Will Sandman

Stay up to date on all the latest conversations, interviews, and episodes we released this week here at Supply Chain Now. We started our week off with a Dial P for Procurement episode hosted by Kelly and Scott. They welcomed Member Services Manager at Una, Crystal Villareal and Philip Ideson, Founder and Managing Director, Art of Procurement. During the show, they discussed how to convert your vision for customer experiences into a set of tasks and priorities that guide your daily work and more. On This Week in Business History, Kelly has a very exciting lineup of stories! The topics in this episode ranged from the founder of the first African-American magazine to the introduction of the ATM. On Tuesday, Scott had the great opportunity of interviewing Dan Gingiss, Chief Experience Officer at The Experience Maker, LLC. In this episode, Scott talks with Dan about the secrets behind crafting remarkable customer interactions. On Wednesday, we published another episode of Logistics With Purpose with hosts Enrique Alverez, Matilda Ahrin, and Books for Africa’s Pat Plonski. The special guest for this episode was Madame Ambassador Hilda Suka Mafudze with the African Union. As you listen to this episode, look forward to learning…

Special Guest Blog Post written by Jeff Echel and Steve Lykken with e2open   Supply chain planners in high-tech don’t just manage shipments; they’re crisis managers, data detectives, and sometimes, referees in a high-stakes game of inventory tug-of-war. Why do these planners find themselves huddled in “war rooms,” surrounded by spreadsheets and urgent emails? It starts with relentless pressure: customers expect rapid, reliable service, but the reality is a maze of long lead times, outsourced manufacturing, and unpredictable global logistics. Securing critical components can take months, and a single misstep, like overstocking or missing a shipment, can ripple through the business, impacting revenue and margins. The chaos: War rooms and spreadsheet battles Add to that, the complexity of forecasting demand. Planners reconcile noisy, inconsistent data from retailers and distributors, often with little visibility, into . Forecasts are built, torn down, and rebuilt, sometimes manually, as teams try to align bottom-up channel data with top-down financial targets. Meanwhile, supply plans are constantly threatened by shortages, excess inventory, and last-minute changes. When demand surges or supply is disrupted, channels compete for limited stock, sometimes “stealing” from each other, and sometimes winning simply by being the loudest voice in the room. All of…