Jake Edwards

At the 2025 Gartner Supply Chain Planning Summit in Denver, Scott Luton caught up with Justin Siefert, a familiar face in the supply chain community and a leader at John Galt Solutions, a global provider of end-to-end supply chain planning software. From demand and supply planning to inventory and S&OP, John Galt supports organizations across industries with the holistic capabilities needed to thrive in an increasingly unpredictable landscape.   A Company Investing in the Next Generation Before diving into industry trends, Siefert shared an update on one of the programs that sets John Galt apart: its supply chain scholarship program, which awards $10,000 to students pursuing supply chain degrees. This year’s cycle brought in a record number of nominations, with new winners set to be announced in January. It’s an initiative Siefert is proud of—and one that reflects John Galt’s belief in cultivating tomorrow’s leaders.   Old Problems, New Pressures: Planning in a World of Uncertainty When asked about the biggest challenges facing planners today, Siefert didn’t hesitate: uncertainty. While the forms of disruption change—pandemics, geopolitical shifts, demand shocks, evolving portfolios—the underlying challenge remains the same. Planners must anticipate what’s next and respond quickly, often in real time. “No day…

This post is written by our friends at e2open. E2open is the connected supply chain software platform that enables the world’s largest companies to transform the way they make, move, and sell goods and services. Moving as one.™ Learn More: www.e2open.com.   Transportation teams feel pressure every day. Managing road, ocean, air, rail, and parcel means working across separate systems. When conditions change, teams scramble between tools, emails, and spreadsheets just to keep freight moving. Missed appointments, detention risk, tender fallout, and service failures are harder to avoid when execution lives in silos. A connected Transportation Management System (TMS) for shippers changes that model. Instead of managing each mode in isolation, transportation teams orchestrate execution across modes in one coordinated flow. Automated workflows handle routine decisions, multimodal transport data stays aligned, and planners focus on the exceptions that truly require human judgment. The result is faster response, fewer handoffs, and more confident execution when plans change.   Why “connected” logistics orchestration matters for modern shippers Most shippers didn’t design their transportation stack as a single system. Road, ocean, air, and parcel tools evolved separately, often from different vendors. That fragmentation shows up the moment disruptions hit, forcing teams to react…