Benchmarking in Xeneta

A core feature of Xeneta is the ability to compare the freight prices you've uploaded against Xeneta's entire dataset of market prices. Due to the size of the market, freight prices across the industry can be very different, and understanding how to set the right benchmark is critical to getting the most out of the Xeneta platform.

You can also read through the How to Set Your Benchmark Preferences and Create a Report tutorial for a quick introduction to setting the correct benchmarks.

Market Metrics

Market Metrics are used to determine what part of the entire freight market your prices will be compared against.

Market Metrics are global settings and persist across all analytics pages in the Xeneta platform, including the My Prices page and the Benchmarks graph. They can be found in the top-right corner of the screen.

For air freight, Market Metrics comprise the following options:

• Market Position — selects which part of the freight market will be compared to your prices. Options include: market low, market average, and market high.
• Xeneta Service Level — selects which generalized service level will be used to compare the market prices to your prices. See here for more information on service levels.

You should set the Market Metrics to reflect the part of the market you wish to compare your prices against.

If you feel your prices are generally very good, it might be useful to set the Market Metrics to the Market Low option, so that Xeneta uses only the best-performing prices from the market as a benchmark against your own prices.

On the other hand, if you are unsure of your place in the market, you can set the Market Metrics to the Market Average option. The Market Average option will ensure that your prices are compared against the arithmetic average of all the freight prices in the market. In this way, you will be able to easily see which of your prices perform above or below the market.

For air freight, in particular, it is useful to set the Market Metrics to the appropriate Xeneta Service Level.

Real-Time Updates

Xeneta will update its calculations in real-time to reflect any changes in Market Metrics.

In this way, you can quickly and effectively find parts of the market that are comparable to your freight prices and leverage this information towards improving your future performance.

Filters

Each analytics page within the Xeneta platform has its own unique set of filters that are separate from the Market Metrics. Filters can be found above the data table or the graphs on any analytics page.

Filters are used to narrow the scope of your own data — that is, the prices you uploaded to Xeneta. This is useful when you only want to benchmark sub-sets of all your prices — such as prices for select trade lanes — against the market.

For example, on the My Prices page for air freight, you can use the Service Level filter to filter out all prices that don't belong to a selected service tier.

Effective Benchmarking

To get the most out of your data and the market data provided by Xeneta, you’ll need to combine Market Metrics with filters.

The freight market is large and has many participants and, as such, contains a lot of information that will not be useful when contrasted against your own data. Market Metrics let you choose the part of the market you want to look at.

Similarly, the data you’ve uploaded to Xeneta can also be large and, taken as a whole, may not provide you significant insight into your operations. If you’re interested in the price of shipping between Europe and Asia, your freight prices to the Americas will not be of much use. Using filters to scope down your data to only the relevant categories will simplify your analysis.

Reports

It's important to understand that the reports you create will be a result of both your choice of Market Metrics and the filters you set for your data. It is critical that your chosen filters show you the data that you want to see, and that your chosen Market Metrics compare the filtered data against the relevant parts of the market.

For example, setting the Market Metrics to focus on Mid-Tier air freight and Market Average prices will produce different benchmarks than using Upper-Tier air freight and Market Low prices.

Likewise, setting a service level filter to show only Mid-Tier air freight will hide all Low-Tier and Upper-Tier prices from any reports you generate. 

How to Set Your Benchmark Preferences and Create a Report

In this example, we’ll create a report for comparing our mid-tier rates with the market average for mid-tier rates on all of our lanes.

Step 1

In the market metrics, choose your service level and market position. Selecting Mid-tier will compare all of your rates with the mid-tier market data in Xeneta.

Note: If no mid-tier comparison is available for specific lanes or weight breaks, no benchmarking will be done for that lane.

Selecting Market Average will compare your rates against the market average for all Mid-tier rates. The same applies for choosing Market Low or Market High.

Step 2

Now that you’ve selected the market metrics for benchmarking all of your rates, you can see that your dashboard has now been updated to reflect the benchmarked performance for the market metrics selected.

As you change the market metrics, the dashboard will update with information on how many rates have been benchmarked, as well as how many of your rates are performing above or below the market for these market metrics selections.

It’s important to note that these numbers may always be different than your total number of uploaded prices and change based on available coverage for benchmarking.

Step 3

Next, go to the My Prices page to create a report based on the selected market metrics (mid-tier market average). At this point we will use the filters to show only mid-tier prices so that we can make a direct comparison between our mid-tier rates and the market’s mid-tier rates.

Step 4

On any page within My Prices, click the All Service Types dropdown then select the Mid-Tier option.

Step 5

You are now comparing only your Mid-tier data with the market average rate for mid-tier service levels.

Step 6

At this point, you may continue adding additional filters such as weight breaks or freight forwarders. If you are ready to export the data to Microsoft Excel, continue to the next step.

Step 7

Click the  (Export to Excel) button in the upper-right area of the screen to prepare the report for export.

Step 8

Choose a date for the report and click Generate. Selecting a date means that you are able to choose what day’s market rates will be used within the report. The default is today’s date, but you may create a report using a previous day’s market data.

Step 9

Depending on the size of the report, the file may be downloaded right away or an email notification will be sent when it’s available to download.