Freight procurement is still stuck in a world of portals, spreadsheets, and three-month RFP cycles, even though the freight market can flip in weeks. I’m joined by Ryan Soskin, CEO and founder of GoodShip, to unpack why that gap creates expensive surprises for shippers and impossible commitments for brokers and carriers. Ryan’s career arc from Coyote Logistics to Convoy gives him a rare view of both execution on the ground and what it takes to build automation that actually works at scale. 

We get specific about what breaks contract freight pricing: most bids share only origin, destination, volume, and equipment type, while real truckload economics depend on lead time, seasonality, days of week, facility hours, and constraints that never make it into the RFP. That missing context fuels winner’s curse, fragile routing guides, tender rejection spikes, and more spot market exposure. From there, we connect procurement to performance management and the need for a shared source of truth, so QBRs stop turning into arguments about on-time definitions and start turning into decisions. 

Ryan also introduces the idea of network drift: even a “perfect” annual routing guide drifts away from optimal as rates, volumes, and carrier performance change. GoodShip positions itself as a TMS-agnostic system of action that unifies transportation data and recommends corrective moves, including mini-bids and routing guide adjustments. We close with Laney, GoodShip’s AI transportation analyst, and where proactive, always-on logistics analytics can take freight network optimization next. 

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