Elba Pareja-Gallagher

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…

Stay up to date on all the latest conversations, interviews, and episodes we released this week here at Supply Chain Now! We started this week off with an episode of Dial P for Procurement with host Kelly Barner. She is accompanied by Bull Demartino Chief Product Officer and Constantine Limberakis the Senior Director of Product & Solutions Marketing for Riskmethods. During this show, the real meaning of creating a demand for new risk management gets discussed. In Monday’s episode of This Week In Business History, Kelly Barner shares the very interesting story of Clarence Birdseye, inventor and innovator of the frozen foods industry. Kelly talks about the initial challenges that Birdseye had to endure to become the legacy it is today. On Tuesday, we published an episode of Supply Chain Now with host Scott Luton and special co host Kelly Barner. This episode features Bob Gay, Rebate & Incentive Program Specialist for Advance Auto Parts. Scott Weir, the former Vice President of Purchasing for Thos. Sommerville Co, and Oisín Cooke the solutions consultant at Enable. They all put an emphasis of rebates and how they can be an effective way to reward and incentivize specific buying patterns and behaviors. On…