With decades of experience navigating the intricate web of global logistics, Rohit Laila has seen the industry move from simple warehouse management to a high-stakes arena where geopolitical shifts and technological disruptions happen in the blink of an eye. As a veteran who has spent years bridging the gap between physical delivery and digital innovation, he brings a unique perspective on why modern organizations often feel like they are losing the battle against supply chain volatility. By framing the current struggle of risk management through the psychological lens of the five stages of grief, he offers a visceral look at the transition from manual denial to a new era of automated control. In our discussion, we explore the deep-seated reliance on static data, the exhaustion that defines modern risk teams, and how the “resolution gap” is currently the most dangerous blind spot for global enterprises.
Many organizations rely on a single onboarding questionnaire that captures a supplier’s status only at one specific point in time. In your experience, why does this create such a profound sense of “denial” for leadership teams?
This reliance on a single touchpoint creates a dangerous illusion that risk is a static box to be checked rather than a living, breathing threat. When a company completes that initial onboarding questionnaire, leaders often feel a wave of relief, as if the act of documentation itself provides a permanent shield against future disruptions. However, this is where the denial sets in because risk does not pause or wait for the next scheduled review cycle; it evolves every single day as market conditions shift. By the time a supplier walks out the door after that first interaction, the data is already beginning to decay, leaving the organization vulnerable to fraud or financial instability in third-party systems that aren’t even connected to the main profile. It is essentially an organized form of turning a blind eye, where leadership chooses to believe they are in control simply because they have a file on record, ignoring the reality that their visibility is frozen in time.
Even when the gaps in spreadsheets and manual processes become obvious, why do you think so many companies find it incredibly difficult to let go of these traditional methods?
There is a deceptive comfort in manual processes because they offer a tangible, albeit false, sense of control over the chaotic nature of global trade. Many teams mistake the completion of a manual task—like filing a report or updating a cell in a spreadsheet—for the actual presence of security and protection. This assumption that paperwork is an acceptable substitute for real resolution is a costly mistake that most risk programs aren’t even designed to measure yet. Beyond the psychological comfort, there is also the sheer exhaustion of contemplating a total restructure of operations and governance to make room for new technology. This transition requires a significant investment of time and mental energy, which often acts as a massive barrier, even when leaders know that staying manual is making their supply chains more fragile by the hour.
You’ve mentioned that “exhaustion” is often the catalyst that pushes a team toward the acceptance stage. Could you describe what that breaking point looks like for a team on the ground?
The breaking point usually arrives when the sheer volume of alerts and false positives becomes a tidal wave that the team can no longer outrun. You see risk analysts drowning in a convoluted process of reviewing outdated documents, firing off hundreds of emails to suppliers for clarification, and trying to track every single follow-up in a fractured network of spreadsheets. Eventually, the team’s bandwidth becomes a hard ceiling on what the entire risk program can achieve, as they spend 100% of their time just trying to keep their heads above water. It is a sensory overload where the constant “ping” of new alerts creates a state of paralysis, forcing leaders to realize that their time is being wasted on validating and routing information rather than actually solving the problems. This is the moment of acceptance: the realization that their current manual-by-default model is fundamentally broken and cannot scale with the business.
Most programs seem to get stuck in the “acceptance” stage for a long time. What is happening internally that prevents them from moving toward a truly effective resolution?
Organizations get stuck in the acceptance stage because they have finally acquired the right tools and data, but they lack the operational muscle to actually do something with those insights. It’s a frustrating plateau where the team feels confident because they can see the risks, yet they are simultaneously buried under a mountain of unresolved alerts. This creates what I call a “resolution gap,” where a critical risk case might sit untouched for weeks because there is no automated path to handle it and the manual workload is too heavy. The cost of this stage is a massive burden on the human team, as they are stuck in a loop of identifying problems without ever reaching the finish line of fixing them. Until a company moves toward an automated layer that can enforce policy and drive actions, they are simply overworking their best people while their actual exposure to risk remains unchanged.
If you were to introduce a “sixth stage” of this journey called “Control,” what would that look like in a real-world operational setting?
The stage of Control is where the focus shifts from just doing tasks faster to embedding intelligence and automated resolution directly into the heart of the supplier lifecycle. In this environment, the organization is no longer blindsided by sudden shifts like new tariffs or geopolitical disruptions because they have an automated layer that interprets risk signals in real-time context. Instead of an analyst manually reviewing every single minor red flag, the system handles the straightforward cases based on pre-defined policies, only escalating the truly complex issues that require human judgment. This effectively closes the detection-to-resolution gap, allowing the supply chain to grow and scale without the risk program becoming a bottleneck. It’s a shift from being reactive and overwhelmed to being proactive and strategic, where the human team is finally free to focus on high-level decision-making.
How have the recent global shocks, such as the pandemic and shifting tariffs, fundamentally changed the way companies must view their visibility into the “Nth-tier” of their supply chain?
The global disruptions of the last few years have been a massive wake-up call, proving that the old “scorecard” method of tracking only direct suppliers is completely insufficient. We have moved into an era where visibility cannot stop at the first tier because a single sub-component maker three levels down can become a catastrophic point of failure for your entire operation. You might think you have a diversified supplier base, but if all those vendors are sourcing a critical part from the same single factory in a volatile region, your risk is actually systemic and concentrated. These events have forced a realization that everything is interconnected; a financial tremor in one part of the world can trigger a supply collapse in another. Resilience now requires an integrated model that looks deep into the layers of the supply chain to identify those hidden dependencies before they turn into a crisis.
Looking at the role of AI, how does it move beyond being a buzzword to actually helping a risk leader sleep better at night?
AI makes a tangible difference when it functions as a “Risk Response Agent” that doesn’t just bark about a problem but actually suggests or executes a clear path forward. Instead of just giving an analyst another alert to worry about, advanced AI can produce a plain-language summary of the situation and outline the necessary next steps based on the company’s specific policies. This handles the “manual burden” that leads to team exhaustion by taking care of the routine validations and low-level follow-ups that consume so many hours. By making manual review the exception rather than the default, AI allows risk leaders to maintain a high level of oversight without having to touch every single file. It creates a safety net that is always on, ensuring that as the supply chain expands, the protection of the organization remains robust and responsive.
What is your forecast for the future of supplier risk management over the next five years?
In the next five years, we are going to see a total shift where “risk management” is no longer a separate department but a fully integrated, automated heartbeat that runs through every procurement and logistics decision. The organizations that thrive will be those that have successfully moved past the “acceptance” stage and into full operational control, using AI to bridge the gap between identifying a threat and resolving it. We will see the end of the static onboarding questionnaire as it is replaced by continuous, real-time monitoring that follows a supplier through their entire lifecycle. Ultimately, the competitive advantage will go to those who can master Nth-tier visibility, turning their supply chain from a source of hidden vulnerability into a transparent, resilient engine of growth. Those who remain stuck in manual denial or alert-fatigue acceptance will simply find themselves unable to keep pace with the speed of global volatility.
