What’s Your Supply Chain Acronym for 2026?
SIPOC will remain the king acronym in supply chain. It serves as an organizing framework to design material flows and to explain basic supply chain concepts to the uninitiated. While it papers over a lot of detail, process, and difficulty of course, it remains a powerful concept for its simplicity, accuracy, and functionality.
–Joe Adamski
Senior Director
ProcureAbility
PANIC. Policy changes. AI opportunities. Network disruptions. Inventory issues. Constrained networks and operations.
–Stephen Dombroski
Director, Consumer Markets
QAD
BRO! Be Relentless Opportunists. With 2026 shaping up to be another demanding year for the industry, the companies that stand out will be those that remain relentlessly customer-focused, anticipating needs, strengthening partnerships, and keeping freight moving.
–Mark Lewis
Sr. Director, Brokerage Operations
TA Services
FRESH. Forecasting, Replenishment, Efficiency, Sustainability, and Halting (waste). FRESH emphasizes accurate forecasting and replenishment, operational efficiency, sustainable practices, and creating value.
–Amanda Oren
VP, Industry Strategy, Grocery, North America
RELEX
SAFE. Secure, Automated, Fast, Efficient. We’re making big improvements to our security measures with our new automated fraud detection program. We’re also implementing more AI and automation in our logistics for more streamlined supply chain operations.
–Mike Trudeau
EVP, Business Development
Montway Auto Transport
MOVE UP captures our supply chain focus: Modernize with cloud-native, AI-enabled microservices. Orchestrate warehouse processes end-to-end. Visualize inventory and orders in real time. Evolve through data-driven automation. Unify processes across partners. Perform with speed, resilience, and operational excellence.
–Luca Cortinovis
Associate Partner
Logistics Reply US
Capitalizing on Artificial Intelligence
Let’s get ALIGN’d in 2026! This is the year for global supply chains to focus on moving toward an AI-Led Integrated Global Network for supply chain orchestration.
–Doug DeLuca
Product Marketing Manager
SAP Business Network
SCAIL. Supply Chain AI Leverage. 2026 is the year SMBs fully leverage practical, predictive AI. From forecasting to supplier planning, AI will help teams make faster, more confident decisions with clearer financial impact.
–Ara Ohanian
CEO
Netstock
VAPOR. Verified AI Produces Operational Results. AI evolves daily, and new capabilities promise faster implementations, true analytics, and real-time visibility. But not all innovation is production-ready. VAPOR is our 2026 focus: deploying only verified AI that produces genuine operational results today, not theoretical benefits tomorrow.
–Brian Carlson
Founding Partner
Cornerstone Edge
STEER. Secured capacity through strong carrier partnerships; Tech‑enabled visibility from unified data; Efficiency across operations; Elevated decision‑making with AI and analytics; and Resilience via multimodal options. These are all practical levers that shippers and their partners can use to create breathing room as markets tighten.
–Bill Heaney
Chief Commercial Officer
Odyssey Logistics
REACH. Stay Resourceful, Efficient, Agile, Collaborative, and Honorable as we strengthen our digital capabilities and global teamwork.
–Catherine Chien
Chairwoman
Dimerco Express Group
FOCUS. Forecast, Orchestrate, Collaborate, Unify, Simplify. Complexity is everywhere. Clarity wins. We forecast with precision, orchestrate partners around shared data, collaborate across silos, unify systems that once operated alone, and simplify wherever possible.
–Matt Huckeba
Chief Strategy Officer
Evans Transportation
LABEL. Lean, Automated, Barcode-Enabled Logistics. This year is about cutting downtime, boosting accuracy, and strengthening workflows with smarter labeling, mobile data capture, and print automation.
–Ken Feinstein
VP
MIDCOM Data Technologies
DiSCO. Digital Supply Chain Officer. Not as a title, but as a way of running operations. It captures the shift from supply chains that just show information to systems that can actually make decisions and act.
–Nishith Rastogi
Founder and CEO
Locus
FAST. Flexible. Actionable. Scalable. Tailored. Custom-built supply chain tech tools should adapt to complexity, give operators clarity, and scale with our clients’ needs, not someone else’s template.
–George Maksimenko
Chief Executive Officer
Adexin
FLOW will define delivery excellence—Fast, Lean, Optimized Workflows. When couriers, dispatchers, and customers move through one unified platform, every handoff becomes smoother and every route more efficient.
