Building Resilient Supply Chains: From Firefighting to Forward Thinking
In this episode of the Industry Forward Podcast, hosts Conor Peick and Dale Tutt speak with Richard Barnett, Chief Marketing Officer and SaaS Sales Leader at Supplyframe, about the evolving challenges and opportunities in global supply chain management. With decades of experience in enterprise software and digital platforms, Barnett shares how companies can navigate volatility and embed resilience into their operations. Listen to the full episode here or through the player below.
Global Supply Chain Trends Driven by Uncertainty
Global supply chains have faced unprecedented disruption over the past five years. Trade policy shifts, tariff negotiations, geopolitical conflicts, and natural disasters have created a seemingly constant state of volatility. To make matters worse, many executives and supply chain managers lack supply chain visibility and advanced tools, leaving them to manage crises in the dark.
This environment has driven a large-scale shift in priorities. Cost efficiency is now balanced against resilience and risk management. Companies are asking how to design supply chains that can withstand shocks without jeopardizing production schedules or profitability. Post pandemic, supply chain management has also gained new emphasis and attention from company leadership. Today, many executives and directors are directly involved in the institutionalization of risk reduction and the prevention of future crises.
Leading companies are adopting strategies that enable them to move from reactive to predictive decision-making. This involves monitoring geopolitical developments, tariff changes, and regional risks to inform long-term planning.
Shift-Left in Supply Chain Powered by Digital Transformation
As in other industries, shift-left methods have emerged as a major trend shaping supply chain strategy and management. Companies are using new tools and development methodologies to bring supply chain considerations into the earliest stages of product design. By integrating procurement, engineering, and commercial teams during the design phase, companies can build flexibility into their products and processes.
This approach allows organizations to qualify multiple suppliers, diversify manufacturing locations, and design for optionality. While this may involve higher upfront costs—such as paying a premium to maintain multiple sources—it can prevent far greater losses in revenue when disruptions occur.
Breaking Down Silos and Building Digital Threads
Despite progress, many organizations still struggle with siloed decision-making. Engineering teams focus on design goals, procurement teams prioritize cost reduction, and supply chain managers concentrate on logistics. This linear approach often fails under stress and greatly hampers efforts to develop shift-left development.
The future lies in cross-functional collaboration supported by shared intelligence, as captured by the Digital Twin and connected Digital Threads. Companies must align performance metrics across departments to ensure resilience is valued alongside cost and quality. A digital thread connecting design, sourcing, and supply activities is essential to replace ad-hoc spreadsheet exchanges with real-time, system-level intelligence.
At the same time, Digital Twin technology helps executives and supply chain teams understand risk profiles and develop effective mitigation strategies. The Digital Twin of the supply chain enables companies to model supply chain scenarios and evaluate trade-offs before disruptions occur. This capability allows organizations to move beyond guesswork and make informed decisions, such as certifying additional suppliers or adjusting sourcing strategies in advance.
Yet, this future is still some way off, as Richard noted that digital maturity in this area remains low. Most companies still rely on manual processes and disconnected data sets. Achieving true resilience requires not only advanced tools but also cultural change, executive sponsorship, and incentive alignment across functions.
Beyond Cost and Quality: A Broader Lens on Risk
Traditional supply chain decisions have revolved around cost, schedule, and quality. While these remain important, new variables such as sustainability, carbon footprint, and geopolitical risk are reshaping the decision-making landscape. Organizations must now evaluate trade-offs across multiple dimensions, from environmental impact to tariff exposure.
Richard drew an interesting comparison to total quality management (TQM) and continuous improvement practices that transformed manufacturing decades ago. Just as companies institutionalized quality metrics, they must now apply similar rigor to risk management—tracking and measuring risk attributes across multi-tier supply chains where vulnerabilities often hide.
As supply chains grow more complex, digital transformation will play a critical role in enabling resilience. The Digital Twin can help organizations simulate scenarios and optimize decisions before disruptions occur, and supports greater collaboration and shift-left decision-making during development.
But technology alone is not enough. Cultural alignment, change management, and executive sponsorship are essential to drive adoption and sustain progress. In this regard, supply chain managers appear to have the wind at their backs. Executive and board-level interest in supply chain resilience has never been higher and more and more companies recognize that the cost of inaction far outweighs the price of preparedness.
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