C.H. Robinson Worldwide Profile
C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc. (C.H. Robinson) is one of the largest global logistics company in the world.
The company brings together customers, carriers, and suppliers to connect and grow supply chains. In 2023, the company handled approximately 19 million shipments and worked with more than 90,000 customers. Operating throughout North America, Europe, Asia, Oceania, South America, and the Middle East, the company offers a global suite of multi-modal services that brings together the value of its expertise and account management services with custom technology differentiated by its unmatched data and scale. The company’s EDGE values are the core of its strategy and drive it to Evolve Constantly, Deliver Excellence, Grow Together, and Embrace Integrity.
As one of the world’s largest global logistics platforms, the company solves logistics problems for companies across the globe and across industries, from simple to the most complex. The company works closely with a wide variety of transportation companies and utilize those relationships to arrange the transport of its customers’ freight. In 2023, the company processed approximately 19 million shipments.
In 2023, the company had more than 450,000 contracted transportation companies around the world on its platform, including contracted motor carriers, railroads (primarily intermodal service providers), and ocean and air carriers. As an integral part of its transportation services, the company also provides a wide range of value-added logistics services, such as freight consolidation, customs brokerage, supply chain consulting and analysis, emission analytics, optimization, and reporting. With the combination of its multimodal transportation management system and expertise, it uses the company’s information advantage to deliver smarter solutions for more than 90,000 customers and the more than 450,000 contract carriers on its platform.
In addition to transportation and logistics services, the company provides sourcing services under the trade name Robinson Fresh (Robinson Fresh). The company’s sourcing services consist primarily of the buying, selling, and/or marketing of fresh fruits, vegetables, and other value-added perishable items. The foundation for much of the company’s logistics expertise can be traced to this original business, which gives it significant experience in handling produce and temperature-controlled commodities. The company supplies fresh produce through a network of independent produce growers and suppliers. The company’s customers include grocery retailers, restaurants, foodservice distributors, and produce wholesalers. In many cases, the company also arranges the logistics and transportation of the products it sells and provides related supply chain services, such as replenishment, category management, and managed procurement services. The company has developed proprietary brands of produce and have exclusive licensing agreements to distribute fresh and value-added produce under recognized consumer brand names. The produce for these brands is sourced through a preferred grower network and packed to order through contract packing agreements. The company has instituted quality assurance and monitoring procedures with each of these preferred growers.
Segments
The company operates through two segments, North American Surface Transportation (NAST) and Global Forwarding.
NAST provides transportation and logistics services across North America through a network of offices in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. The primary services provided by NAST include truckload and less than truckload (LTL) transportation brokerage services.
Global Forwarding provides transportation and logistics services through an international network of offices in North America, Europe, Asia, Oceania, South America, and the Middle East and also contracts with independent agents worldwide. The primary services provided by Global Forwarding include ocean freight services, air freight services, and customs brokerage.
The All Other and Corporate segment includes Robinson Fresh, Managed Services, Other Surface Transportation outside of North America.
Robinson Fresh provides sourcing services that primarily include the buying, selling, and/or marketing of fresh fruits, vegetables, and other value-added perishable items. Robinson Fresh sources products from around the world.
Managed Services is primarily comprised of the company’s TMC division, which offers Managed TMS (Managed TMS). Managed TMS combines the use of the company’s global technology platform Navisphere (Navisphere), logistics process expertise, and consulting services in relation to the use of motor carriers and other transportation providers chosen by its customers. Customers can access Navisphere, logistics experts, and supply chain engineers to manage their day-to-day operations and optimize supply chain performance.
Other Surface Transportation revenues are primarily earned by the company’s Europe Surface Transportation operating segment. Europe Surface Transportation provides transportation and logistics services, including truckload and LTL transportation services, across Europe.