–Arthur Axelrad
Co-Founder & CEO
Dispatch Science
APEX. Agile/Adaptive Planning and Execution. This is an integrated business planning model that helps planning teams leverage agentic AI to better connect data from across an organization’s value chain, detect risks and opportunities, notify cross-functional teams, and provide actionable, data-driven insights.
–Igor Rikalo
President & COO
o9 Solutions, Inc.
REACT. Resilience (redundancy), ESG (sustainability), Autonomy (AI decisions), Connectivity (visibility), Talent (upskilling). This strategy demands balancing higher risk-mitigation costs with the speed and agility enabled by autonomous tech.
–Brad Barry
Director, Supply Chain Strategy
St. Onge Company
TRACE. Tariff-Ready Automated Compliance Engine. We are in a time defined by shifting import rules and rising compliance risk. TRACE is our focus, staying ahead of regulatory change, automating documentation, and ensuring every shipment is transparent, accurate, and audit-ready.
–Shannon Hynds
CEO
Quickcode.ai
PROVE IT. Practical Roadmaps, Operational Value, Enablement, Integration, Transparency. Shippers should demand more than vision from logistics tech vendors. PROVE IT reflects what matters most: clear roadmaps, measurable outcomes, real adoption, seamless integration, and transparency that holds vendors accountable.
–Rachelle Yeingst
Director, Strategy
JBF Consulting
ROSI. Return On Sensor Investment. We see a lot of over-designed solutions in the market. What really matters is: “Did the medicine exceed its temperature over time threshold?” Nothing else matters.
–Tony Fonk
President & CEO
SpotSee
WeSDIR. We Still Do It Right. Wise and long-sighted freight buyers appreciate us most.
–Danny Schnautz
President
Clark Freight Lines
CLEAR. Connected Logistics, Efficient, Adaptable, Resilient. 2026 demands connected systems, not disjointed workarounds. CLEAR represents our focus on technology that improves visibility, supports fast pivots, and stands strong when the curveballs hit.
–Ed Rusch
Chief Marketing Officer
MAGAYA
LAYER. Layered visibility, Analytics, Yield protection, Escalation, and Resilience: five capabilities that work together to secure freight in an era where cargo thieves operate with enterprise-level precision.
–Jose Suarez
LATAM Sales Director
Tive
DRIVE. Data Releases Immense Value Electronically. Dubai’s driverless trucks are giving us a glimpse of what’s next: AI agents that don’t just drive, but handle routing, customs paperwork, and predictive scheduling—if the data is trustworthy.
–Jon Knisley
AI Process Leader
ABBYY
BEYOND. Build: Constructing robust, scalable solutions for complex retail ecosystems. Empower: Giving Brands the tools to advance their business. Yield: Maximizing financial and operational performance. Optimize: Streamlining processes and efficiency. Network: Interconnecting global supply chain partners. Drive: Adapting to rapidly changing market conditions.
–Nicole Brackett
Enterprise Account Executive
TradeBeyond
AUTOMATE. Agile Utilization of Technology to Optimize Materials and Throughput Efficiency. A concise 2026 focus is the deployment of smart automation, maximizing warehouse throughput, and drive reliability across every storage and retrieval workflows.
–Danilo Potocnik
Head of Sales
Stoecklin Logistics
TRACK. Transparency, Resilience, Agility, Care, and Knowledge. Together these qualities create supply chains that not only adapt to disruption, but also strengthen trust with customers by combining data-driven insights with a genuine commitment to service.
–Travis West
VP – Strategic Client Engagement
Evans Transportation
SAFE. Spatial Awareness For Everyone. As spatial intelligence becomes more accessible, it will enhance safety and coordination in warehouses. Drivers will gain real-time understanding of their surroundings to avoid incidents, while site operators will see live movement of people and vehicles, helping them make better decisions and manage operations more effectively.
–Owen Nicholson
CEO
Slamcore
SIMPLE. S-Synergy. Customers want an all-in-one solution. I-Insight. Using data to provide deep context. M-Momentum. We deliver by adapting fast. P-Partnership. Trust through transparency. L-Learning. Remaining curious, creative and ambitious to find the best solutions for our partners. E-Execution. All of the above is just words if you can’t get the job done with consistency and discipline.
–Phil Wenzell
Chief Network Officer
Evans Transportation
VISIBLE. Visible. Integrated. Smart. Iterative. Blockchain-enabled Logistics Ecosystem. From API-first systems to AI-infused insights, visibility becomes the baseline for intelligence, speed, and resilience.
–Nagendra Rao
President – Sales
Trigent Software