Goals, Tariffs, and Technology: Three Supply Chain Pressures in 2026
Article translated into Spanish directly from the article on the Monte e Freitas website by Sara Monte e Freitas
For supply chain managers, “business as usual” means one thing: an ever-increasing unpredictability.
The first month of the year was enough for a new round of Trump tariffs to come into effect, in a context of continuous geopolitical instability throughout the world.
What was previously described as “unprecedented” has become commonplace.
Month after month, year after year, uncertainty is part of the job.
Although this uncertainty makes it difficult to make concrete predictions, what are some of the general trends that are likely to mark the sector during the coming year?
And how can supply chain managers prepare?
1. Objectives:
Supply chain objectives are expected to be more demanding this year.
Finance teams demand cost reductions, operations needs faster lead times, and sales requires guaranteed stock availability, often all at the same time.
This means that supply chain managers are being asked to do more with less, while also dealing with carrier on-time rates that reached historic lows in 2025.
Competition is extremely high and it is increasingly common for companies to lose customers and contracts due to late or unreliable deliveries.
In particular, growing volatility has increased the pressure on supply chain managers to diversify their supplier network and thus reduce dependence on a single supplier and the associated risk.
Therefore, supply chain managers need a solid understanding of transportation options, trade routes, and market trends to determine how to achieve these goals.
However, achieving tangible improvements depends on having supply chain data that is independent, unified, standardised, and accurate.
This allows for identifying where money is being lost and where risks exist, such as which containers have a recurring risk of generating demurrage costs, and what business decisions can be made to improve margins and service levels.
2. Tariffs:
Tariffs have already been one of the big talking points this year.
And whether by Trump's initiative (most likely) or that of other countries, they will be atopic we will see even more of during the next year.
McKinsey’s annual survey of global supply chain leaders, conducted in December 2025,revealed that the main concern was “the possible impact of tariffs on many of the world’s most important trade flows,” and 82% stated that their supply chains are affected by new tariffs.
Tariffs do not only affect trade originating in or destined for the United States;
other countries and regions are also reaching their own agreements to manage these changes.
And even when agreements are closed, tariffs can be suddenly modified again when a goal is reached or a new dispute arises.
In this constantly changing environment, staying one step ahead can feel like an uphill battle.
However, greater control and visibility over aggregated supply chain data, including carrier performance linked to transport contracts, can alleviate this pressure by facilitating more informed decisions and providing supply chain managers with confidence in their operations: you know exactly what has happened.
That confidence allows managers to make faster decisions and with greater clarity regarding tariffs.
It also generates the conviction that they can adapt to situations and find solutions to sudden changes.
Conversely, if information such as the exact location of shipments at all times or the various costs of suppliers compared to their performance history cannot be accessed, maintaining that confidence becomes complicated.
Decisions are made blindly, and that is when tariffs can become an even bigger problem.
3. Technology:
Supply chain managers face a paradox: there is a huge supply of technology platforms on the market, but choosing the wrong solution can set operations back for years.
With longimplementation times, high costs, and complex integration, technology decisionshave never carried so much weight.
The questionis no longer whether to adopt new technology, but how to identify solutionsthat provide measurable value without requiring years of implementation ordisrupting existing operations.
Thepotential paralysis in decision-making stemming from so many options couldexplain why technology investments are slowing down (another finding from theMcKinsey survey).
For supplychain managers, who are already managing overworked teams and ongoingimplementation projects, the risk is not just choosing the wrong platform, butalso the opportunity cost in time and resources.
A 12-monthimplementation that pulls key personnel away from daily operations can be moredamaging than the manual processes it aims to replace.
The questionbecomes: what technology can be integrated without causing operationaldisruption?
Most supplychains were not built to harness the potential of AI.
Data isisolated in silos, it is not standardised, technologies are not connected,information is not updated correctly, and the infrastructure is simply notprepared to take advantage of today's possibilities.
Agentic AIand advanced automation promise to bring great value, but if companies do not have adequate supply chain technology that effectively unifies data and provides real-time analysis, advances such as AI agents will not be able to deliver results.
These technologies must be integrated into a system that already functions with high efficiency.
4. Relieving the Pressure:
Uncertainty and disruption are an inherent part of supply chains.
Over the coming year, the pressure to meet goals, manage changing tariffs, and invest in technology that adds value and not more disruption, will be one of the industry's top trends.
What differentiates the leaders who manage these pressures successfully from those who struggle is not necessarily the size of the budget or the capability of the team.
It is the speed in decision-making, supported by unified and real-time data.
Can youanswer critical questions in minutes instead of days?
When tariffschange, can you immediately assess the impact on inventory in transit?
When goalstighten, can you identify which suppliers or carriers are underperforming?
And whenevaluating new technology, can you distinguish between platforms that integratequickly and those that require multi-year implementations?
This doesnot require replacing existing systems or embarking on transformation projectsthat consume years.
Rather, itrequires connecting the data that already exists, but which currently remainsscattered among carrier portals, freight forwarder spreadsheets, and emailchains.
Thepressures are not going to go away, but the clarity needed to face them isattainable.
