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The Towing Network has launched as a national towing group aimed at bringing greater collaboration and fairer pricing to the towing services available to motor carriers. The group has 20,000 towing members and Schneider National, a truckload carrier and provider of transportation, logistics and intermodal services, has signed on as the Towing Network's largest carrier to date.

"We are a company made up of towers supporting towers," says Jeff St. Pierre, president of the company and a member of the towing industry for more than 12 years. "At the same time, we know that to be successful, towers need to build positive, lasting relationships with customers."

With DHL's exit from the US parcel market in 2009, some are wondering if it is time for more shippers to take a look at so-called regional parcel providers to take on some - or even a lot - of the parcel shipping load.

While UPS and FedEX serve global markets with a broad array of various services and pricing options, regional carriers, as the name suggests, serve a specific region within the US and generally offer more simplified services, They can often offer attractive pricing for those companies where the service makes sense.

Over the past decade or so, procurement professionals have increasingly advocated “Voice of the Supplier” programs, in which companies regularly survey and interview members of their supply base to better understand how they can improve their own supply chain and procurement process.

Should more shippers be taking a similar approach with their carrier bases?

Yes says John Gentile, a former transportation executive at Owens Corning who recently retired to start his own consulting firm.