Are you asking the wrong questions about your Supply Chain?

“If it feels like a dilemma, you may be asking the wrong question.”

Supply chain leaders are told they must choose: protect margin or protect the customer. It sounds like a dilemma.

But as Eliyahu Goldratt showed in The Goal (1984) and his Theory of Constraints work, most dilemmas rest on wrong assumptions. Once you surface those assumptions, the conflict disappears.

The facts are clear:

●      Volatility in Supply Chains is no longer a shock. It’s the baseline (Kearney, 2025).

●      Supply Chain costs are projected to rise 7% above inflation (SupplyChainBrain, 2025).

We are obsessed with efficiencies — batches are bigger and lead times longer than ever — to create short-term operational savings. The negative effects are slow turns and long-term fragility. To mitigate that, we double down on forecasting…

But as Kearney proved in their Sales are Accidents report (2015): A better forecast isn’t the way out.

Here’s the mistake: while it is true that there is only one supply chain — the one ending with your consumer, not all products flowing through it require the same treatment.

Items whose shelf-lives are much longer than their order-to-delivery cycle can thrive on volatility, flowing to consumers faster and more profitably. Those are the products that make a business antifragile. And you may have more of those than you think.

The real answer isn’t to forecast better. It’s to design for speed and flow:

●      Shorter lead times.

●      Smaller, more frequent orders.

●      Simple rules, clear metrics.

●      Buffers where they add value.

Because inventory is only an asset when it moves in the right direction. When it stands still, it’s a liability. Which means the best supply chain… is no supply chain.

👉 Volatility doesn’t force a choice between margin and customer. It exposes wrong assumptions. And in a world that changes this fast, the advantage doesn’t come from more knowledge, or better predictive software — but from asking the right questions about your supply chain.

Contact us today to talk about how we help you maximize efficiencies, inventory, and ultimately profit.