Every year, Blue Yonder surveys hundreds of senior supply chain professionals to take the industry’s temperature. The 2026 Supply Chain Compass drew on 678 interviews across retail, manufacturing, and logistics, all from organizations with annual revenue over $500 million. This year’s results are some of the most revealing we’ve seen, and here’s what we think supply chain leaders should pay closest attention to.
1. Confidence is falling, but not evenly
Overall optimism among supply chain leaders has dipped since last year, with 34% now saying their supply chain isn’t ready for the future, up from 27% in 2025. There was also a 7-point drop in confidence around disruption preparedness in the same period. But these numbers only tell part of the story.
The finding we kept coming back to is the polarization underneath. Forty-six percent of respondents rated their optimism at +4 or +5 on a five-point scale, a group the researchers call “The Optimists.” The remaining 54% were notably more tentative, including 10% who were actively pessimistic. The gap between them runs deeper than sentiment.
