Supply Chain Accountability: A Growing Leadership Issue
As CEO and Board member of Descartes, Ed Ryan guides the company’s growth, M&A strategies and long-tenured executive management team.
gettyFor years, organizations have built supply chains on an expanding network of participants. Companies could reasonably rely on suppliers, carriers, freight brokers, customs brokers, logistics service providers and other partners to manage portions of supply chain operations and compliance. This model has helped deliver efficiencies and scale, but it has also created the assumption that supply chains are generally well governed.
Around the world, however, governments are increasing their scrutiny of how goods move through supply chains. Whether it’s customs compliance, upholding trade sanctions, fraud prevention or safety, regulators expect companies to demonstrate that appropriate controls and oversight exist throughout their supply chains. For business leaders, this is a significant change in how supply chain accountability is defined and managed.
Recent examples in the U.S. illustrate this new approach to supply chain accountability. For example, the June 3, 2026, executive order on stronger customs enforcement and the U.S. Department of Justice Trade Fraud Task Force (launched August 2025) have raised expectations that importers can substantiate the data in their customs declarations. Court decisions affecting carrier selection mean more consistent and auditable safety verification for the transportation industry. Increased enforcement of sanctions violations places greater emphasis on screening, recordkeeping and showing compliance.
These actions reinforce that organizations must remain accountable, even when work is performed by third parties. It’s a reality that speaks to the nature of modern logistics and supply chain operations: They’re fundamentally inter-enterprise activities. A single international shipment may involve suppliers, manufacturers, freight forwarders, customs brokers, ocean carriers, trucking companies, warehouses and government agencies operating across multiple jurisdictions. While each participant has a distinct role, accountability must rest with every organization participating in the shipment’s journey.
Customers tell us that greater accountability is changing day-to-day domestic and international supply chain operations. Compliance teams are being asked to oversee more parties, validate more data and produce supporting documentation more quickly than in the past. For example, an importer may need to show how a product was classified, which tariff rate was applied, what information was supplied by its broker and who approved the final declaration. Companies need greater transparency, more digital documentation and stronger end-to-end auditability to show what supply chain decisions were made, why they were made and what information supported the decision.
With stronger governance of supply chain operations, accountability and compliance can be viewed as both legal functions and operational disciplines. This broader view requires leadership to ask new questions that focus on the ability to operationalize policies at scale, such as:
• Can we prove appropriate due diligence occurred across our supply chain?
• If trade rules, sanctions or a key supplier changed overnight, could we adapt quickly while remaining compliant?
• Could we produce the evidence needed to explain and defend a critical supply chain decision within hours, not weeks?
• Are we confident that the same governance standards are being applied consistently across every trading partner and transaction?
As supply chain networks get larger and more complex, quickly producing accurate and verifiable answers to these types of questions is where technology can help.
As goods move around the world, supply chain and logistics operations generate and transmit enormous amounts of data. For better governance, the challenge is better connecting the data that matters, formatting it the right way and making it available at the right time across multiparty supply chains. Here’s where technology can help leadership build automation and accountability into everyday supply chain operations.
Customers increasingly tell us they need more than isolated compliance checks or records spread across multiple systems. They need capabilities to verify trading partners before transactions take place, capture compliance documentation as work occurs, maintain continuous auditing to support decisions and monitor activities in real-time across complex networks. Technology also helps establish consistency with automated workflows that reduce reliance on ad hoc interpretations and apply compliance processes uniformly.
Equally important is access to trusted data, especially with advances in AI. Customers operating at high transaction volumes can’t afford to discover after a shipment moves that a restricted party list, tariff rate or regulatory requirement was outdated. With continuously changing trade rules, technology helps organizations make decisions grounded in accurate, current information. While technology offers leadership more informed outcomes, its greater value lies in helping companies prove that decisions were made using appropriate controls and established compliance processes.
While there are hard costs of noncompliance, like fines and criminal penalties, there’s an even more significant intangible cost. It’s the latency that results in slower and poorer business decisions. Companies with stronger governance can move faster because they can make supply chain decisions with more confidence. For example, imagine a tariff changes overnight. Leadership asks if Vietnam is a better sourcing option than China. The sourcing team responds: We’re not sure if there’s an applicable beneficial trade agreement, how landed costs compare or whether potential new suppliers have been screened, and our supply chain and legal people need several weeks to review.
More timely trade intelligence means companies know where supply chain risks and opportunities lie. They can operationalize new sourcing strategies faster when tariffs change. They can onboard suppliers faster because due diligence is standardized. They can respond to audits in hours instead of weeks or months. As regulatory scrutiny increases, supply chain accountability offers leadership a competitive advantage if it’s viewed through a different lens than something that can be delegated or assumed.
Terrorism, tariffs, sanctions, cybersecurity, carrier liability, trade fraud, forced labor and more have pushed supply chain accountability to an executive-level governance concern. The companies with answers can move faster during disruptions. But moving faster depends on confidence, and confidence depends on governance. By creating transparent, auditable and well-governed supply chain operations, organizations are better positioned to reduce risk and build greater trust with customers, regulators and business partners.
Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify?
