Chief supply chain officers (CSCOs) are under intense pressure to leverage AI to deliver value, manage costs and demonstrate that supply chain can support growth amid economic uncertainty.
To help CSCOs plan for the year ahead, Gartner identified three strategic supply chain priorities, taking into consideration CEO priorities, along with emerging risks.
CSCO challenge
Organizations are making significant AI investments as more CEOs come to believe in AI’s potential to define the competitive landscape. The 2025 Gartner CEO and Senior Business Executive Survey found 79% of CEOs believe AI will have the most significant impact on their industry in the next three years.
But supply chain faces technical, talent and data obstacles that stand in the way of AI deployment and ROI.
CSCO action
Architect an AI-driven supply chain with a two-pronged approach that delivers AI-driven value today while simultaneously developing the plans for an AI-native supply chain in the future. To do this, CSCOs need to address the challenges limiting their AI potential.
CSCO challenge
Cost-efficiency is a CEO’s top lever to protect enterprise performance. CSCOs are under pressure to deliver large-scale cost reductions, but only about half of them feel the cost targets set for supply chain are achievable.
Since CSCOs feel skeptical about their cost management abilities now, they will need to take a different approach than in the past to meet 2026 cost goals. Cutting costs just within the supply chain won’t be sufficient anymore. CSCOs will need to expand their cost management reach outside of the supply chain’s walls.
CSCO action
Engineer profit by managing costs through the business, not simply cutting costs within the supply chain. This will include articulating shifting cost structures, helping the business understand the cost opportunity, enabling ownership of cost trade-off decisions and imposing systemic changes to restructure costs for the enterprise.
CSCO challenge
Growth remains the top strategic business priority for CEOs in 2026, with a specific focus on improving sales revenue and market share to fuel growth ambitions. For as much as CSCOs strive to support growth, the C-suite still sees supply chain as a cost center with limited agility — not a revenue generator capable of responding effectively to volatility.
CSCO action
Grow market share through frictionless supply chain performance. Leading CSCOs will need to dissolve boundaries to unlock cross-enterprise and cross-ecosystem performance.
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