What Global Tariff Uncertainty Means for Supply Chain Leaders - with Edmund Zagorin of Arkestro and Michael Shin of Trinity Rail Industries (46 min)
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- Release date: 2026-03-27
- Listen on Spotify: Open episode
- Episode description:
Supply chains are being pushed to move faster while geopolitical volatility makes traditional planning cycles increasingly fragile for global enterprises. In this episode, Edmund Zagorin, Founding Chief Strategy Officer at Arkestro, and Mike Shin, Chief Supply Chain Officer at Trinity Rail Industries, join Daniel Faggella, Emerj CEO and Head of Research, to examine how proactive, data‑driven procurement models help organizations balance cost, capacity, and continuity under these conditions. They highlight how offer‑driven sourcing, automated contract intelligence, and supplier‑alternative discovery shorten decision cycles, surface hidden risks, and strengthen collaboration across procurement and supply chain teams. This episode is sponsored by Arkestro. Learn how brands work with Emerj and other Emerj Media options at go.emerj.com/partner. Want to share your AI adoption story with executive peers? Click go.emerj.com/expert for more information and to be a potential future guest on the 'AI in Business' podcast!
Summary
- 🚀 Need for Speed Amid Volatility: Supply chains face unrelenting pressure for faster, agile operations due to geopolitical risks and uncertainty, requiring predictive models over path-dependent planning.
- 🔮 Predictive Procurement Shift: AI empowers buyers to proactively offer terms to suppliers using data on markets and alternatives, slashing time from quoting to agreements while balancing cost, capacity, and compliance.
- 🤖 Autonomous Frictionless Sourcing: GenAI automates RFPs, bidding analysis, negotiations, and total cost evaluations, freeing teams for strategic work and enabling always-on global procurement.
- 🛡️ Risk Exposure & Resiliency: AI scans contracts for risks, uncovers incumbent supplier alternatives, and flags geographic single-sourcing vulnerabilities, enhancing continuity without supplier expansion.
- 👥 Collaboration Supercharged: AI fosters unified communication across internal teams and suppliers, creating visibility, common language, and parallel processes for faster problem-solving and stakeholder inclusion.
Insights
- How is predictive procurement revolutionizing traditional supplier quoting by empowering buyers to make proactive offers?
- Time: 8:33 – 12:09
- Answer: Predictive procurement uses AI to analyze internal demand, market data, and supply base dynamics to craft fully composed offers specifying price, service levels, and terms, dramatically reducing sourcing cycle times from reactive quoting. This shift leverages buyer data advantages for better pricing power and agility amid volatility. It balances cost, capacity, and compliance faster than manual multi-quote evaluations.
- What if AI could enable always-on autonomous strategic sourcing, eliminating procurement friction overnight?
- Time: 13:07 – 16:12
- Answer: AI automates gathering spend data, specs, RFPs, bidding, and total cost of ownership analysis, ranking suppliers and even negotiating via chat agents while humans sleep. This frees procurement pros from manual legwork to focus on strategic value creation. It transforms sourcing into a proactive, value-driven process prioritizing total landed cost over cheap price.
- Why settle for weeks-long contract reviews when AI can instantly scan thousands for risks and terms?
- How can AI reconcile supplier consolidation with diversification to boost resiliency without expanding the supply base?
- Can AI capture tribal knowledge through digital twinning to scale procurement expertise and redefine work hours?
- How low is the barrier to AI-driven procurement transformation—live in just 5 days?