Supply chain leaders accelerate decision velocity amid global disruptions

In a rapidly shifting geopolitical and economic landscape, supply chain leaders are focusing on boosting decision velocity through technological, process, and cultural changes to enhance resilience and agility.

When global shocks force supply chains to adapt, the decisive difference is no longer who has the most data but who converts that data into timely, confident choices. Supply chain leaders face a landscape reshaped by tariffs, geopolitical friction, cost pressure ...

and sustainability mandates; as networks shift, planning systems must outpace them. The urgent imperative is to increase “decision velocity”: the capacity to move from signal to resolution rapidly, repeatedly, and with measurable confidence.

Industry research underscores the pace and scale of change. According to Gartner, a large share of companies have already altered their supply chain networks in recent years to prioritise resilience and agility over pure cost optimisation, and the consultancy warns that decisions in this domain are becoming more complex, more frequent and in need of faster turnaround. Gartner further predicts that AI-driven forecasting will be widespread in large organisations by 2030, enabling more automated, granular demand insight and reducing reliance on manual interventions. Other Gartner analysis stresses that advanced visibility and scenario planning are essential for managing geopolitical risk and preserving competitive advantage.

Three operational tensions make decision velocity a strategic KPI. First, traditional performance metrics, forecast accuracy, plan adherence, utilisation and inventory turns, are inherently backward-looking. They remain useful but do little to indicate how quickly an organisation will detect a new disruption, determine its root cause, evaluate alternative responses, or convert a chosen course into executed outcomes. Second, conventional cadence-based planning cycles, built for steadier times, cannot sustain the tempo now required. Third, technology alone is not a panacea: without clear decision rights, aligned plans and user trust, faster outputs will only produce faster confusion.

Practical capability changes reduce those frictions and raise the probability that a chosen decision yields the intended business outcome. Five interlocking moves accelerate decision velocity:

• Harden contextual visibility. Collecting data is insufficient; signals must be harmonised across demand, supply, inventory, capacity and logistics and displayed in a way that rapidly exposes trade-offs between cost, service, cash and risk. Importantly, internal ERP and planning feeds should be enriched with external market signals so that models reflect the latest tariff alerts, supplier disruptions or demand shifts with minimal latency.

• Create truly end-to-end alignment. A single version of the plan that can be inspected through finance, manufacturing, distribution and market lenses prevents local optimisation from breaking downstream flows. Defining who owns which choices, the thresholds for escalation and acceptable trade-off ranges keeps speed from becoming reckless.

• Shift from batch to continuous planning. With network reconfiguration increasingly frequent, driven in part by tariff volatility, organisations need the ability to simulate multiple cross-functional scenarios quickly and compare service, cost and risk implications before choices are locked in. Continuous planning reduces reconciliation overhead and turns planning into a near-real-time capability.

• Apply AI judiciously across three modes. Analytic AI (optimisation and machine learning) should evaluate trade-offs and scale optimisation. Generative AI can accelerate comprehension, summarisation and decision documentation. Agentic AI can monitor triggers and instigate workflows within defined guardrails. The goal is explainable, consistent recommendations that free planners from repetitive tasks and elevate them toward decision orchestration. Gartner’s forecasts about AI adoption in forecasting and workflow transformation support this trajectory.

• Design adoption into the system. Technology only delivers when people accept and understand it. Investing in skills, change management and “AI mastery” turns users into competent stewards who can challenge and improve models rather than override them. Behavioural change is the multiplier that makes automation sustainable.

A recent corporate example illustrates how these elements combine at scale. Kraft Heinz has described a multi-year transformation pairing disciplined operating rhythms with a decision-centric planning platform supplied by OMP. According to presentations made at industry conferences, the company now runs hundreds of sites and distribution centres on a common planning backbone, with thousands of SKUs and a team of planners working toward touchless manufacturing planning. Kraft Heinz reported sizeable inventory reductions year-over-year and said the programme enabled faster scenario response and fewer manual reconciliations. The company’s experience highlights three practical lessons: clarity about targets matters before optimisation is applied; automation should remove low-value touches so humans can focus on exceptions and trade-offs; and community-led co-innovation speeds problem-solving.

Boards and chief executives are pressuring supply chain chiefs to balance growth, cost and resilience. Gartner has advised that chief supply chain officers coordinate with other C-suite leaders on tariff strategy because tariff moves touch sourcing, pricing and demand forecasts; without coordinated decision-making, organisations risk fragmented responses that erode margins and agility. Recent surveys also show many leaders expect to pass tariff costs to customers or absorb them through supply chain initiatives, choices that require rapid, aligned evaluation across functions.

Ultimately, decision velocity is not speed at any cost; it is faster choices with clearer assumptions, comparable scenarios and measurable outcomes. Achieving that requires a blend of technology, disciplined operating processes and people-centred change. Organisations that master the rhythm of continuous, explainable decision-making will be better positioned to turn uncertainty into competitive advantage and to ensure that the sum of their choices drives the business forward.

Source: Noah Wire Services