A team from Blue Yonder attended the recent Gartner® Supply Chain Symposium/Xpo 2025™ in Barcelona, Spain. The event theme—“Disruption Ready. Future-Focused. Value-Driven.”—encouraged 2,000 executive attendees to imagine a future where disruption and risk are minimized, thanks to advanced technology, connectivity and process innovation.
We were delighted to see two of our customers, PepsiCo and Knauf, take center stage to discuss their successful application of technology to improve their supply chain results.
If you missed the event, read on to learn about three key themes that emerged for the Blue Yonder team during the Symposium.
Amid geopolitical shocks, supply chains must be elastic
From shifting tariffs to political instability, there’s no doubt that global supply chains are under extreme pressure. In the last several years, the Geopolitical Risk with Trade (GPRT) index from has surged by approximately 30%, reflecting significantly increased volatility in global commerce. In the last three months, there have been eight import tariff announcements from the U.S. government, some revoked and some still standing. And another seven new tariffs are being investigated.
In attending presentations and having discussions with supply chain executives, we heard a clear call to action: Companies need to build supply chain resilience through geographic and partner diversity, while also creating real-time connectivity and collaboration across the network. An elastic supply chain network can flex as conditions shift, pivoting at the speed of change.
How can companies build a diverse, flexible network that’s connected in real time, so all partners can sense and respond to changes together? Advanced technology plays a critical role in enabling organizations to model, optimize and rebalance their supply network footprints—not just to survive disruption, but to thrive in the face of volatility.
Whether it’s scenario planning for new tariffs or re-routing production in real time, an advanced supply chain planning and execution platform empowers smarter decisions—at the network level—that protect both service levels and margins. Today’s trade-offs are ever-changing and fast-moving. Supply chains must be as well. And herein lies a huge opportunity and advantage over the competition, if you have control of that flexibility through advanced supply chain planning tools.
Blue Yonder customer PepsiCo is a great example of a company that’s created elasticity and flexibility by integrating its internal operations with trading partners. In a mainstage session at the Symposium—“PepsiCo’s Control Tower Strategy—Innovating E2E Process Flows” —Raphael Cyjon, Vice President of Strategy and Transformation, Transportation & Fleet, discussed the success PepsiCo has achieved with Blue Yonder Supply Chain Command Center.
PepsiCo’s control tower initiative, launched in 2018, has driven real-time visibility and optimal decision-making by connecting 15 countries in Latin America, managing 1 million trips and achieving $20 million in savings. The session in Barcelona emphasized the importance of collaboration, digitalization and continuous improvement in creating supply chain elasticity.
