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While attending Momentum 2025<\/span> by Manhattan Associates<\/span> last week in Las Vegas, I had the opportunity to moderate a panel conversation that hit home for every retailer in the room.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n With a mix of tech leads, academic insight, and boots-on-the-ground experience, the panel unpacked what happens when your inventory doesn\u2019t show up, can\u2019t get through a port, or takes a wildly expensive detour. Here are seven key takeaways for retailers who are facing friction in their supply chain-and are looking for vendors who don\u2019t just sell software but actually help solve problems.<\/p>\n Disruptions like the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore aren\u2019t just headline news- they\u2019re operational roadblocks. That kind of pivot isn\u2019t sustainable unless you\u2019ve accounted for disruption in your network design.<\/p>\n \u201cWe couldn\u2019t bring anything into Baltimore, so we called a barge to tow the product. Slow moving, but it was the only option.\u201d – Mandar Rahatekar<\/p>\n Retailers can no longer treat port access or overland transport as constants. Resilience isn\u2019t a buzzword; it is a budget line.<\/p>\n Mandar Rahatekar shared one of those stories that makes every retailer in the room shift uncomfortably in their seat. \u201cWe were launching a product in six weeks with a 12-week supply chain,\u201d he said. \u201cWe ended up flying adjustable mattress bases from Asia to the U.S.\u2014thousands of them.\u201d<\/p>\n Let that sink in. Mattress bases\u2014bulky, heavy, and typically shipped via ocean freight\u2014were loaded onto planes. The cost? Astronomical. The impact? A margin-eroding scramble to meet a deadline that wasn\u2019t grounded in operational reality.<\/p>\n This wasn\u2019t just a logistics failure. It was a cross-functional breakdown between product development, planning, marketing, and inventory teams. When one part of the business sets a launch date without syncing with the supply side, the whole operation pays for it\u2014literally.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Retailers love speed, but speed without alignment is a recipe for chaos. The smarter strategy is to build cross-functional launch teams that work backwards from the supply chain realities, not forwards from a marketing calendar. As Mandar\u2019s story proves, the true cost of urgency isn\u2019t just freight\u2014it\u2019s the hit to your bottom line and team\u00a0<\/p>\n Speed isn\u2019t just about logistics. If your planning, sourcing, and marketing teams aren\u2019t working together, you\u2019re not fast- you\u2019re reactionary. And those last-minute decisions? They don\u2019t just erode margins, they expose the real problem: no one\u2019s aligned.<\/p>\n If you can\u2019t see it, you can\u2019t fix it. Mandar emphasized that fragmented data across partners often blocks retailers from getting ahead of problems.<\/p>\n \u201cThe key is using the right tools and making sure information flows across all boundaries. There are so many different partners, and too often, the data stops where the contract does.\u201d<\/p>\n Retailers should expect end-to-end visibility from their platforms, not just what they own, but what their vendors, 3PLs, and suppliers are doing. It’s no longer acceptable to operate in silos and hope things go smoothly. It’s about visibility in real time.<\/p>\n I made this point during the panel: \u201cIf you\u2019re waiting for five departments to approve a workaround, you\u2019ve already missed the window.\u201d When a disruption hits, waiting for five layers of internal signoff is often the bigger problem.<\/p>\n Decision velocity separates market leaders from the rest. The ability to act on insights in real-time and empower your teams to do so has become a competitive advantage.<\/p>\n Dr. Erera offered a perspective grounded in research and modeling. Traditional planning systems rely too heavily on steady-state assumptions – conditions that no longer exist.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can\u2019t build a rigid plan anymore. It has to be predictive, agile, and flexible enough to absorb one-off shocks, because those are now weekly events.\u201d<\/p>\n Retailers must invest in tools that can simulate disruptions, dynamically reallocate resources, and re-plan without human intervention. Agility is no longer optional; it\u2019s the system.<\/p>\n When a product is late or missing, the blame game starts. But as Mandar reminded us, this mindset won\u2019t move anything forward. After all, the customer wants what they want! <\/p>\n \u201cThe thing is, it all happens in the supply chain. It\u2019s not someone else\u2019s problem anymore.\u201d – Mandar Rahatekar<\/p>\n Darryl Aldridge drove the point home with a retail operator\u2019s lens, \u201cWe\u2019ve learned that the fastest companies are the ones making the fastest decisions, not just moving the fastest trucks. You can have the best technology and transportation contracts in place, but if your team can\u2019t make decisions quickly, you\u2019re still going to miss out. Speed lives in decision-making.\u201d<\/p>\n He made it clear that decision velocity isn\u2019t just a logistics issue\u2014it\u2019s cultural. You can\u2019t fix slow systems without fixing slow leadership. Retailers need cross-functional accountability. Every department must treat the supply chain as a shared priority because customers don\u2019t care whose fault it is. They just want the product.<\/p>\n Too many vendors show up with ideas but not results. As I said during the panel, great tech doesn\u2019t matter if it never leaves the whiteboard. \u201cRetailers are tired of slide decks and buzzwords. They want execution.\u201d<\/p>\n Innovation without adoption is wasted energy. Retailers need to seek out partners who are hands-on, who train teams on the floor, and who close the loop between promise and delivery.<\/p>\n This wasn\u2019t a panel full of theory. It was a wake-up call. Retailers need to look at the supply chain not as a back-office function but as a front-line strategy. The vendors who will win are the ones who get that, and who can prove it on the store floor, not just the sales floor.<\/span>
Joining me were:<\/p>\n\n
1. Infrastructure Is Now Your Problem<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n
2. Speed Costs More Than You Think<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n
3. Visibility Across the Chain Is Non-Negotiable<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n
4. Decisions Need to Move Faster Than the Containers<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n
5. Planning Systems Need to Handle Chaos<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n
6. Retailers Must Stop Outsourcing Responsibility<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n
7. Execution > Innovation<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n
Final Thoughts<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n
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<\/span>If you\u2019re still flying mattresses across oceans, it might be time for a new playbook.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n