Blue Yonder : Steering Strategic Resilience

Building resilient and sustainable supply chains is at the top of the agenda for many businesses today. We sit down with Saskia van Gendt, Chief Sustainability Officer at Blue Yonder, to discuss the resilience and artificial intelligence-driven innovation required to succeed – even as climate change and geopolitical uncertainty persist.

STEERING STRATEGIC RESILIENCE

With the recent pistachio shortage highlighting the growing impact both climate change and geopolitical tensions can have on global supply chains, businesses across the world are learning an important lesson.

“The recent pistachio shortage shows how quickly modern supply chains can destabilise when demand velocity outpaces agricultural and production cycles,” opens Saskia van Gendt, Chief Sustainability Officer at Blue Yonder.

Indeed, volatility is no longer an exception – it is structural, and businesses today must move away from static forecasting to dynamic demand sensing that incorporates non-traditional signals such as social media trends, weather anomalies, and geopolitical risk indicators.

It also reinforces the need for diversifying sourcing regions, scenario planning for climate and conflict risks, and tighter integration between demand planning and procurement so organisations can respond before bottlenecks materialise.

“Recent events in the Strait of Hormuz reinforce this point. Even when supply routes reopen, recovery remains gradual as congestion, insurance delays, and operational caution continue to affect the movement of critical inputs such as fertilisers,” outlines van Gendt.

As such, building resilience is about anticipating disruption earlier and understanding how interconnected risks can cascade across global supply chains.

RESILIENT AND SUSTAINABLE

As extreme weather disrupts the supply of key commodities such as cocoa, wheat, rice, and corn, organisations are building more resilient and sustainable supply chains.

“Resilience depends on designing supply chains that can absorb shocks rather than simply react to them. That means shifting from single-source or regionally concentrated sourcing to multiregional, flexible supplier networks,” van Gendt explains.

It also requires investing in climate-resilient agricultural practices, including regenerative approaches that improve soil health and water retention, making yields more stable under stress.

On top of inventory, organisations need a strategic buffer capacity comprised of flexible logistics, diversified transport routes, and stronger end-to-end visibility so disruptions in one corridor do not cascade globally.

Scenario planning and artificial intelligence (AI)-driven forecasting can also help model the impact of extreme weather, enabling them to shift demand and geopolitical events before they become operational challenges.

“With resilience and sustainability increasingly converging, reducing emissions, waste, and resource intensity not only supports environmental goals but also improves long-term supply stability and helps organisations adapt more effectively to future disruption,” van Gendt emphasises.

SHAPING SUPPLY CHAIN STRATEGY

As sustainability increasingly shapes supply chain strategy, leading organisations are beginning to embed sustainability into their sourcing and procurement decisions rather than treating it as a separate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) initiative.

“Rather than treating sustainability as a parallel ESG workstream, they are embedding it directly into procurement decision-making,” states van Gendt.

Examples include integrating carbon metrics into supplier scorecards, making Scope 3 emissions a core sourcing constraint alongside cost and quality, and embedding sustainability key performance indicators (KPIs) into contracts and supplier performance management.

In addition, as supplier decisions become increasingly informed by scenario planning that considers both climate and geopolitical risk, procurement teams are actively incentivising regenerative and deforestation-free sourcing, ensuring organisations build resilience as well as sustainability into their sourcing strategies.

“In practice, sustainability becomes a ‘licence to operate’ within supplier selection rather than an after-the-fact reporting exercise,” she details.

For Blue Yonder, this is reflected in how sustainability is being embedded directly into planning systems and decision workflows.

“In doing so, we enable organisations to balance environmental objectives with cost, service, and resilience, rather than treating sustainability as a separate reporting layer,” van Gendt tells us.

VISIBILITY IS KEY

With businesses looking to anticipate climate-related risks before they become operational or financial challenges, end-to-end supply chain visibility is allowing them to move from reactive firefighting to forward-looking risk management.

“When planning, sourcing, and execution data are unified, businesses can connect early signals – such as drought forecasts, El Niño patterns, shipping disruptions, or geopolitical instability – to downstream operational impact,” van Gendt elaborates.

This enables scenario modelling before disruption hits – being able to anticipate how a cocoa yield shock in West Africa or fertiliser disruption in the Gulf region, for example, could affect production schedule, pricing, and inventory months in advance.

“Crucially, visibility also reduces decision latency. When leaders can see constraints in real time across tiers of suppliers, they can reroute, re-source, or rebalance demand before risks escalate into financial loss,” she highlights.

As climate and geopolitical risks become increasingly interconnected, organisations with real-time visibility and AI-enabled decision support will be significantly better positioned to adapt than those relying on historical planning models.

TRANSFORMATIONAL TECHNOLOGY

Supply chain transparency is high on the agenda for many businesses today, and technology is on hand to help bridge the gap.

“Today, the biggest barrier to transparency is fragmentation, with data often managed across disconnected systems and multiple tiers of suppliers, resulting in inconsistent or inaccurate visibility,” van Gendt notes.

She also points out a prevalent trust gap amongst suppliers who may lack the incentives or capability to share granular environmental and operational data – particularly beyond Tier 1 – making it difficult to build a complete picture of supply chain risk.

“Technology is increasingly bridging this gap: AI-driven platforms, digital twins, Internet of Things (IoT)-enabled tracking, and traceability systems are helping to build more continuous, auditable supply chain visibility.”

These tools transform fragmented data into actionable intelligence, enabling faster and more informed decisions.

Technology alone is not enough, however, as standardised data definitions, stronger supply collaboration, and shared accountability frameworks are equally important to make transparency operational rather than aspirational.

FINDING A BALANCE

As climate change undeniably reshapes global supply chains, businesses must successfully balance sustainability, resilience, and commercial performance.

“Climate change is fundamentally increasing the frequency, correlation, and severity of supply chain shocks, and we are already seeing overlapping risks reinforcing each other rather than occurring in isolation,” van Gendt reflects.

As extreme weather, geopolitical tension, resource scarcity, and input shortages persist, Blue Yonder anticipates that supply chains will become gradually more digitally orchestrated and adaptive.

“Agricultural systems will also continue shifting towards regenerative models that improve resilience by restoring soil health, water cycles, and biodiversity, whilst businesses increasingly diversify sourcing to reduce dependence on any single region or supplier,” she adds.

Indeed, those willing to invest in connected data ecosystems, AI-driven decision intelligence, scenario planning, and supply networks designed for flexibility rather than efficiency alone will succeed.

“In short, the winners will not be those who avoid disruption, but those who are structurally designed to anticipate, absorb, and adapt to disruption faster than others,” van Gendt boldly concludes.