TAKEAWAYS
Shipping at the Speed of Surcharges
Enterprise shippers poured money into shipping technology, but a new industry report suggests their operations are still stuck in a slower era. Carriers now adjust pricing, surcharges, and service terms almost continuously—while most organizations still review and react to those changes on quarterly or annual cycles, according to The State of Enterprise Shipping 2026 from Reveel and Incisiv. The result is what the report calls an “execution gap”: Companies have the tools to manage shipping intelligently, but not the operating rhythm to keep up with a market that changes daily. Here are some key data points: • 56% of enterprise shippers manage 3+ parcel carriers. • 22% manage six or more, as companies seek resilience and pricing leverage. • 41% of shippers still review carrier rate/surcharge changes only periodically, even though carriers adjust pricing and rules continuously. • Only 13% check carrier rates outside the annual General Rate Increase and contracting cycle.
• 75% have automated carrier selection, but only 10% use dynamic, real-time optimization that adapts to market shifts. • 3 in 4 organizations lack cross-functional ownership of shipping spend.
OVERHEARD
Logistics Tech’s $100 Million Club
“43% of our new business wins in 2026 came from companies outsourcing their logistics for the first time.” –HENDRIK VENTER, Global CEO, DHL Supply Chain
nondisclosure is up from about two to one the year before. These silent transactions included some of the largest deals. Honeywell’s warehouse automation business, with about $935 million in 2025 revenue, went to American Industrial Partners with terms undisclosed. The same can be said for the WWEX-Auctane merger that created ShipStation Global, Bain Capital’s carve- out of SupplyOn, and IFS’ acquisition of warehouse management vendor Softeon. Each deal could plausibly be a nine- or 10-figure transaction. The gap between deals and disclosures is notable. For companies weighing their own valuation, or brokers and 3PLs trying to judge what their technology stack is worth, the pool of verifiable comparable transactions is shrinking despite activity holding steady.
Between September 2025 and August 2026, four supply chain technology acquisitions carried a publicly disclosed price of $100 million or more: 1. Brady Corporation / Honeywell Productivity Solutions & Services: $1.4 billion, April 2026 2. Global-e Online / Passport Global: $350 million, plus up to $75 million in earnout, May 2026 3. Duravant / Matthews International’s warehouse automation unit: $232 million, November 2025 4. Descartes / Tai Software: $100 million, August 2026 Roughly 40 other in-scope acquisitions closed in the same window without published prices, 10 times the number with a named price. The rate of
NOTING A SUPPLY CHAIN SHIFT DHL Supply Chain attributes its new business wins to the increasing complexity of the supply chain, the rising importance of resiliency, and how more companies are viewing their supply chains as a strategic capability, rather than just an operational function. The company sees this trend most notably in warehousing and most prominently in sectors such as life sciences and healthcare.
16 Inbound Logistics • September 2026
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