Triumph debuts freight RFP management tool

From Yearlong Cycles to 30 Days

Volkwyn traced the compression to a supply-constrained market that has pushed rates up faster than brokers anticipated. Lack of available carriers is leaving shippers scrambling to keep contracts competitive.

“The market right now is very much supply driven,” he said. “Supply has been constrained to a large degree, and we see brokers pushing up rates a lot higher and a lot faster than anyone would have expected. As that has happened, it also causes shippers to be a little bit on the back foot and say, ‘Hey, how fast can I reprice for the next RFP to still be competitive and not get rejected?’”

The shift in timelines hasn’t been seen since the pandemic freight boom capacity crunch. “These cycles that tended to be even as far as 18 months have now gotten to the point where some cycles are on three-month cycles,” Volkwyn said. “I’ve recently even spoken to someone where it’s a one-month cycle.”

That pace leaves little room for the old approach. “That really narrows it down and makes it hard if you’re pulling a bunch of Excel spreadsheets trying to get the answer back as fast as you can,” he said. “By the time you get the answer back, the rates have already changed and the market has changed because it took you two weeks to put this together.”

Rethinking Freight RFP Management

Freight RFP management has long meant spreadsheets running thousands of lines, passed hand to hand through a pricing team, quote by quote. RFP Manager replaces that process with a structured workflow built on Triumph’s Rate Intelligence, returning pricing based on network transaction and payment data instead of manual lookups.

“What our tool does is not only make it a lot easier from an Excel spreadsheet perspective, but it already puts it inside the workflow,” Volkwyn said. “It runs through the process. It already allocates it to the correct columns and then provides you back the data that you require to price your RFP. It makes it a lot faster from a workflow perspective and also keeps it current.”

‘Fast Is Good. Accurate Is Better.’

Speed wasn’t the only goal, Volkwyn said.

“It is beyond just optimizing that workflow. It is also to ensure that the moment you do go through the workflow, you’re actually getting the right information back as accurately as possible,” he said. “It’s one thing to be fast, but it’s definitely better to be accurate.”

Aaron P. Graft, Triumph’s founder and CEO, tied that accuracy claim to the sheer volume of transactions running through the company’s payments network.

“Because Triumph audits and pays the largest volume of truckload freight transactions in North America, we can provide market insights based on actual transaction and carrier payment activity,” Graft said. “RFP Manager brings that intelligence into the bid process so brokers can price contracts with greater confidence at the lane level.”

Building the Flywheel

Volkwyn described RFP Manager as different from the benchmarks and load boards brokers have relied on, both of which lag current market conditions by design.

“The accumulation of data looks different too: benchmarks being historical averages, load boards being just posted and quoted rates,” Volkwyn said. “What we’re essentially building is that flywheel. This is the largest network of actual truckload transactions and payments. The market signal that you’re creating becomes a flywheel to brokers as well as us incorporating the broader capacity suite that we’ve got available today.”

The launch pairs RFP Manager with Triumph’s existing Capacity Intelligence product, which helps brokers identify reliable, repeatable capacity for freight they’ve already won. Both draw on the same underlying network.

Vetting the Carriers Behind the Data

Because Triumph’s network already touches carrier payments, Volkwyn said brokers gain a layer of confidence in who they’re doing business with, not just what the freight should cost.

“Within our network, we make sure that we have a holistic approach to what we follow through on,” he said. “Even when we do look at the network participants, we make sure that these transactions are all lined up back into the place that they’re supposed to be.”

Volkwyn stopped short of promising certainty.

“No model eliminates the uncertainty of contract pricing,” he said. “There’s certainly more uncertainty, but what does make the difference is better data organized in the right workflow that then helps these brokers make decisions with more context, discipline, and confidence.”