Global survey of 1800 supply chain leaders shows average response time is five days, hindering progress on resiliency and risk mitigation.

New research has found there is slow progress in making supply chains more flexible and resilient.

The IDC research, sponsored by Kinaxis, also highlighted optimism towards supply chain orchestration tools as a key enabler for the future.

According to research, less than one-fifth (17%) of global supply chain leaders say their companies can respond to disruptions within 24 hours. Highlighting their widespread frustration, two-thirds (67%) of respondents admit they are not “very satisfied” with their response time.

The survey of 1,800 supply chain decision-makers from around the world found most are struggling to keep their operations agile and adaptable amid an onslaught of disruptions from geopolitical conflicts, natural disasters, and other volatility.

“It’s more common than ever on quarterly earnings calls to hear that supply chains make or break success and this data proves that there is a tremendous opportunity across all sectors to improve resilience and risk mitigation,” said John Sicard, president and CEO at Kinaxis.

“Cutting-edge, AI-enhanced, end-to-end orchestration tools that enable companies to gain transparency, agility and improved collaboration can help address these compounding trends and make chief supply chain officers the heroes instead of the scapegoats the next time trouble appears on the horizon.”

Although respondents in all regions are overwhelmingly not “very satisfied” with their business’ ability to withstand and respond to supply chain shocks, they remain optimistic about technology’s potential to turn the tide, with 97% saying better orchestration tools would have a modest (44%) or significant (53%) impact on supply chain performance.

Other key findings include:

• Industrial respondents rate their resiliency highest (47%), while retail (29%) and aerospace (27%) rate themselves lowest
• 42% of consumer product respondents rated their supply chain orchestration as mature, the highest among all verticals
• 25% of respondents plan to move to new technologies in the next year to improve resilience
• 33% want supply chain orchestration platforms that offer AI/genAI capabilities
• 63% view their supply chain as some form of competitive advantage over the next 12 months, but it drops to 48% across the next 1-3 years
• 37% said the biggest roadblock to adopting a supply chain orchestration application was not finding the right vendor solution