Jim French

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…

A Shift in the Narrative for 2026 In a recent conversation, Scott Luton spoke with Mark Gilham, Vice President & Head of Global Advisory at Enable, about what supply chain and commercial leaders should expect from the year ahead. While many annual outlooks attempt to forecast the next major disruption, Gilham offered a different lens: 2026 may become the “year of no excuses.” After years defined by a global pandemic, inflationary shocks, geopolitical instability, supply shortages, and the rapid rise of AI, organizations have already endured extraordinary volatility. Businesses not only survived, but in many cases adapted and grew. According to Gilham, that reality weakens the argument that disruption alone explains underperformance. Disruption is not disappearing, he cautioned, but leaders can only lean on it for so long.   Why a Calmer Year Raises the Bar Gilham argued that if external conditions stabilize even slightly, the pressure on leadership actually increases. A less chaotic environment removes convenient explanations and shines a brighter light on internal shortcomings. Process gaps, misaligned incentives, and execution failures become harder to ignore when the world is not on fire. Rather than waiting for certainty, Gilham believes leaders should act decisively. This does not mean radical…