Tom Comstock

At the 2025 Gartner Supply Chain Planning Summit in Denver, Scott Luton sat down with Fred Baumann, Senior Industry Principal at Kinaxis, one of the world’s most recognized leaders in supply chain planning and orchestration. Kinaxis has spent over four decades shaping the planning landscape and has been named to the Gartner Leaders Quadrant an extraordinary 11 consecutive times—a testament to its execution strength and long-term vision. Baumann’s role at Kinaxis centers on helping chief supply chain officers and senior leaders shape their strategic transformation roadmaps, quantify value, and build the business cases necessary to achieve breakthrough outcomes.   From Episodic Disruptions to Continuous Turbulence When asked about old and new challenges facing supply chain planning teams, Baumann observed a major shift: disruption is no longer episodic—it’s continuous. Historically, companies faced major disruptions every few years. Today, volatility and constraint-related challenges—whether driven by tariffs, sourcing changes, geopolitical shifts, or supply shortages—are unfolding weekly or even daily. This environment demands a new way of working. The speed of global business is accelerating, and uncertainty is at historic highs. As Baumann noted, organizations must now adjust their supply chains “much faster than they had to even last year.” The shift isn’t only…

Get Ready to increase your supply chain IQ! We’ve got all the latest episodes, interviews, conversations, and livestreams right here from Supply Chain Now this week. On Monday, TEKTOK host Karin Bursa sat down with Scott to look back on 2020 and discuss what’s on the horizon for 2021   On Tuesday’s podcast episode, Kelly Barner joined Scott to discuss the lessons learned in 2020 and what’s to come in 2021.   On Wednesday, Scott welcomed Joe Donnell and Karl Fillhouer with Circle Logistics to talk about the recruiting and talent challenges they faced in 2020, consumer demand predictions after pandemic restrictions are lifted, & the next frontier in technological innovation.   On Thursday, Scott and Greg welcome Nurfad Nadarevic to the Supply Chain Buzz to discuss the COVID-19 vaccine distribution, automotive changes ahead, and more top news in supply chain this week.   We ended the week with an episode of TEKTOK, powered by Supply Chain Now, where host Karin Bursa shared the 3 Things C-Level execs need to know about Sales & Operations Planning & Inventory Optimization.   Which was your favorite episode this week? Never miss an episode by subscribing to Supply Chain Now! Make sure you…