Our Edge Solutions Freight Screener How We Work Team Contact Us

Procurement · Logistics · Indirect Sourcing · Supply Chain Transformation

Unlock
Savings.
Drive
Results.

Hawthorne Group combines decades of executive operating experience with a curated ecosystem of best-in-class solution providers — helping clients recover cash across procurement, logistics, supply chain, and indirect spend, and reinvest it in growth.

Get in Touch Our Edge
Container port at night with cranes and cargo ship
"We bring trusted, vetted, best-in-class solutions to our clients and help them unlock savings, cash flow, efficiency, and innovation."

Did You Know?

The 6 Ways You Are Already Losing Money.

Most organizations are leaving significant money on the table — not from lack of effort, but because the systems around them are broken. You cost-save to survive. You innovate to grow. Here is where you are quietly doing neither.

Everything below this line can be true for you at no cost. Here is why: best-in-class freight audit, ocean visibility, and optimization tools are increasingly structured to earn from the savings they generate — not from your budget. Read on.
💸
Truth #1
You Are Overpaying Carriers 10–30% Right Now — and Your Last RFP Did Not Fix It.
Carriers charge whatever they can get away with. Most prices are not published so how do you really know? Benchmarking is crucial. Plus, carriers negotiate contracts designed to obscure what you are actually paying. Our freight audits routinely uncover 10–30% in recoverable overcharges and savings, often for free.
5–15% of freight invoices contain errors, and they almost always favor the carrier. Professional audits typically recover 3–7% of total freight spend, and uncover overcharges that run much higher on complex lanes.
Curious what this looks like in your own invoices? Run the free freight scan →
🚢
Truth #2
$22B Is Paid in Avoidable Port Fees Every Year. Your Auditor Cannot See the Data That Would Get Yours Back.
Ocean shippers pay billions in D&D fees annually. A significant portion of those charges are erroneous, disputable, or avoidable. Most companies do not have the analytics to even know what they owe — let alone fight it. For example, most freight auditors do not have access to operational data for the move of containers within the ocean terminals, hence they cannot fight D&D. We know how.
Nine ocean carriers alone collected ~$15.4 billion in D&D charges from U.S. importers between 2020 and 2025 (FMC). Globally the bill runs an estimated $22 billion a year. A large share is erroneous or disputable under the FMC's 2024 billing rules — but most shippers lack the operational data to fight it.

Ask your current auditor this: can you see terminal-level container move data — or only the carrier's invoice?

Not sure if this applies to your program? Talk to us about your ocean spend →
🔁
Truth #3
Somewhere in This Month's Freight Invoices, 3–5% Is Already Gone.
We will audit and pay your freight invoices for free — and even pay you a cash rebate. No gimmicks. Freight invoices are among the most error-prone documents in business. Without automated audit and payment systems, duplicate payments, rate mismatches, and accessorial overcharges go undetected — quietly draining your bottom line.
Unaudited shippers lose 3–5% of annual freight spend to duplicate payments, rate mismatches, and accessorial overcharges — roughly $150K–$250K a year on a $5M program — while up to 20% of AP staff time is consumed chasing disputes.
See what is hiding in this month's invoices right now. Run the free freight scan →
📉
Truth #4
If You Cannot Answer These 3 Questions About Your Own Network, Do Not Run an RFP Yet.
Companies jump straight to carrier RFPs without first understanding their own data — and negotiate from a position of weakness regardless of who wins.
  1. Do you know your true lane-level volume and mix — not just annual totals?
  2. Do you have a current carrier scorecard based on cost, service, and capacity — not last year's?
  3. Have you cleaned up your shipment profile (accessorials, mode mix, exceptions) before pricing it?
Only ~7% of supply chain leaders report end-to-end real-time visibility into their networks. Without first understanding your own lane and shipment data, you negotiate every RFP from a position of weakness and overpay regardless of who wins.
Not sure you could answer all three? Let us find out together →
🌊
Truth #5
The Container That Ruins Your Quarter Is Already at Sea — You Just Cannot See It Yet.
Most shippers are flying blind on ocean freight. Port delays, reroutes, and missed windows cascade into expensive disruptions. Real-time visibility tools exist — but most companies do not deploy them until they have already suffered the consequences.
Supply chain disruptions cost companies an average of 8% of annual revenue in 2024 (industry research) — and it takes the typical firm two weeks just to plan a response once a problem is identified. Real-time ocean visibility tools exist, but most shippers deploy them only after the disruption has already cost them.
Want to see what is headed your way before it is a problem? Ask us about ocean visibility →
🤝
Truth #6
The Best Solutions Cost You Nothing — and Most Companies Do Not Know They Exist.
Best-in-class freight audit, ocean visibility, and parcel optimization solutions are often structured so that the provider earns from savings generated or supplier economics — not from your budget. Yet most shippers still pay for inferior tools, or go without entirely.
Best-in-class freight audit, ocean visibility, and parcel optimization tools are increasingly structured around savings or supplier economics — not your budget. Audit programs alone typically pay for themselves within the first month. Yet most shippers still pay for inferior tools, or go without entirely.
Want to see how this works at zero cost to you? Get in touch →
Free private tool

