In transport and logistics, the rules of the road have been taken for granted for centuries, absent wars and revolutions. International law began with the publication of Mare Liberum (The Free Seas) in 1609 by Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius, who advanced the radical proposition that the ocean should be free to all nations for trade. But things happen, whether through geopolitics, pandemics or sheer accident, and trade comes to a halt, most recently with the Iran war that began on February 28 and continues to block transit through the Strait of Hormuz.
Supply chain disruptions are the new normal, argues logistics industry veteran Greg Meisenheimer. His comments are based on his own experience as well as a recent white paper by Yusen Logistics introducing its Supply Chain Disruption Radar (SCDR). According to the white paper, supply chain disruption costs global business US$184 billion annuallySpecific case examples are anonymized to protect client relationships.
Early warning is only the beginning
After more than four decades in logistics, I have learned that disruption rarely arrives without warning. What companies often lack is not information, but the confidence, authority and operational reach to act while choices remain.
Early warning is only the beginning. Resilience depends on connecting emerging risks with business exposure and taking proportionate action before affordable options disappear.
The same scene unfolds in different countries, industries, and economic cycles. News alerts begin to circulate. Carriers issue cautious updates. Procurement, logistics, and commercial teams each assess the situation from their own viewpoint. Everyone can see that something may be changing, but no one can yet say exactly which orders, customers, suppliers, or trade lanes will be affected. Because the evidence is incomplete, the organization waits.
That hesitation is understandable. Companies are being asked to make costly decisions in an economy where trade policy, geopolitical tension, capacity constraints, customer demand and reliable transportation can shift quickly. Managers are trying to protect service without overreacting, protect margins without appearing passive, and give customers certainty when certainty is precisely what the market cannot provide. I have genuine empathy for that position. The people making these calls are rarely careless. More often, they are trying to balance competing responsibilities with imperfect information.
Yet I have also seen what happens when a business waits for complete certainty. By the time disruption reaches it, alternative logistics and supplier capacity may have tightened, contingency costs have risen and customer commitments are at risk. The company had the information beforehand, but workable options have already narrowed.
In my experience, supply chain resilience is not primarily a strategic challenge. It is a readiness challenge. Can an organization connect an early warning to its actual business exposure, agree what would justify action and mobilize while meaningful choices remain?
Organizations now have more information about potential disruption than at any point in my career, yet many still struggle to determine what matters and when action should be taken. In a global survey of 1,800 supply chain decision-makers, only 17% said their organizations could respond within 24 hours; the average response time was five days. The issue is often not awareness. It is the distance between warning and action.
Three recurring gaps
Companies have invested heavily in dashboards, alerts, news feeds, and shipment tracking. Those tools matter, but visibility alone does not create control. A global supply chain risk survey found that fewer than 8% of businesses believed they had full control over supply chain risks. In practice, I see three recurring gaps.
The relevance gap: An alert signals a port closure, strike, tariff change, or geopolitical threat, but the team cannot quickly identify the orders, suppliers, routes, inventory, or customer commitments exposed.
The decision gap: The exposure becomes visible, but priorities, escalation thresholds, and decision ownership remain unclear. Teams prepare analysis while the organization waits for someone to authorize a choice.
The execution gap: A response is finally agreed, but suppliers, carriers, origin operations, customs specialists, and customer communication teams cannot be mobilized quickly enough to make it work.
Why thoughtful companies still wait
In my experience, organizations usually wait for rational reasons. Information is incomplete. Precautionary action creates an immediate and visible cost. A contingency may disrupt a plan that is still working. Managers also know that some warnings will pass without becoming a serious event. The fear of overreacting can be as real as the fear of being too late.
The answer is not to reroute every shipment at the first alert. It is to prepare decisions before conditions deteriorate. Teams need to know what would justify closer monitoring, what evidence would trigger preparation, and what threshold would require intervention. This allows the response to remain measured rather than reactive.
A client chooses to prepare before certainty arrives
Imagine that I am sitting with the regional team of a consumer products company sourcing from Asia. Trade policy discussions are intensifying around several of its highest-volume categories. The final rules are not yet known, and the client is under pressure to avoid unnecessary cost. Around the table, the procurement team worries about changing suppliers too quickly, logistics are concerned about limited peak-season capacity, and the commercial team is focused on customer promotions that cannot easily change their timing.
Rather than asking the client to predict the outcome, we begin with exposure. Which purchase orders would be affected under different scenarios? Which customer commitments are most time-sensitive? Where is inventory available, and where is the business relying on a narrow supplier or gateway? As the picture becomes clearer, the conversation changes. The issue is no longer an abstract policy debate. It is a manageable set of decisions tied to specific products and commitments.
The client agrees on a graduated plan. The procurement team validates alternative suppliers without immediately shifting production. Logistics protect a limited amount of additional capacity rather than moving every shipment. Commercial teams identify orders that would justify acceleration if agreed thresholds are crossed. Origin teams, which manage where goods leave a factory, supplier location or export port, review production schedules, documentation and booking cut-offs so they can act quickly if instructed.
When a new measure is announced in this hypothetical scenario, the company is not perfectly insulated. It still absorbs some short-term cost and makes difficult trade-offs. But it can expedite selected shipments, adjust production and place inventory closer to demand before the market becomes crowded. More importantly, the team can explain its choices to customers with clarity. The company does not eliminate disruption. It prevents uncertainty from becoming paralysis.