Sales
Transportation and Logistics Services
C.H. Robinson provides freight transportation and related logistics and supply chain services. The company’s services range from commitments on a specific shipment to much more comprehensive and integrated relationships. The company executes these services by investing in and retaining talented employees, developing innovative proprietary systems and processes, and utilizing a network of contracted transportation providers, including but not limited to, contracted motor carriers, railroads, and ocean and air carriers. The company makes a profit that is driven by the value it provides its customers and the resulting difference between what it charges to its customers for the totality of services provided to them and what it pays to the transportation providers to transport the freight.
The company provides the following transportation and logistics services:
Truckload: Through its contracts with motor carriers, the company has access to dry vans, temperature-controlled vans, flatbeds, and bulk capacity. Through the use of Navisphere, the company connects its customers with contracted motor carriers that specialize in their transportation lanes and product types, and it helps contracted motor carriers optimize the usage of their equipment.
LTL: LTL transportation involves the shipment of single or multiple pallets of freight. The company primarily focuses on shipments of a single pallet or larger, although it handles any size shipment. Through its contracts with motor carriers and the use of Navisphere, the company consolidates freight and freight information to provide its customers with a single source of information on their freight. In many instances, the company consolidates partial shipments for several customers into full truckloads.
Ocean: As a licensed Non-Vessel Operating Common Carrier (NVOCC) and freight forwarder, the company consolidates shipments, determine routing, select ocean carriers, contract for ocean shipments, and/or provide for local pickup and delivery of shipments.
Air: As a certified Indirect Air Carrier (IAC) and freight forwarder, the company organizes air shipments and provides door-to-door service.
Customs: The company’s customs brokers are licensed and regulated by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection and other authoritative governmental agencies to assist importers and exporters in meeting regulatory and operational requirements governing imports and exports.
Other Logistics Services: The company provides intermodal transportation service, which is the shipment of freight in containers or trailers by a combination of truck and rail. In addition, the company provides fee-based Managed Services, warehousing services, small parcel, and other services.
Customers communicate their freight needs, typically on an order-by-order basis, to the C.H. Robinson team responsible for their account, either directly or through highly automated connections established between Navisphere and the customers' transportation management system. The C.H. Robinson team then ensures that all necessary information regarding each shipment is available in Navisphere. The company utilizes the information from Navisphere and other available sources to select the best contracted carrier based upon factors, such as their service score, equipment availability, freight rates, and other relevant factors.
Once the contracted carrier is selected, the company receives the contracted carrier’s commitment to provide the transportation. During the time when a shipment is executed, the company connects frequently, either electronically or manually, with the contracted carrier to track the status of the shipment to meet the unique needs of its customers.
For most of its transportation and logistics services, the company is a service provider. By accepting the customer’s order, the company accepts certain responsibilities for transportation of the shipment from origin to destination. The carrier’s contract is with the company, not the customer, and it is responsible for prompt payment of freight charges. In its Managed Services business, the company is acting as the shipper’s agent. In those cases, the carrier’s contract is typically with the customer, and the company collects a fee for its services.
The company offers a wide range of logistics services on a global basis that reduce or eliminate supply chain inefficiencies. The company analyzes customers’ current transportation rate structures, modes of shipping, and carrier selection. The company helps customers minimize storage through crossdocking and other flow-through operations. Many of these services are provided in connection with providing the transportation services based on the nature of the customer relationship. In addition to these transportation services, the company may also provide a wide range of value-added logistics services, such as freight consolidation, customs brokerage, supply chain consulting and analysis, emission analytics, optimization, and reporting, for which it is usually paid separately. The company has broadened its relationship with many of its customers through an emphasis on integrated logistics solutions, resulting in its management of a greater portion of their supply chains.
Proprietary Information Technology and Intellectual Property
In 2023, the company executed approximately 19 million shipments for more than 90,000 customers utilizing the more than 450,000 contract carriers on its platform. Some of the industry-first tools the company launched include:
Procure IQ, which uses algorithms built by its data scientists and the largest freight shipment dataset in the industry to show shippers the optimal way to purchase transportation in each of their shipping lanes;
Emissions IQ, which gives shippers instant visibility into their carbon emissions and surfaces opportunities for reduction; and
Market Rate IQ, which reveals the patterns in a shipper’s spot freight that they could change to increase savings.
