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Top Supply Chain Risks to Prepare for in 2025

Published

1 an ago

13 janvier 2025

Top Supply Chain Risks To Prepare For In 2025

This is the time of year when analysts get bombarded with pitches from PR firms. The pitches share a “sneak peek” of the predictions that a CEO at a solutions company is making and then asks the journalist if they want to interview the CEO. These predictions mostly seem obvious.

I got a pitch from the PR firm representing Everstream Analytics that was different. Everstream Analytics is sitting on a vast trove of risk data. The company applies AI and other analytics to this data to provide supply chain risk analytics and insights to its clients. In short, what makes them different is that they can quantify and thus prioritize supply chain risks.

Their 2025 outlook identifies the five most likely supply chain events that will impact supply chain operations this year. Each event is assigned a risk score.

Drowning in Climate Change

This is the top risk identified by Everstream. They apply a risk score of 90% here. “Flooding has become so volatile that even nations with the most sophisticated weather warning systems and infrastructure are caught off guard by the ferocity and speed of sudden flash flood events. Companies will be upended by even more frequent small-scale events and larger-scale storms like Hurricane Helene’s unexpected and extensive destruction across several states in the U.S. Appalachia region in 2024.”

The company points out that forecasted rainfall totals for Helene were very accurate one week in advance of the flood that devasted the Blue Ridge mountain region of North Carolina. “But nobody in that region had ever experienced or even expected that amount of rainfall in such a brief period. The existing infrastructure (bridges, roads, rails) was built in the past and was insufficient to handle these copious rainfall totals. The damage impacted more than 50 electronics, automotive, and aerospace manufacturers, plus general machinery and materials processors, and medical device and health care companies.”

Climate change is causing more frequent and intense extreme weather events around the world. In 2024, flooding events contributed to 70% of the weather disruptions covered by Everstream Analytics.

So, what can companies do about this risk? They recommend looking at key company-owned facilities and those run by key partners and suppliers. The “evaluation should include a review of area infrastructure, egress routes, and waterways. Pay attention to applied meteorology forecasts as far in advance as possible and take flood warnings particularly seriously. Prepare for the worst and react aggressively.”

Geopolitical Instability with Increased Tariff Risk

Everstream applies a score of 80% to this risk. “International political and economic relations are destabilizing, caused by political upheaval, ongoing skirmishes, and full-scale wars. In 2025, it will be impossible to avoid conflict and its impact on sourcing, manufacturing, and logistics.”

The report cites intensified political turmoil in the Middle East, including the Israeli-Hamas war and its spillover, the Syrian civil war, and continuous Houthi attacks on Red Sea vessels. “Even if the traffic along the Suez Canal route returns to full throttle in 2025, this shift would cause weeklong processing delays, container backlogs, and a spike in congestion at many European seaports due to the sudden increase in cargo volume.”

In Ukraine, Russian forces now occupy around 20% of the country. Additional support from Western allies looks less likely. It is likely Russia will be able to destabilize Ukraine’s remaining manufacturing and trade activities and that further strain between Europe and Russia will result.

In Asia-Pacific, China believes Taiwan rightfully belongs to them. This has led to the souring of cross-strait relations between China and Taiwan as Taiwan exhibits more political independence. “A full-scale invasion seems unlikely.” This may be overly optimistic. However, the report summarizes the military drills around Taiwan in recent years and comments that “more or bigger Chinese military exercises could disrupt transportation through significant seaports and airports in the region. Nearly a third of all global trade – and 40% of all globally traded petroleum products – flows through sea lanes in the region.

Meanwhile, tariff increases always affect global trade flows. President Trump has proposed tariff increases, including a global baseline tariff of 10–20%, a 60% tariff on Chinese imports, and a 100% tariff on goods from de-dollarizing countries. De-dollarization is an effort by several countries to reduce the role of the U.S. dollar in international trade. Countries like Russia, India, China, among others, are seeking to set up trade channels using currencies other than the dollar.