A client waits, hoping the warning will pass
Now imagine a different client facing the same warning signals. I can understand the hesitation immediately. The finance team is protecting a tight budget. Management has seen previous alerts fade without material impact. The procurement team does not want to unsettle established suppliers, and logistics cannot justify premium capacity without a confirmed event. Each concern is reasonable when viewed on its own.
The organization continues under its existing plan. It does not validate alternative sourcing, reserve a different routing option, or agree on customer priorities. The team keeps monitoring, but it has not defined the point at which monitoring must become preparation.
When conditions worsen in this hypothetical case, the client is forced to compete for the same scarce capacity as many other late responders. Freight costs rise, delivery commitments slip, and commercial teams must have difficult conversations with customers. Operations eventually stabilize, but only after the business accepts options that are more expensive and less effective than those available earlier.
It’s not just that someone made a foolish decision. It is how an understandable desire to avoid unnecessary cost can gradually remove the company’s ability to choose. The failure is usually not a lack of effort or intelligence. It is the absence of a shared decision framework before the pressure rises.
The difference is not access to information. Both companies see the warning signs. The difference is whether the organization can translate emerging risk into timely, proportionate decisions while alternatives still exist.
Turning visibility into readiness
Effective organizations combine risk intelligence, operational data, and scenario analysis to shorten the distance between signal and decision. Advanced analytics can help identify which events deserve attention, connect disruption to business exposure and compare response options. The objective is not to predict every event or replace human judgment. It is to give decision-makers a clearer picture and more time to choose.
The most productive conversations begin when a warning is translated into plain operational questions. What is exposed? What is the customer consequence? Which options are still feasible? What would each option cost? Who has authority to act? When those answers are visible together, technology becomes a decision aid rather than another source of alerts.
Digital intelligence sharpens situational awareness. Human judgment turns insight into action.
Human expertise closes the distance from decision to action
A proposed alternative route may look viable on a screen, but local teams know whether capacity is unavailable, a supplier cannot meet the revised cut-off, or the change could create complications with customs authorities. I have seen apparently elegant contingency plans fail because they were not tested against conditions at origin.
This is why resilience remains deeply human. Teams must weigh service, cost and customer impact. They must engage suppliers and carriers, challenge assumptions and adjust the response as conditions evolve. Technology improves the speed and focus of intelligence. Experienced people determine what is workable and coordinate the many relationships required to make it happen.
Effective organizations make proportionate action possible
Effective organizations do not intervene at the same level for every warning. They use a graduated model. They monitor when exposure is limited, prepare when risk is rising, and intervene when agreed thresholds are crossed. This creates discipline without creating panic.
Clear rules are essential. Logistics can assess transport exposure, procurement can validate supplier alternatives, commercial teams can identify customer commitments, and origin operations can test execution. Management must still decide who owns the response, which costs can be approved in advance, and how service, margin and customer impact should be balanced.
Predefined responsibilities and escalation triggers allow teams to move without waiting for senior approval at every step, while keeping major trade-offs visible. Accountability remains with managers, including the decision not to act.
Intervene while options still exist
The earlier a company intervenes, particularly at origin, the more choices it may retain. Teams may be able to adjust production or allocation, prioritize time-sensitive orders, revise booking or consolidation plans, or explore alternative gateways before cargo enters the transport network. Further downstream, the same interventions are often slower, more limited, and more expensive.
I have seen clients gain confidence simply by involving origin teams earlier. Local expertise turns a distant risk discussion into a practical assessment of factory readiness, booking windows, documentation, capacity and cut-offs. It gives management a realistic view of what can still be changed and what cannot.
Proactive resilience is therefore not only about seeing risk earlier. It is about creating the operational reach and decision authority to act at source.
From early warning to organizational readiness
The next disruption may be difficult to predict, and companies deserve empathy as they navigate an economy in which the assumptions behind yesterday’s plan can change quickly. No team can eliminate uncertainty, and no manager can protect every shipment at any cost.
What an organization can do is test its readiness now. Can teams identify exposed commitments quickly? Is decision authority clear? Are customer priorities understood? Can local operations act while meaningful alternatives remain? Have managers agreed what would trigger monitoring, preparation, or intervention?
After a lifetime in logistics, my conclusion is straightforward. Advance information matters only if it leads to earlier, proportionate action. Technology can sharpen the picture, but people must judge what is feasible, accept the trade-offs and coordinate the response. In an increasingly volatile global economy, resilience depends less on predicting every disruption and more on creating the discipline to act before the best options disappear.
Greg Meisenheimer is Senior Advisor, Supply Chain Solutions Group Control Tower & Key Account Team, at Yusen Logistics Global Management (Hong Kong) Limited. With more than four decades of experience across the port, liner, and logistics industries, including 36 years with NYK Group companies in the United States and Asia, he has witnessed the transformation of global supply chains firsthand. Meisenheimer believes that while technology can enhance visibility and decision-making, it is ultimately human judgment, collaboration, and relationships that enable organizations to respond effectively to disruption. He is a graduate of California State University Long Beach College of Business and the chair of AmCham HK’s Transportation & Logistics Committee.