In professional automobile racing, races are often won in seconds and off the track. Pit crews train relentlessly for every possible scenario so that, when the moment comes, there is no hesitation. The decision has already been prepared. Supply chains now operate under the same pressure. Regulatory changes, geopolitical shocks, demand spikes and supply disruptions unfold in hours. Yet many organizations still rely on planning cycles designed for a slower world.
When vessels are actively being fired upon in the Red Sea, canal corridors suddenly close, and unexpected tariffs materialize overnight, traditional, process-centric planning simply falls apart. Sales and operations planning was a revolutionary concept two decades ago, introducing much-needed structure, alignment and discipline to supply chain management. However, it was built entirely upon an assumption that is fundamentally flawed in the modern era: the idea that critical operational and strategic decisions can wait until the next scheduled monthly planning meeting. Today, that is not possible. Placing today’s compounding crises into historical context proves that volatility is no longer cyclical; it is deeply structural.
When a disruption strikes between these calendar milestones, organizational alignment slows to a crawl, emergency communications multiply, and supply chain leaders are forced into reactive firefighting. Instead of actively steering the business, managers find themselves stuck in a cycle of constant re-planning, burning out as they desperately try to reconcile numbers to fit ever-changing reality. In this environment, relying solely on historical data to predict future outcomes is a losing proposition.
The result is a widening speed gap between the pace of the market and the pace of the enterprise. While the market moves in hours or even minutes, organizational decisions wait for the next S&OP meeting, eroding margins and jeopardizing customer trust in the interim. The ultimate competitive advantage is now extreme agility. Organizations that move first do not wait for volatility to stabilize. Instead, they redesign how their decisions are made.
Closing the Gap: Decision-Centric Planning
Closing the speed gap and increasing decision velocity requires adopting a model of decision-centricity. This approach completely flips the traditional planning paradigm. Rather than allowing rigid, predetermined processes to dictate how the supply chain operates, decision-centric planning starts by identifying the exact operational decisions that matter most, and then builds the entire planning model around them. This creates an “always-on,” event-driven workflow.
Instead of waiting for a monthly meeting to assess outside-in signals like point-of-sale data, macro indicators, or upstream supply disruptions, the system continuously monitors the environment. When a disruption is detected, signals flow through an integrated model rather than a slow, sequential corporate ladder. Routine choices can be automated or accelerated, ensuring that leadership only intervenes when nuanced human judgment is required.
This continuous intelligence enables what elite supply chains prize above all else: anticipation over reaction. By building scenario readiness powered by artificial intelligence, supply chain managers can identify and test their most impactful levers before a geopolitical crisis reaches its peak.
Through live data streams and causal models, AI simulates critical events in advance, generating event signatures and estimating financial impacts. When a supply route is threatened, leaders do not have to scramble to gather data. The system has already simulated the scenarios. Managers can immediately weigh predefined choices, asking whether they should reroute cargo around the Cape of Good Hope at a one-million-dollar premium, or if they should wait out a temporary delay. They can instantly evaluate the downstream effects of switching to a secondary supplier for raw materials versus rationing current inventory. Planners are presented with pre-tested response options, allowing critical choices to be executed in minutes, not weeks.
This is the essence of decision intelligence in the modern supply chain. Speed only drives competitive advantage when it is aligned with strategy; otherwise, speed merely creates chaos. High-quality decisions require absolute clarity on strategic priorities and explicit trade-off logic across cost, service, sustainability, and resilience. By utilizing decision-centric planning, events trigger automated workflows based on predefined thresholds. The AI quantifies the trade-offs and surfaces the operational implications before any human debate even begins. This ensures that margin protection and service reliability remain systematic and consistent, no matter how much geopolitical pressure the supply chain is under.
According to Gartner, organizations with dynamic decision processes are 4.9 times more likely to positively impact revenue during uncertainty.
To be clear, decision-centric planning does not eliminate the need for sales and operations planning. Rather, it dramatically strengthens it. Strategic alignment and long-term direction remain vital, but the new framework takes that strategic intent and embeds it directly into continuous, daily execution. High-performing supply chains operate on the realization that the outcome of a crisis is largely decided long before the moment arrives. By stopping the cycle of reacting from scratch, and transitioning to a model of controlled anticipation at scale, supply chain leaders can protect their margins, preserve their service levels, and turn geopolitical uncertainty into a distinct operational advantage.
Philip Vervloesem is chief commercial and markets officer at OMP.