Tracy Hansen

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…

Stay up to date on all the latest conversations, interviews, and episodes we released this week here at Supply Chain Now! We kicked the week off with a special episode of Digital Transformers with host Kevin L. Jackson and Scott Luton. This episode also featured the Vice President of Strategic Customers at Ratelinx, Andrew Hooser. During this episode Andrew talks about how Ratelinx helps companies unite their data and take action. For This Week In Business History Kelly covers stories from plumbing inventors to a black woman holding incredible records for having a substantial amount of patents. For this episode of Supply Chain Now host Scott gets to chat with the CEO and co-founder of Tommy Run, Bernard Parks and Tandreia Bellamy. One topic that is discussed includes why logistics is an important part of EVERY business model because “everything has to touch a truck”. On Wednesday we released an episode of Logistics With Purpose with host Enrique Alvarez and Kristi Porter. This episode also features Audra Weddle, Shipping Director and Ryan Grabill, Director of International Disaster Service, for Convoy of Hope. This episode focuses on Convoy of Hope and the logistics of disaster outreach. For this special Thursday feature…