Gretchen Smith

At the 2025 Gartner Supply Chain Planning Summit in Denver, Scott Luton met with John Lash, who leads strategy and vision at e2open, a WiseTech Global Group company. E2open is a global platform powering the entire lifecycle of making, moving, and selling goods, with capabilities spanning planning, logistics, global trade, supply management, and procurement. The platform is designed not just for enterprise visibility but for true end-to-end coordination across extended supply chain ecosystems. Lash emphasized that disruptions rarely originate within a company’s four walls. “Your sub-tiers are where most of the risk lives,” he explained. “That’s where your day-to-day operations—and your long-term strategy—are truly shaped.” It’s a lesson sharply reinforced during the pandemic, which reminded leaders worldwide that no one does supply chain alone.   Old Challenges Intensified by New Realities When Luton asked about the biggest challenges facing planning teams today, Lash pointed immediately to constraints—supply constraints, manufacturing constraints, and now, the added layer of global trade volatility. Trade policies that once shifted every few years now change weekly, daily, or even hourly. Lash offered a striking example: Brazilian coffee duties jumped from 10% to 50% this summer—before returning to 0%. “How do you plan through that?” he asked.…

Listen up! Catch up on all the latest episodes, interviews, conversations, and livestreams from this week right here. On Monday, we released 3 new episodes! On Supply Chain Now, hosts Scott Luton and Ben Harris welcomed Colton Griffin, CEO of Flourish Software, to talk about how the supply chain for cannabis operates and how it could influence the modern supply chain. On This Week in Business History, host Scott W. Luton dives into 10 things that you may not know about the Suez Canal, a modern engineering marvel that has been the subject of global fascination recently. On Supply Chain Now en Espanol, hosts Enrique and Jose Miguel welcome Ignacio Alcalde with TW Logistica to the podcast. On Tuesday, we released 2 new episodes. On this episode of TEKTOK, powered by Supply Chain Now, hosts Karin Bursa and Scott Luton welcome Transplace CEO Frank McGuigan to the podcast to discuss how disruptions drive supply chain innovations and advancements. On TECHquila Sunrise, host Greg White sat down with Peter Stangeland, Chief Commercial Officer of DB Schenker, to talk about the exciting progress his teams have made in clearing the path to sustainability through innovative forms of transportation and his advice for…