Evrim Ertugrul

Special Guest Blog Post written by Parabola Founder & CEO, Alex Yaseen   Operators are under pressure. They’re expected to move faster, do more with less, and somehow keep everything running smoothly while their systems, tools, and data are a mess. Now, AI is adding a whole new layer. On one hand, it’s exciting. The potential is real. On the other, a lot of teams feel stuck. They know they should be using AI, but they’re not sure where it fits into their day-to-day work. These are the five questions I get asked most often—whether someone’s trying to get started with automation, or trying to figure out how AI actually helps. 1. Can we automate this, or is it too messy? This question usually comes from someone deep in a spreadsheet that was never meant to scale. The short answer is: yes, you can probably automate it. But the longer answer is that you’ll need to rethink the process first. AI can help summarize, transform, and clean data—but it won’t fix a broken workflow. That’s on you. The best teams pair structured automation with lightweight AI to get leverage. Think: using rules and logic to standardize a workflow, and AI…

A shipment delayed at sea can become a financial problem before it ever reaches the warehouse. A routing decision can change exposure to cargo theft. A technology investment can improve visibility while raising expectations for how quickly teams should respond. For supply chain leaders, geopolitical, technological, and economic disruption rarely arrive as separate challenges. They overlap, creating decisions that affect transportation, compliance, customer service, and profitability all at once. In the recent Supply Chain Now webinar, hosts Scott Luton and Jake Barr were joined by Henrik Holm, Vice President of Ocean Freight for the Americas at Apex Logistics International, and Linda Moran, Customs Compliance Senior Manager at Apex Logistics International, to explore how companies can adapt. Their discussion offered a practical perspective on what Barr calls the “never normal”: leaders need strategies that help them operate confidently even when the conditions around them keep changing.   Building Stability Through Preparedness Stability can feel like an ambitious goal when trade policies shift, shipping routes change, and transportation capacity becomes unpredictable. Yet the panel’s discussion suggests that companies can create greater stability through the decisions they make before disruption occurs. Holm emphasized understanding when and where goods are needed, planning earlier, and…