Everstream’s report did not mention Mexican or Canadian tariffs. An increase in the flows between China and Mexico of assembled products, and materials and components produced in China has occurred. This has been described as a “back door” into the U.S. to avoid Trump and Biden administration tariffs. Trump’s negotiations with Mexico to close the back door could heighten the impact of new tariffs on China.

The automotive, semiconductor, and manufacturing industries are at risk due to potential tariffs on solar wafers, polysilicon, steel/aluminum imports, and the closure of the back door to Mexico. Additionally, tariffs on Chinese goods could lead to retaliatory measures, affecting U.S. companies operating in China. This would primarily affect U.S. agricultural exports and finished goods.

The key strategy, according to Everstream, is to understand the multi-tier supply sources by country so that a company can make sourcing adjustments when an event occurs. If a company can do this more quickly than its competitors, that leads to a competitive advantage.

More Back Doors for Cybercrime

Everstream assigns this risk a score of 75%. “While a company’s cybersecurity front doors may be double-bolted, but there are more unlocked back doors than ever available to increasingly sophisticated attackers. In 2025, cyberattacks will primarily arrive via sub-tier supply chains, where criminals can more easily exploit common programming errors and vulnerabilities. They can then leapfrog into top-tier corporations via phishing, software connection links, or other methods.”

Cencora, a sub-tier pharmaceutical supplier, had a security breach in the early spring of 2024. At least 11 global pharmaceutical companies linked this breach to their later ransomware and phishing attacks. Everstream’s data document 471 attacks in 2024. The data shows that cyberattacks were particularly common in the electronics, logistics, and consumer goods industries.

Larry O’Brien, a vice president at ARC Advisory Group, says that an European Union regulation known as Network and Information Systems Directive 2 provides a good framework for companies to follow to bolster their supply chain cybersecurity capabilities. While NIS 2 is an EU regulatory framework, NIS 2 applies to companies headquartered outside the EU if they provide services within the EU. “Adopting a risk management framework for cybersecurity is something that all manufacturers should be doing,” Mr. O’Brien points out. “As with any regulatory framework, NIS 2 tells you what needs to be done, not always how to do it.”

Rare Metals and Minerals on Lockdown

The score assigned to this class of risks is 65%. “Countries and companies alike are recognizing global mineral scarcity coupled with increasing demand, and both are responding by locking up supplies.” Between rising regulations, new tariffs, and long-term or exclusive contracts, rare minerals and metals will be harder and more expensive to obtain.

“Within a politically charged atmosphere between the West and the major commodity producers—China and Russia—companies will face new tariffs and sanctions on critical metals. Governments are placing renewed emphasis on the negative environmental and social impacts of mining, which will present challenges for metal producers over the coming year.”

But, China is not the only nation with proposed or enacted commodity restrictions. “Political tensions over the Russia-Ukraine war led to restrictions on Russian metal imports by the U.S. and the UK. Additionally, security concerns and allegations of industry product dumping led many countries to enact measures against Chinese metal imports.”

As concerns mount surrounding critical commodities, companies are increasingly turning to direct mineral purchasing agreements with mines. However, when a nation supplies an overwhelming majority of a mineral based on mining or processing, direct agreements with mines may have limited value. Graphite, for example, is a core raw material for producing Lithium batteries which are core to the electronic vehicle market. 80% of the world’s graphite is produced in China.

Crackdown on Forced Labor

No nation’s enforcement of any ESG issue comes close to the US Customs and Border Protection Agency’s enforcement of the Uyghur Forced Labor Protection Act. $3.7 billion in shipments have been detained at the border based on enforcement of this act. In some cases, the shipments are eventually cleared, but only after supply chains were disrupted and demurrage charges accrued. But a significant proportion of shipments were never allowed entry into the US.

What gives the US act teeth is that “the ‘rebuttable presumption’ part of UFLPA is truly unique. Anything coming out of Xinjiang is presumed to have used forced labor unless an importer can prove the negative. There is also a lack of a de minimis exception; this means that even an insignificant input of product produced in whole or in part with forced labor could result in enforcement action.

