C.H. Robinson SWOT and PESTLE Analysis

Strength

1. Brand Value and Early Mover advantage: A company that started in 1905, having a legacy of more than 100 years means it has seen the development of temperature controlled vehicles, the changes in laws and regulation, building of transport infrastructures and their demolition first hand and still holds its largest Truckload network in North America. Being an overall 3rd party Logistic Solution Company, it is still ranked 12th in terms of Ocean Freight movers in terms of volume and ranked #1 when it comes to non-vessel operating common carrier (NVOCC) in Asia to US traffic. C H Robinson is one of the top players in LCL on the trans-pacific route. It has made to the Fortune World's Most Admired Companies list 9 times since 2010.
With astute knowledge in eight different service lines and multiple customer segments— and over 18 million annual shipments and $20 billion in freight under their stewardship— C.H. Robinson are peerless in experience and scale that lend great benefits to over 200,000 clients that engage in business with them on a global platform.
Even when Germany based DHL leads the list of Armstrong & Associates’ Top Global 3PLs and U.S based C.H. Robinson is trailing behind at 5th place, according to the statistics at Gartner Peer Insights statistics, both the companies stand at par. This makes the company have a strong reputation when it comes to consumer perception.

2. All in one tech driven solution: According to Flat world solutions, technology will be highly relied upon when it comes to connecting suppliers, customers and carriers. Big Data and cloud based technologies would be the source to perform analytics and detect ways to cut down costs and find new opportunities. Information exchange will be mostly facilitated through hand held devices. C.H. Robinson in 2017, launched Navisphere Vision which uses API technology to source all data from the clients, along with the data like weather, traffic in real time and it provides a graphical visual representation of all the information a client may need. Along with this it uses machine learning and AI to work on the data gathered to find out probable disruptions in the supply chain and also suggest measures to avoid them. Navisphere Carrier is an app providing this on android and Ios platforms. Transflow Express also allows uploading shipping documents using the phone camera. Navisphere Driver automatically updates the locations of freights without requiring any interference by the driver. What is important to note is this company uses multimodal ways of transport and converges and consolidates all the data required by a client over any geography over any mode into one single dashboard.
The company also has Transportation Management Service for Small & Medium Sized Business (SMBs) called Freightview which is self-service software aimed at reducing the time required to source different carrier webpages to gain insight into rates.
C.H. Robinson was allotted the position of a challenger in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant in Transportation Management Systems while it is actually a logistic company. The leaders include SAP and Oracle.

3. Multi-modal cheap offerings: The company has 225 offices in 39 countries, with over 15,262 supply chain experts, 76,000 active Contract Carriers and suppliers. With 18 million total shipments, C.H. Robinson has more than 200000 organizations connected to Navisphere and 55 million digital interactions per month. The company offers, flatbed trucks for long and short haul along with refrigerated trucks with different temperature ranges. The company offers intermodal logistics, encompassing rail, road, ocean, and air allowing the clients to choose the routes and modes. When it comes to oceans, it also provides Drayage and ware house facilities. Whether it is a Full Truck Load or less than Truck Load, Full container Load or LCL, the company offers Global freight consolidation services and even incorporates small parcel services reducing the overall price. It has also recently started its Last Mile Service enabling better reverse logistics and retail merchandising and home delivery. It also provides consulting services for trade compliance.
It provides consulting services for Customs Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (CTPAT) which is a voluntary Public and Private partnership to enhance cargo security. It provides consulting for HTSUS classification and ECCN determination too.

Weakness

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Opportunity

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Threat

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Political

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Economic

1. Growth in Developing Countries: According to a report by PWC, by 2050, the world could see a combined GDP of almost double of what is now. The top 7 economies (GDP at PPP) by 2050 projected to be are China, India, US, Indonesia, Brazil, Russia and Mexico. What is interesting to note that only the US and Russia remains in the top 7 when compared to the current scenario. According to Statista.com, India would maintain a constant GDP growth rate of above 7% till 2024. China also will continue to have a GDP growth rate above 5.5 % till 2024. According to Standard Chartered Plc., GDP (PPP) of China, by the year 2030, would be more than double of that of the US; and India would stand at around 1.5 times the GDP of the US. Whichever statistics we use, it is quite evident that the economic power would see a shift from west to east. As the economic activity grows in certain geography, it will certainly witness increased demand for efficient logistics.

2. Change in Global Value chain: As seen above, the economic activity would shift to east. But with increase in GDP, so would consumption increase. According to McKinsey’s ‘Globalization in transition: The future of trade and value chains’ almost 66% of the manufactured goods like cars and machineries would be consumed by emerging markets by 2025. By 2030, the currently emerging nations would account for half of global consumption. What this essentially means is that the emerging countries would mostly consume what they would produce. An evidence of this can already be seen in China. In 2007, the Chinese exports accounted for 17% of their produce which had declined to 9% in 2017. Again India’s exports accounted for 35% of its produce in 2002 which in 2017 could account for only 17%. Previously the developing countries used to import parts and assemble mostly. This trend has been changing off late as the developing countries invest more in R&D and become self-sufficient and reduce their dependency on imports. All these ultimately mean a boost in Intra-region trade and a probable fall in cross border trade. This could mean a restructuring of global supply chain networks in the near future.

3. Long Term Oil prices stability: In November 2017, USGS, United States Geological Survey, using geology based assessment study found in the wolfcamp shell and Bone Spring formation, Delaware Basin, South East Mexico and West Texas, a continuous supply of 46.3 billion barrels of oil and 281 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. In North of China, Tiajin, according to IEA, oil reserves of about 5 billion tons has been discovered. According to globalpetrolprices.com, the demand for oil in developing countries would increase but at the same time with stricter environmental regulation in developed countries and shift towards greener energy and advent of electric vehicles, ultimately the demand would also taper off in emerging economies. According to US Energy Information, the world conveniently has enough reserves to meet needs till 2050. But as we see with the new reserves being identified it can be assumed that in the long run, oil prices may not see a steep price increase. C.H Robinson’s annual report of 2018 mentions “Changing fuel costs and interruptions of fuel supplies may have an impact on our net revenue margins”, this does not seem to be a potent factor in the long run.

Social

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Technological

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Legal

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Environmental

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