Christine Barnhart

Special Guest Blog Post written by Jeff Echel and Steve Lykken with e2open   Supply chain planners in high-tech don’t just manage shipments; they’re crisis managers, data detectives, and sometimes, referees in a high-stakes game of inventory tug-of-war. Why do these planners find themselves huddled in “war rooms,” surrounded by spreadsheets and urgent emails? It starts with relentless pressure: customers expect rapid, reliable service, but the reality is a maze of long lead times, outsourced manufacturing, and unpredictable global logistics. Securing critical components can take months, and a single misstep, like overstocking or missing a shipment, can ripple through the business, impacting revenue and margins. The chaos: War rooms and spreadsheet battles Add to that, the complexity of forecasting demand. Planners reconcile noisy, inconsistent data from retailers and distributors, often with little visibility, into . Forecasts are built, torn down, and rebuilt, sometimes manually, as teams try to align bottom-up channel data with top-down financial targets. Meanwhile, supply plans are constantly threatened by shortages, excess inventory, and last-minute changes. When demand surges or supply is disrupted, channels compete for limited stock, sometimes “stealing” from each other, and sometimes winning simply by being the loudest voice in the room. All of…

Another great week here at Supply Chain Now! Have you listened to all the episodes? If not, no worries! Check them all out here: We added a special Saturday episode on May 9th and featured another speaker from the 2020 AIAG CR Summit, Eric Kane with Bloomberg, and his insights from the conference.   On Monday, we continued our Supply Chain Super Trends series with Sarah Barnes-Humphrey with Let’s Talk Supply Chain. Supply Chain Super Trend #3 focused on a holistic approach to supply chain TALENT.     Mike Griswold with Gartner joined us for another excellent livestream last week, and we published it as a podcast episode on Tuesday. He shared his latest observations on how COVID-19 is impacting global supply chains. A MUST-listen!     We continued our interviews with the speakers from the AIAG CR Summit on Wednesday, with great insights from Dr. Assheton Carter with TDI Sustainability.     Thursday we published our popular Supply Chain Buzz, with Scott and Greg sharing and discussing the latest news and events in Supply Chain and beyond.     And on Friday, we wrapped up the interviews with the extrordinary speakers from the AIAG CR Summit, with Brian Rich…