[ INSIGHT ] SCRESILIENCE
by Brian Zapf and Matt Stanfield L.E.K. Consulting Ops&SC@lekinsights.com | 617-951-9500
How to Simplify to Achieve Resilience Supply chain disruption is no longer a temporary challenge. It is the operating reality for manufacturers, distributors, and logistics leaders. Yet many organizations still rely on outdated inventory and supply strategies that were built for a more predictable world. more effectively for responsiveness, product innovation, and smarter day- to-day execution. Always-on agents can also help operators surface decision
points continuously, which can simplify decision-making in increasingly complex logistics environments. That same uncertainty is why tariffs and trade tensions are prompting companies to diversify suppliers. Diversification is not simply about adding more suppliers, but instead reopening the conversation with them to more thoughtfully reexamine the broader category strategy and supplier mix. Many decisions made during earlier waves of outsourcing assumed a relatively stable global environment. Today, companies weigh cost against security of supply, responsiveness, and customer service in a different context. That is pushing some toward Southeast Asia, Mexico, or other regions with growing capacity, while also renewing interest in nearshoring, onshoring, and more balanced supplier mixes. Companies need dynamic strategies, especially in categories where demand, political risk, or transportation exposure change quickly. With a thoughtful category strategy, dynamic supplier mix, and scenario testing tools, companies can simplify supply chains to build resilience and drive transformative, profitable growth.
applications are tied to specific decisions, not abstract experimentation. Companies use advanced analytics coupled with agentic and generative AI to better translate demand signals into supply and production plans, identify inventory risks earlier, and make faster allocation decisions across distribution centers or other nodes to simplify day-to- day decisioning for operators. Better demand sensing can also help companies decide where product is needed and where they should supply from as conditions shift. MODELING WITH AI AI is demonstrating its ability to support record optimization, inventory positioning, and the use of targeted buffers without simply adding cost. Digital twins and scenario modeling add another layer of value. Instead of debating changes theoretically, companies can simulate the effect of a tariff increase or a sudden change in demand, then adjust before it impacts service levels. That same modeling can help companies leverage their supply base
Businesses can respond by rethinking the model itself: simplify portfolios where complexity no longer creates value, redesign planning and inventory approaches, and build more resilience into sourcing, production, and fulfillment decisions. Trade tensions make those weaknesses more visible by raising both the direct and indirect cost of moving goods. Tariffs can immediately change the economics of a sourcing region, but the bigger impact often comes from the disruption that follows. When companies shift production or supply away from one market, they also have to change ports, carriers, customs processes, inventory positioning, and transportation routes. In some cases, companies pursue more disaggregated sourcing strategies in anticipation of future disruption. Those moves can improve resilience over time, but in the near term they often add friction and delay as supply chains are reconfigured. AI is beginning to help companies manage that volatility and complexity in a more practical way. The most useful
26 Inbound Logistics • October 2026
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