Sarah Barnes-Humphrey, CITP

Last month, we launched Between the Lines, our Supply Chain Now book club, with a simple idea: the best leaders don’t just consume headlines, they read deeply, think critically, and stay curious. The response to our first edition reminded us how powerful shared learning can be! This month, we’re building on that momentum with fresh selections designed to challenge perspectives, spark new ideas, and strengthen the way we think, innovate, and navigate an ever-evolving global landscape.   Check out a few of the selections the Supply Chain Now team recommends from February 2026:   Scott Luton: The 2028 Global Intelligence Crisis from Citrini Research Imagine a short-term future where the very technology we hail as humanity’s next great productivity engine becomes essentially the source of a global economic crisis. “The 2028 Global Intelligence Crisis” from Citrini Research is a thought experiment that projects just such a scenario: by 2028, rapid and widespread AI adoption has supercharged productivity yet hollowed out the consumer economy, driving unemployment above 10% and triggering a deep market downturn as traditional spending collapses despite booming output. In this speculative, but unsettling, framework, AI doesn’t fail, it succeeds so overwhelmingly that the economy it was meant to…

At the Gartner Supply Chain Planning Summit in Denver, Scott Luton sat down with Nari Viswanathan, a veteran innovator in the planning and procurement technology space and a key leader at Coupa. The two reconnected after several recent collaborations—including webinars, industry sessions, and conversations in Dallas—and discussed the new realities of supply chain planning and how organizations are embracing technology like never before.   Coupa and Autonomous Spend Management For those less familiar with Coupa, Viswanathan explained the company as the global leader in autonomous spend management—a framework that brings together direct and indirect spending to help organizations manage total spend more intelligently. Direct spend, of course, is where supply chain operations come into focus, making planning, design, and cost optimization central to the value Coupa delivers. Viswanathan leads Coupa’s global supply chain strategy, shaping how the company positions and scales its solutions across the market. After years spent in supply chain planning technology, he now sits at the intersection of procurement, supply chain, and advanced analytics—an area he believes has never been more exciting or more critical.   Old Problems, New Pressures—and a Greater Willingness to Innovate When asked about the biggest challenges facing planners today, Viswanathan emphasized a…