See it in your own numbers.

The estimate above uses industry benchmarks. Want to know what is actually hiding in your freight bills? Run a private scan of your own invoice data — duplicate charges, inflated fuel surcharges, out-of-band accessorials, and reclassification risk, surfaced in seconds.

Your data never leaves your browser. Nothing is uploaded, stored, or seen by us — we built it that way because we care about cybersecurity.
Run a free freight scan

Our Ecosystem

Trusted Solution Partners

We maintain deep relationships with a curated set of best-in-class providers — each vetted for proven results and client impact.

Freight Audit & Payment
End-to-end freight audit, payment automation, and reporting across parcel and LTL. Delivers cost recovery and spend visibility through card rebate economics.
Demurrage & Detention
Ocean shipping analytics and D&D recovery with clients including Home Depot, Kohler, and Michelin. Historical audits plus ongoing port visibility monitoring.
Ocean Visibility & Sustainability
Real-time ocean shipping visibility with sustainability tracking. Per-container referral model with straightforward, transparent economics.
Carrier Performance
Transportation governance, analytics, and pre-RFP optimization. Improves carrier performance and spend positioning before formal sourcing events.
Parcel & LTL Optimization
Benchmarking and optimization for 3,000+ clients across parcel and LTL. A fast, high-impact diagnostic opportunity for shippers of all sizes.
AI & Digital Transformation
True experts in AI. Provides end-to-end services including AI-powered business transformation, cloud and infrastructure management, cybersecurity, and data analytics to improve decision-making and operational efficiency.

Our Approach

How We Work

We do not bill large hourly engagements. We identify opportunities, connect clients to the right solutions, and align our compensation with the value we deliver — savings you can bank, and capital you can reinvest in growth.

01
Identify the Opportunity
We perform rapid diagnostics across your logistics, supply chain, procurement, and indirect spend — uncovering savings and efficiency gaps that others miss.
02
Broker the Right Solution
We connect you to our curated ecosystem of vetted, best-in-class solution providers — matching the right tool or partner to your specific opportunity.
03
Deliver & Earn Together
We support evaluation and implementation, then earn referral fees, revenue shares, or success fees tied to realized value — so our incentives are perfectly aligned with yours. Most often our services are 100% free for clients and shippers.

Our Difference

Why Hawthorne Is Different

We are not another consultancy or a layer of overhead. Here is what sets the way we work apart.

Not staff augmentation, not offshore
Hawthorne is not a project-managed labor pool or an offshore delivery model. We are a team of former P&G-caliber operating executives who have managed the spend themselves — not consultants who have only advised on it.
SRM as a growth lever, not a checklist
Supplier relationship management is not a compliance exercise here. We treat SRM as a growth lever — access to new capacity, innovation, and better terms as your volume grows.
Savings fund growth, not just margin
Every dollar we help you recover has a growth story, not just a lower cost base. Savings are where the conversation starts, not where it ends.
Proof-first, always
We show you the number before we ask you for anything. The calculators, the free screener, and the no-cost model all exist so you can see real value before the first invoice.

Ready to Unlock
Hidden Value?

Whether you are a company looking to reduce logistics costs, improve procurement, or accelerate working capital — or a solution provider looking to reach the right clients — let us talk.

Get in Touch Learn How We Work