While the UFLPA is the most stringent, other nations and regions have also enacted legislation. These include the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CS3D) and regulation on Prohibiting Products made with Forced Labor (FLR); Mexico’s Forced Labor Regulation; and Canada’s Fighting Against Forced and Child Labour in Supply Chains Act.

While legislation has pushed many companies to find alternative suppliers in other low-income countries, many emerging economies do not have adequate laws or enforcement mechanisms. This is particularly true when sub-tier suppliers employ migrant labor.

The technology exists to detect whether a company’s supply chain includes sub-tier suppliers based in the Uighur region of China. This technology is not flawless, there can be false positives and misses. Nevertheless, it is a powerful tool to prevent shipments from being detained based on UFLPA.

However, finding bad actors among sub-tier suppliers in other parts of the world is still difficult. Everstream points out that the food industry is a particular source of concern. Vanilla, palm oil, cocoa, and soy – produced in Madagascar, Indonesia, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Nigeria – have frequently accrued violations and allegations based on child labor or forced labor issues.

The post Top Supply Chain Risks to Prepare for in 2025 appeared first on Logistics Viewpoints.

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The Freight Forwarder Moat Is Getting Shallower

Published

23 heures ago

8 mai 2026

Ocean freight forwarding is an $80+ billion market bogged down by the manual processes related to booking management, documentation services, and the coordination labor that holds it all together.

When working with a freight forwarder, you’re buying three things bundled together:

Carrier relationships — access to capacity, negotiated rates, allocation commitments.
Operational data — knowing which carrier fits a given lane, what documents a particular trade corridor requires, how to handle an exception when a booking gets rejected.
Coordination labor — the booking itself, the documents per container (industry estimates range from 9 to 18 depending on the corridor), the re-keying of data across disconnected systems, the email chains chasing confirmations and clearances.

Shippers have always paid for the bundle because you couldn’t get one piece without the others, but that’s changing.

Where the bundle comes apart

Travel agents used to bundle airline relationships, destination expertise, and the labor of putting trips together into a single fee. Aggregator platforms unbundled the pieces, and the booking layer went first because that’s where the volume was. Ocean freight forwarding is in the same position. More than digitizing booking, though, AI is automating it.

The bulk of the volume and labor cost for freight forwarders is tied up in rate comparisons across dozens of carriers, document preparation and routing by trade lane and commodity classification, booking execution against pre-negotiated contracts, and exception triage on rejected bookings.

But this is all high-volume, rule-governed, multi-system coordination where speed and consistency matter more than creativity. Exactly the type of work that AI agents are well-equipped to handle.

Platforms can now ingest a rate agreement, parse surcharges and FAK provisions into a digital rate profile, compare carriers on cost, transit time, and schedule reliability, and execute a booking based on pre-defined parameters, without a human in the loop.

Automating the entire order lifecycle

Every dollar of margin exposure in ocean freight traces back to a decision made without complete information. That means that every action must be rooted in live network data across shipment flows, carrier performance, and insight from inventory and order systems. A platform with that intelligence can automate and accelerate the full workflow from detecting a supply shortfall, selecting a carrier, booking the container, managing the documents, tracking the shipment, and handling exceptions.

A shipper stitching together a rate tool from one vendor, a booking portal from another, a document system from a third, and a visibility feed from a fourth gets digitization. They get a slightly faster version of the same manual process. The full picture still lives in a person’s head, and the handoffs between systems still require human coordination.

While freight forwarders and other intermediaries are also investing in AI, they’re primarily automating their own coordination labor before someone else absorbs it. But they can’t replicate the data advantage of a platform that sits across the entire supply chain.

A forwarder automating its booking desk draws on its own transaction history. A point solution built specifically for ocean booking draws on booking data. A platform processing millions of supply chain events daily across orders, inventory, carrier performance, and live shipment status, has a different signal base entirely. Carrier selection informed by real-time schedule reliability, live network disruption, and your actual inventory positions is structurally more accurate than carrier selection informed by historical rate tables.

