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Resilient Supply Chain — How Leaders Keep Business Moving

Resilient Supply Chain is for supply chain, operations, procurement and technology leaders who need practical ways to manage disruption, reduce risk and keep business moving.

Each Monday, technology and sustainability analyst, keynote speaker and former SAP Global VP Tom Raftery speaks with the executives, operators, founders and innovators redesigning how goods, information and decisions move through global supply chains.

These are candid conversations about what works in practice—not polished PR narratives or vague predictions. Guests explain how they are responding to supplier failures, geopolitical shocks, volatile costs, capacity constraints, changing regulations and rising pressure to improve both performance and sustainability.

The podcast examines:
Faster planning and decision-making under uncertainty
Supplier risk, sourcing strategy and business continuity
AI, automation, visibility and operational intelligence
Warehousing, logistics and fulfilment performance
Scope 3 emissions, circularity and responsible sourcing
The systems, incentives and organisational changes needed to turn data into action

The central question is simple: what helps a supply chain withstand disruption, adapt quickly and continue serving the business?

New episodes are published every Monday at 7am CET. Resilient Supply Chain+ subscribers also receive bonus analysis, highlights and briefings on emerging industry trends.

Follow Resilient Supply Chain for practical lessons from the people solving real operational problems—and building supply chains that perform when conditions do not go to plan.

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Resilient Supply Chain — How Leaders Keep Business Moving

When the Right Supply Chain Decision Arrives a Month Late

October 19, 2026 • Tom Raftery • Season 2 • Episode 145

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A supply-chain decision can be perfectly correct, and still be useless if it arrives too late. Better forecasts matter, but the harder problem is turning uncertain, fragmented information into action while that information still has value.

My guest is Benji Price, Co-founder and Chief Product Officer at Wild Ducks, who has worked with supply-chain planning teams globally. We look at what happens when planners are expected to manage millions of SKU-location combinations, critical knowledge still sits in people’s heads, and understandable local decisions quietly create excess inventory and hidden cost.

We examine why every forecast is wrong to some degree, why the newest AI model is not automatically the best forecasting tool, and where automation should hand decisions back to experienced people. We also get into a harder question: if faster decisions sometimes beat more accurate ones, what should supply-chain leaders actually optimise for?

Listen now to understand how forecasting, automation and human judgement can work together to produce better decisions before the opportunity to act has passed.

If disruption hit tomorrow, would you know where your supply chain was most exposed? In 15 minutes my free scorecard helps you assess 27 resilience statements, calculate your score, and turn the result into three priorities and a 30 day action plan. You can download the scorecard free at tomraftery.com/scorecard.

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I'd like to sincerely thank this podcast's generous Subscribers:

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Gary Lynch

And remember you too can become a Resilient Supply Chain+ subscriber - it is really easy and hugely important as it will enable me to continue to create more excellent episodes like this one and give you access to bonus episodes of topical, timely supply chain resilience analysis.

🎤 Looking for a keynote speaker on supply chain resilience, AI, and sustainability?
I help leaders understand the forces reshaping global supply chains, from geopolitical disruption and climate risk to AI and real-time decision-making.

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