Navigating Supply Chain Chaos

Navigating Supply Chain Chaos: Strategies for Risk Mitigation

March 24, 2025
By Justin Robarge | Director of Trade Compliance

Let’s call it like it is. When you’re talking about things as complex as supply chains, risk is part of the equation. Much of it is already on your radar. Tariffs. Port strikes. Freight issues. But there isn’t a crystal ball we can look into for 100% risk avoidance.

To move forward in this environment, you need to do two things. First, be thinking ahead. Second, build in flexibility and redundancy wherever you can. And perhaps a third is to keep an eye on the expanding role that technology is playing in supply chains.

Plans are nothing; planning is everything

Too many teams start off the year by checking their risk assessment off the to-do list. They have everything mapped out and are glad to have it behind them. But… you need to dust that off throughout the year. You can't just let it sit. It needs to be a living document because things can change. No, scratch that. Things WILL change.

Personally, I’m very invested in staying on top of risk mitigation. For me, I need to understand what types of risks we face. What is the likelihood of certain risks? How quickly might those risks manifest?

If it’s a port strike, that can happen fairly suddenly. A natural disaster can happen instantaneously. A regulatory rollout? Well, there are some exceptions, but those typically have longer timelines. This is why the depth of your planning matters. Understanding how a threat may present will change your potential reaction.

Remember, you can’t have a perfect plan for all threats. Every company has limited resources. So, it’s about deploying those resources strategically to make sure you target what really matters.

If you have a part that’s mission critical, can you dual source it? Can you pull it from not only multiple factories but multiple countries? If you've got exposure in country A, do you also have supply in country B? It’s about finding a source of supply that makes sense within your risk environment and your strategic goals.

Adaptability requires flexibility

Planning for these risks is important, but making the plan is only half the battle. To be a great plan, it needs to be adaptable (and kept up to date).

There might be risks that are likely to happen quickly, but they have a small effect. They’ll naturally be treated differently than something that has a longer lead time but, if it happens, could massively affect your business.

Depending on which risk you’re trying to mitigate, you’ll have different steps to take. Trying to get ahead of freight congestion, port strikes, or natural disasters? You may need to change the geographic concentration of your supply base. With sources more spread out, a single event can’t cripple your work. This tends to give you a bit more flexibility.

Other solutions beyond just that geographic piece could include building up safety stocks and designating alternative items. Can’t get your hands on item A? If you already have a substitute in your plan, you can keep things running. Maybe item B isn’t as ideal, but again, production uptime is king, right?

There are multiple solutions, and they don't stand alone. They all work in concert. All these moving items blend together, so that when you have a specific event that affects a certain item, a certain region, a certain industry, you still have what you need.

AI's role in the future

Right now, AI is like air travel in its early stages. There are lots of ideas for how to use it, but which ideas are 747s and which are personal jet packs?

It’s certainly possible that AI can help solve some of the problems that supply chains face. Currently, there’s an amazing amount of data that can be collected surrounding supply chains, but that same impressive volume of data can be difficult to analyze. It feels likely that AI will be able to parse the data and find relationships that can lead to further insights. AI could even bring clarity to certain risk events.

So, AI as a data analyzer? I'm excited about that idea.

What I don’t know yet is, what does that look like a year from now, five years from now? Which areas are most open to being transformed by AI innovation and which ones will we still be doing the same things now because they are harder to unlock with technology.

What's on the horizon?

A risk that many people overlook is falling victim to, “Well, this is how we've always done it.” Honestly, this extends beyond supply chains and logistics. It’s in human nature. But if the new reality we face cannot be handled by your old go-to solution, a new answer needs to be found. So, as the market changes, we have to be adaptable.

It’s about securing supply chain continuity, dependability, and quality of product. Those are the things you should be seeking.