The shrinking intermediary layer

The moats around freight forwarders’ profit margins are eroding, and the lines between legacy endpoint solutions are blurring. High-complexity corridors and specialized commodities still need human expertise, but the bread-and-butter containerized freight that makes up the bulk of forwarder revenue is the volume where automated workflows shine.

Meanwhile, software providers will have a hard time selling dashboards and chatbots to specific teams compared to AI-native platforms offering a single operating system across all supply chain operations, and serving downstream stakeholders.

The question for forwarders is how long they can keep patching automation onto a fragmented architecture with a booking tool here, a document system there, people bridging the handoffs in between. And how much revenue sits in structured, repeatable work that a connected platform absorbs?

For shippers, the choice is whether to invest in a platform that automates the order-to-delivery and exception lifecycle, or keep paying others to hold the pieces together. The second option is a decision to fund the intermediary layer sitting between them and their own data.

The post The Freight Forwarder Moat Is Getting Shallower appeared first on Logistics Viewpoints.

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Supply Chain and Logistics News Week of May 7th 2026

Published

1 jour ago

8 mai 2026

Supply Chain And Logistics News Week Of May 7th 2026

The logistics and supply chain landscape is undergoing a fundamental transformation as industries move from rigid, low-cost models toward strategies defined by agility and resilience. This week’s roundup explores how major players are navigating this shift, from Amazon’s bold move to offer its massive infrastructure as a standalone service to Ford’s strategic manufacturing reset in the EV sector. We also dive into the critical human element in modern cost engineering, the logistical reimagining of energy corridors due to geopolitical risks, and the new AI-driven tools closing the gap between inventory detection and real-time execution. Together, these developments highlight a common theme: the pursuit of flexibility and data-driven intelligence in an increasingly unpredictable global market.

Top Supply Chain Stories from this Week:

Modern Cost Engineering Evolution: Rewiring the Human Element for Supply Chain Resilience

In the latest shift for cost engineering, the focus is moving beyond purely digital tools to address the critical human element required for true supply chain resilience. As industrial organizations transition from traditional backward-looking estimates to modern “should-cost” methods powered by AI and digital twins, the real challenge lies in workforce transformation. Success in this new landscape requires a significant cultural shift, moving away from isolated departmental silos toward cross-functional collaboration. By reskilling traditional estimators to act as strategic consultants—capable of interpreting material science and operational constraints—companies can evolve from simple price negotiation to collaborative manufacturing improvements that ensure mutual profitability and long-term stability.

Hormuz Risk Is Redrawing the Supply Chain Geography of Energy

Geopolitical instability in the Strait of Hormuz is forcing a fundamental shift in energy logistics, moving the industry away from lowest-cost network design toward a risk-adjusted model. With the waterway handling roughly 20% of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas, repeated disruptions have transformed infrastructure like pipelines, storage terminals, and deep-water ports outside the Persian Gulf into high-value strategic assets. Nations and corporations are no longer viewing these as simple logistics nodes, but as essential escape routes that provide the optionality and recovery time needed to withstand chokepoint failures. This selective redesign of the global energy map signals a new era where geography and physical redundancy are the primary drivers of supply chain resilience.

Ford’s Manufacturing Reset Shows How Automakers Are Rebuilding the EV Supply Chain

Ford’s manufacturing pivot represents a fundamental shift from aggressive electric vehicle expansion toward capital discipline and supply chain flexibility. By taking a $19.5 billion write-down and restructuring battery joint ventures, the company is moving away from rigid, single-purpose production lines in favor of multi-energy platforms that can adapt to fluctuating demand for hybrids and EVs. A key component of this reset is the repurposing of battery manufacturing assets in Kentucky and Michigan for stationary energy storage and data center support. This strategy transforms these facilities into flexible energy infrastructure rather than just automotive supply nodes. Ultimately, Ford is signaling that the next phase of the market will be defined by the ability to manage uncertainty through cross-functional asset utilization and a focus on manufacturing-driven affordability.

