upgrading technology and offering "special" services that sometimes even include delivering to and setting up furniture and high-tech equipment in residential homes. "Forwarders have to have a lot of creativity to stay on top of the market," says U.S. Airforwarders Association Executive Director Brandon Fried. "It's all about increasing the value proposition that forwarders can offer the customer." On the domestic side in the United States, forwarders are increasingly expanding into home delivery and offering non-traditional services such as warehousing and "picking and packing" shipments. For the smaller and mid-sized operators, it's a version of the special services targeted at vertical markets such as electronics or perishables that more multinational forwarders are building to bring specific expertise to shippers. "It's a bit of a niche business, but more and more customers are demanding special services," says John Keleman, vice president of special services for forwarder Pilot Air Freight. Pilot formally established a special services division in 2004, shipping a wide range of cargo - such as medical equipment, office equipment, household furniture and electronics requiring set up - that "falls outside of our core air freight services . and requires something other than a dock-to-dock delivery," says Keleman. "Most of the major forwarders now provide both home delivery as well as special services. . As a business, you have to keep growing, look at areas outside your core competence. This is the future." Indeed, flexibility appears to be the key for smaller forwarders looking to keep pace with mammoth and rapidly consolidating global logistics operators. Traditional forwarders in the U.S. are seeking to offer a wide range of freight delivery and logistics services while still maintaining a non-asset, subcontractor-based business model. "All it takes is a little time and effort and you can develop a book of willing vendors" that can be contracted to provide a range of services, says Fried.

But merely expanding the range of service offerings is not enough. U.S. forwarders are also moving into international markets, forming partnerships with forwarders and logistics operators in other nations to manage global shipments. "Willing or not, forwarders have to go global right now," says Fried. "Domestic U.S. forwarders are now going global because their customers are going global." Pennsylvania-based Pilot is trying to shed its image as a domestic U.S. forwarder. The company has aggressively expanded international operations in recent years, with a strong focus on the Asia-Pacific region. International air freight now makes up about 20 percent of Pilot's overall revenue. International service "is what the customer requires," says Brian Gillen, Pilot's vice president - international. He notes shippers are looking for one forwarder to handle international shipments from start to finish rather than having a forwarder guide the shipment from China to Los Angeles while another takes over to get the cargo from L.A. to its end destination in the U.S.