The company’s operations primarily use Navisphere, its global, multimodal transportation management system that allows customers to communicate worldwide with parties in their supply chain across languages, currencies, and continents. Navisphere offers sophisticated business analytics, artificial intelligence, and data-driven tools to improve supply chain performance and meet increasing customer demands, including the following:
Navisphere Vision allows the company’s customers to see their freight across all modes and services globally in a single view. Details of shipment contents, shipment status, disruptions to shipments, and resulting adjustments to estimated time of arrival using artificial intelligence are provided for the customer to manage their supply chain exceptions. Collaboration, intelligent notifications, and performance scorecards allow customers to manage their supply chain and identify inefficiencies.
Navisphere Insight takes customers’ raw data about their freight and uses data science to turn the raw data into valuable insights, surfacing trends in transportation performance and spend that can be used for decision-making in real time or over time. Analysis is provided down to the shipment and order level.
Navisphere Optimizer helps customers minimize the travel time, distance, and total miles of their freight, while maximizing their trailer utilization and savings. It is used during the transportation planning process and dynamically selects the right route with the right mode and right carrier on the right day.
Navisphere is also integrated into 33 third-party transportation management systems and/or enterprise resource planning systems, allowing the company’s dynamic pricing engine to directly deliver real-time quotes to customers when they have freight to be picked up or delivered.
The Navisphere Carrier (Navisphere Carrier) platform provides contracted motor carriers access to the functionality necessary to efficiently manage their relationships with C.H. Robinson. Contracted motor carriers can search and book available freight, provide online status updates, keep track of receivables, and upload scanned documentation. Many of the company’s contracted motor carriers’ favorite features of Navisphere Carrier are also available through its Navisphere Carrier mobile application for Android and iOS mobile operating systems.
Freightquote by C.H. Robinson (Freightquote) is a web-based, mobile-responsive offering designed to streamline the shipping process for small business customers, allowing the booking of freight without any shipping knowledge or expertise. Freightquote's small business customers can go online with their smart phone, tablet, or computer to book their LTL or truckload freight, track shipments, get proactive notifications, and pay for transportation services with a credit card.
Customer Relationships
During 2023, the company served more than 90,000 customers worldwide, ranging from Fortune 100 companies to small businesses in a wide variety of industries. During 2023, the company’s largest customer accounted for approximately two percent of its consolidated total revenues.
Relationships with Transportation Providers
The company continually works on establishing contractual relationships with qualified transportation providers. In 2023, more than 450,000 transportation providers were on the company’s platform, the vast majority of which are contracted motor carriers.
Government Regulation
The company is subject to licensing and regulation as a property freight broker and are licensed by the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) to arrange for the transportation of property by motor vehicle.
The company is also licensed under, and subject to regulation by, the Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) as an ocean transportation intermediary in the capacity as both a freight forwarder and NVOCC; it maintains separate bonds and licenses for each. The company operates as a Department of Homeland Security certified IAC, providing air freight services, subject to commercial standards set forth by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and federal regulations issued by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). The company performs customs brokerage services pursuant to its customs brokerage license issued by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). As a licensed customs broker, the company has experience working with other government agencies that maintain jurisdiction over certain customs entries. The company also holds customs trade partnership against terrorism (C-TPAT) certification with CBP as both a customs broker and NVOCC. The company buys and sells fresh produce under licenses issued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) as required by the Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act (PACA).
As a publicly traded company and issuer of stock, the company is subject to and maintain compliance with various anti-corruption and anti-bribery statutes, such as the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the UK Bribery Act 2010, and certain other foreign countries' equivalent statutes or programs in the countries in which it operates.
The company is subject to laws and regulations in the U.S. and other countries concerning the handling of personal information, including laws that require it to notify governmental authorities and/or affected individuals of data breaches involving certain personal information. These laws and regulations include, for example, the European General Data Protection Regulation and the California Consumer Privacy Act.
History
C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc. was founded in 1905. The company was incorporated in 1997.