How FourKites Connects Stockout Detection to Freight Execution in Minutes

FourKites has launched a unified solution that bridges the gap between stockout detection and freight execution, reducing resolution time from hours to less than five minutes. By integrating its Inventory Twin and Booking Connect AI, the platform eliminates the traditional “manual scavenger hunt” where planners had to jump between ERPs and carrier portals to resolve inventory gaps. The system uses decision intelligence to identify stockout risks up to six weeks in advance and provides ranked recommendations for corrective transfers based on cost, speed, and carrier performance. This closed-loop workflow allows planners to execute optimized shipping options with a single click, addressing the massive financial impact of inventory distortion and reducing the need for expensive, unplanned expedited shipping.

Amazon Launches “Supply Chain Services” Leveraging its Global Logistics Network

Amazon has officially launched Amazon Supply Chain Services (ASCS), a move that decouples its massive logistics infrastructure from its retail marketplace to serve as a standalone utility for all businesses. Similar to the trajectory of Amazon Web Services (AWS), the platform opens up Amazon’s multimodal freight, automated warehousing, and last-mile parcel delivery networks to companies regardless of whether they sell on Amazon. Major early adopters like Procter & Gamble, 3M, and Lands’ End are already leveraging the service to move everything from raw materials to finished products. By consolidating fragmented logistics contracts into a single automated interface, Amazon aims to use its scale—currently moving 13 billion items annually—to provide businesses with end-to-end visibility and 96.4% on-time delivery rates, signaling a significant new challenge to traditional 3PLs and carriers like FedEx and UPS.

Song of the week:

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How FourKites Connects Stockout Detection to Freight Execution in Minutes

Published

2 jours ago

7 mai 2026

FourKites is bridging the gap between identifying a problem and solving it. With the integration of Inventory Twin and Booking Connect AI. Traditionally, supply chain planners have been stuck in a manual scavenger hunt whenever a stockout alert surfaced, jumping between ERPs to find surplus stock and carrier portals to secure freight. This fragmented process typically took hours, often forcing companies to rely on expensive, last-minute expedited shipping or facing steep On-Time In-Full (OTIF) penalties to avoid customer dissatisfaction. By unifying these disparate data streams, the new solution allows teams to detect risks two to six weeks in advance and execute corrective transfers from a single, seamless workflow.

The impact on operational efficiency is significant, reducing the resolution time from detection to execution from several hours to less than five minutes. Instead of just receiving a warning, planners are presented with recommendations powered by Decision Intelligence that include the fastest, cheapest, and most optimal shipping options based on real-time carrier performance data. This closed-loop system directly addresses the 1.73 trillion dollar global issue of inventory distortion and aims to eliminate the 15-25 hours planners previously spent on manual coordination.

By keeping a human in the loop to select the best recommendation with a single click, FourKites ensures that exceptions are resolved without ever leaving the platform. This integration helps protect freight budgets, where unplanned expedited shipping often consumes up to 48% of total spend. This launch represents a shift from reactive firefighting to proactive execution, allowing teams to move away from costly safety stock and focus on high-value responsibilities. Supply chain planner responsibilities are changing with the continued developments of AI and the de-siloing of disparate systems.

FourKites is a supply chain technology provider that operates a global real-time visibility network tracking over 3.2 million shipments daily across 200 countries and territories. By integrating data from 1.1 million carriers across all modes (road, rail, ocean, and air), the platform uses AI-powered “digital workers” to automate exception resolution and provide predictive insights. More than 1,600 global brands, including leaders in the CPG and Food & Beverage sectors, trust FourKites to transform their logistics from reactive tracking into proactive, intelligent orchestration.

Read the full ARC brief breaking down the new FourKites solution here: https://www.fourkites.com/research/arc-advisory-stockout-detection-freight-execution/

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