructure that normalizes and centralizes disparate data streams. What’s the ultimate outcome we’re chasing? A single story about freight performance that we can look at holistically, rather than through reams of disconnected spreadsheets.
This is what the new era of digital-first freight looks like, and I’m proud to say that Odyssey is at the vanguard of realizing its potential. Through years of experimentation and hard work, we’ve built this connected experience for our customers.
In a previous blog, I discussed how Odyssey was creating a unified data lake that would allow us to tell the full story on our customer’s freight. That process is now complete, and we’re already using this data to help our customers get better outcomes.
So, what does this unified, real-time data do for our customers?
Data creates real options
The promise of multimodal logistics is all about flexibility. Diversifying modes give shippers greater control over their freight and costs. But without good data, multimodal decision-making can end up feeling like an art instead of a hard science. Centralized, harmonized data brings together the variables around modal shifts (as well as lanes and other important logistical choices) to give full clarity on all the options and enable data-driven decision-making.
With Odyssey’s new data capabilities, customers can assess their options in real time. Maybe a route looks faster by truck but is significantly cheaper and greener by rail. Is the environmental benefit worth the slightly longer timeline? Should you consolidate now or wait for volume?
We’re equipping customers with the data to make these calls based on cold, hard facts — not gut feelings or best guesses.
Dynamic pricing: an underexploited opportunity
Robust, real-time data also allows us to reimagine rate negotiations with carriers — an area ripe for disruption. For a long time, pricing has been static — tied to 12- or 18-month RFP cycles that ignore the volatility of real-time market conditions.
Today, we use our pool of centralized data to feed dynamic pricing algorithms that help us respond to market signals by the minute. This matters because it allows us to take every possible opportunity to negotiate for lower rates. Already, our customers have seen wins: one client saved more than $20,000 in only two weeks using this process.
Giving data back to customers
By leveraging centralized data internally, we’re making the shipping process exponentially more efficient for our customers. We’re also bringing the advantages of this data-first approach to our customers.
Our data streams include vast amounts of information about our customers’ logistics performance. Giving customers access to this data in real time — in formats that help them leverage better outcomes — helps them sharpen their own internal processes and improve their logistics from every angle.
One example: a major customer recently wanted to improve efficiencies by looking closely at KPIs including cost per load, per mile, per lane, and more. Previously, it would have been extremely difficult to pull together this kind of data into a coherent performance snapshot. Thanks to our data lake, we delivered a tailored, self-service dashboard that provided real-time monitoring of over 60 of their critical KPIs — all within only two months.
Digital transformation drives better business
For too long, logistics technology was defined by two poles: on one side sat organizations and service providers stuck in a permanent state of digital immaturity, on the other sat solutions that showcased tech for tech’s sake, uncoupled from customer outcomes.
In driving our own digital strategy, Odyssey has been careful to only pursue projects that create real, measurable results that benefit our clients. Every tech investment Odyssey makes starts with the same question: how does this improve our customers’ experience with their freight?
We’re excited to pioneer innovation in digital-first logistics that’s directly making our customers’ freight more visible, flexible, and resilient and, ultimately, help their business’ performance.
