Is there a mismatch between supply chain leaders’ confidence in new technology and their ability to implement it?
New technologies dominate strategic priorities and enthusiasm among supply chain leaders, but there are cracks in confidence and capabilities finds report
Implementing new technologies is the top strategic priority among the 671 supply chain leaders interviewed by Blue Yonder for their 2025 Supply Chain Compass, and it is a goal they are highly confident in achieving, however, digging into the report reveals legacy technologies and data structures might hold them back in these ambitions.
High confidence in new tech
Among the supply chain leaders interviewed, 51% said that implementing new technology was a strategic priority, making it the top goal among leadership, coming noticeably ahead of the second and third highest priorities of improving efficiency & productivity (40%), and becoming more resilient to risks and challenges (29%).
In order to achieve these priorities, leaders were most likely to say that improving demand planning and rapidly analysing performance data are their best approaches, both chosen by 46% of respondents, followed by digital software transformation and innovation at 41%.
With tech so dominant in leaders’ outlooks, it is unsurprising that they reported high confidence in implementing new technologies over the next three years, as well as improving the speed of and quality of decision making and improving efficiency and productivity.
Indeed, 74% think that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is already changing the way their business operates.
Confidence misplaced?
However, dig a little deeper and some potential flaws arise within this vision.
The survey found that 82% of leaders think that outdated technology will hinder their supply chain’s potential and they reported comparatively low confidence in being able to remove data siloes and achieve end-to-end connectivity within their supply chains over the next three years, with their capacity to do so the area respondents reported the least confidence in.
Looking at AI, despite that 74% reporting that AI is already making a difference, just 12% report currently using generative AI and 47% machine learning.
Similar results regarding AI were found in a recent Reuters Events, Supply Chain free-to-download report. It found that among European supply chain professionals there was substantial 19% year-on-year in reported usage of AI, but the share that think it is making their organisations more resilient actually fell between the 2024 and 2025 surveys, declining from 32% of the sample to 28%, indicating initial issues in implementing AI.
Additionally, an NTT survey found that manufacturers are extremely confident in generative AI, especially for supply chain management, but 92% report legacy technology is limiting expansion.
Instead, Blue Yonder found that the most highly deployed technologies are real time tracking, data cloud analytics, and data cloud supply chain management, which will be key in addressing data siloes and connectivity.