83% of supply chains unable to respond to disruptions within 24 hours

Progress in making supply chains more flexible and resilient is slow. Global research by IDC, commissioned by Kinaxis, reveals that the average response time to disruptions is five days. And that hinders progress on resilience and risk mitigation. However, there is optimism about the availability of supply chain orchestration tools for the future.

Among global companies, less than a fifth (17%) can respond to disruptions within 24 hours, according to the survey participants. Underlining their great frustration, as many as two-thirds (67%) of supply chain leaders confess that they are “not very satisfied” with their response time.

The extensive survey among 1,800 supply chain decision-makers exposes the harsh reality that most are struggling to keep their operations agile and adaptable amid a wave of disruptions caused by geopolitical conflicts, natural disasters and other kinds of volatility.

“Worryingly, the average crisis response time is five days,” reports Kinaxis. However, performance does vary by sector. In the oil & gas sector, for example, 28% of respondents said they could respond within a day, compared with 15% in medical devices & pharma and 14% in aviation.

The benefits of end-to-end orchestration tools

“These days, it is very common to hear during quarterly calls that supply chains can make or break success. This data proves that there is a huge opportunity in all sectors to improve resilience and risk mitigation,” says John Sicard, President and CEO of Kinaxis.

Advanced, AI-enabled, end-to-end orchestration tools that enable companies to achieve transparency, flexibility and better collaboration can help address these trends, Sicard explains. “They can ensure that chief supply chain officers become the heroes rather than the scapegoats the next time problems loom on the horizon.”

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

Manufacturing industry has highest resilience

Other key findings from the survey are the manufacturing industry has the highest resilience (47%), according to respondents, while retail (29%) and aviation (27%) has the lowest. It is also notable that 42% of respondents from the consumer products sector regard the orchestration of their supply chain as “mature” – the highest percentage of any industry.

In addition, 25% of respondents plan to switch to new technologies in the coming year to improve resilience. 33% want supply chain orchestration platforms that offer AI and/or GenAI capabilities. And 63% see their supply chain as a form of competitive advantage in the next 12 months, although this percentage drops to 48% when asked about the next three years.

Lastly, 37% of respondents indicate not finding the right vendor solution as the biggest barrier to implementing a supply chain orchestration application.