The Supply Chainer

Procurement teams are under growing pressure to deliver savings faster while managing volatility across energy, industrial, and manufacturing supply chains. As cost pressures persist and sourcing cycles remain slow in many organizations, interest is rising in AI-driven procurement tools that promise not just visibility, but execution speed and measurable financial impact. Why Speed And Savings Matter Now Traditional sourcing processes often stretch over weeks, limiting how qu

Rising labor constraints, tighter service-level expectations, and persistent execution gaps are pushing warehouse operators to move beyond visibility and toward real-time decision automation on the warehouse floor. As distribution environments grow more complex, the ability to translate frontline data capture directly into automated actions is increasingly viewed as an operational necessity rather than a technology upgrade. Why Decision Automation Has Become Urgent The pressu

The past few weeks have made one thing unmistakably clear: 2026 will not be the year global supply chains “settle down.” What we are seeing instead is the normalization of friction. Not a single shock, not a temporary disruption, but a system being continuously reshaped by geopolitical tension, climate constraints, labor realities, and uneven technology maturity - all at once. Nowhere is this more visible than in ocean freight. The prolonged rerouting of vessels around the Ca

Fast-moving consumer goods brands are under constant pressure: innovation cycles are accelerating, consumer loyalty is increasingly fluid, and the ability to spot early signals from the market often determines whether a product succeeds or fails. In a conversation with The Supply Chainer , Ester Marchetti, Co-Founder and Head of Innovation at Bolt Insight, explained why she believes AI-powered qualitative research is becoming central to how brands adapt. “Traditional qualitat

Every supply chain leader knows the pain of forecasts that miss the mark. Single-point predictions fail in the face of volatile demand, leaving teams stuck with either excess stock or costly shortages. Planners lose hours chasing down exceptions, executives lose trust in the numbers, and customers lose patience when product availability slips. The industry has long tried to patch over these failures with manual overrides, buffer stock, or IT workarounds—but these fixes only b

Escalating tensions involving Iran are translating into measurable pressure on supply chains across the Gulf, with direct implications for Iran itself and for its two largest regional trading counterparts, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Unlike earlier periods of rhetorical instability, recent developments have produced quantifiable impacts on shipping costs, insurance premiums, transit times, and trade flows, forcing logistics planners to move from contingency planning to active m

Global container shipping remains under strain as uneven demand, rate volatility, and higher operating costs continue to reshape carrier performance. Even as trade volumes stabilize on some routes, the gap between capacity deployment and sustainable pricing has kept financial pressure high across much of the liner sector. Results Reflect A Difficult Operating Environment For the third quarter of FY2025 , covering October to December 2025, Ocean Network Express reported revenu

As supply chain organizations pour investment into artificial intelligence, many are discovering that better forecasts and smarter dashboards do not automatically translate into better decisions. Despite advances in models and compute, planning teams often remain stuck in manual judgment, slow consensus cycles, and brittle execution when disruptions hit. The gap matters now because volatility has become structural. Demand swings, supplier fragility, and geopolitical shocks re

By 2030, Gartner predicts e-commerce retailers and consumer electronics companies will spend twice as much on managing reverse and returns logistics compared to outbound orders and deliveries. The shift underscores the urgent need for logistics leaders to prioritize circular processes to manage risk, reduce complexity, and gain better visibility. For some specialty retailers, only 35% of what is returned is resold at full price, according to Gartner research. These companies

The recent sale of Convoy's technology platform from Flexport to DAT tells a story that every supply chain executive should pay attention to. Less than two years after acquiring the defunct digital brokerage's tech stack, Flexport decided it needed to go. As CEO Ryan Petersen candidly admitted, the platform "needed to be a neutral infrastructure layer" to succeed long-term. Petersen's admission reveals something most executives already suspect but rarely discuss openly. When

Global fashion retailer ASOS  has selected Swedish traceability platform TrusTrace  to overhaul how it manages supply chain compliance and risk, a move that underscores the mounting regulatory and reputational pressures facing apparel brands worldwide. Governments on both sides of the Atlantic are tightening rules around forced labor, environmental reporting, and product claims. The EU’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) will require companies to map th

A growing number of forward-thinking businesses in e-commerce and other fields are enjoying the economy, productivity, flexibility and sustainability of ‘right-size’ automated packing lines, whereby every consignment, be it a single item or an assortment of goods, is given a bespoke box of just the right size to hold the goods without unnecessary voids and the need for void fill. But one sector in particular stands to benefit the most from this advanced, highly-flexible techn