Futureproof Your Supply Chain: Smarter Planning for 2025 and Beyond

Too many brands treat supply chain risk like a one-off fire drill. In reality, disruptions are now constant — from logistics delays to tariff changes and social virality. The upside: brands that modernize planning now can turn volatility into faster rebuys, steadier cash flow, and fewer stockouts.

To understand how today's operators navigate these supply chain challenges, we spoke with Umaimah Sharwani, founder of South Asian food brand Paro and a fractional COO for fast-growing CPG companies. Having managed supply chain shocks firsthand as both a founder and advisor, she brings a practical lens to where SMB vulnerabilities come from and how to address them.

In this guide, we'll unpack the biggest risk factors weakening supply chains today, share Umaimah's on-the-ground insights, and walk through five practical supply chain fixes you can implement right away — all backed by Moselle's adaptive inventory planning.

Why 2025 Is Stress-Testing Every Supply Chain

As supply chain disruptions become more frequent and unpredictable, inventory planning demands more than tracking seasonality or lead times. Operators now face a volatile landscape that impacts every part of their business.

That complexity shows up in many forms:

• Tariff changes raise costs overnight. For brands importing at scale, that can mean sudden margin compression and a scramble to reprice just to stay afloat, with tariffs adding more complexity than they once did.
• Port delays throw off entire launch timelines. A single stuck container can ripple through a brand’s entire timeline — derailing campaigns, delaying wholesale deliveries, and straining relationships with key accounts.
• Geopolitical events create supplier instability. Strikes or sanctions can cut off access to critical factories or raw materials with little to no warning, forcing brands to find backups on the fly.
• Unexpected virality creates unpredictable spikes. A product can go viral overnight — but without flexible planning tools, brands either miss the opportunity or overcorrect and end up with excess inventory.

What once felt like edge cases are now everyday realities, revealing the cracks in fragile manual planning systems. The real challenge for operators is understanding where those vulnerabilities lie — patterns that cut across the industry regardless of size or stage.

5 Supply Chain Risks That Are Holding Brands Back

These pressure points are slowing down even the fastest-growing CPG brands. Left unchecked, these risks can chip away at margins and strain operations. Recognizing them is the first step toward building a system that can withstand disruption.

📦 Single-Source Supplier Risk 

Relying on one factory or vendor creates a fragile setup, where even a temporary disruption can put bestsellers in jeopardy. 

"When 60% of your revenue comes from one product, even a tiny disruption is a big risk," says Umaimah. A single delay can ripple through the business — stalling launches, derailing retail timelines, and triggering lost revenue that's hard to recover.

👩🏽‍💻 Manual Tracking and Low Visibility 

When teams are stuck in spreadsheets with no live updates to spot risks or adjust to sudden demand, weaknesses are harder to see. 

"Many brands are still relying on Excel," Umaimah notes. "This leaves a lot of room for error and makes collaboration difficult." Over time, these blind spots allow risks to multiply quietly until they become costly surprises.

🧐 Gut-Feel Demand Planning 

Many teams still rely on instinct, and the costs add up quickly. Overestimates tie up working capital in slow-moving stock, while underestimates leave shelves empty and retailers frustrated. 

Without a clear view into sell-through rates or seasonality, a single missed spike can send an entire quarter off track.

💰 Limited Purchasing Power

Even when teams get the forecast right, smaller brands face another challenge: low volumes make it hard to secure favorable terms. The result is higher prices, slower timelines, and stricter MOQs that eat into margins. 

With so little flexibility, even a small shift in demand can cause a stockout — or leave a brand sitting on product it can't move.

✏️ Siloed Systems and Outdated Tools 

All of these risks compound when systems don't talk to each other. Disconnected tools make it hard to act quickly or align across teams. Forecasts lag behind reality, and key buys get delayed. To overcome this, brands need tools that unify data and ground decisions in real-time performance. 

As Umaimah explains, "A tool like Moselle not only pulls data directly from platforms like Shopify, it really lets you forecast based on actuals."

Together, these five risks explain why even the best operators often find themselves reacting instead of planning. The good news? Each one can be addressed with the right systems in place.

From Risk to Resilience: Your Playbook for Smarter Supply Chains

Slow reorders, guesswork forecasts, and generic vendor plans might seem manageable on their own — but together, they quietly build into full-scale disruptions.

Resilience starts with visibility. This quick gut check will help you spot where those vulnerabilities might be hiding. 

Quick Risk Check: Are You Vulnerable?

• We forecast manually (Google Sheets or Excel)
• We rely on one primary supplier per product
• We often rush last-minute purchase orders
• We don't have a clear view of stock across channels
• Our systems don't integrate
• Our actuals rarely match our forecasts
• We lack a clear plan for demand spikes or supplier disruptions
• We lack visibility into real-time data
• We can't negotiate favorable terms because of low volumes

Score yourself:

• 1–2 points: You're ahead of most — but there's still room to tighten your planning and reduce friction.
• 3–4 points: Your current setup carries serious risk. A single disruption could slow down growth or cash flow.
• 5+ points: Your next disruption isn't a matter of if, it's a matter of when. Now's the time to upgrade before it hits.

5 Supply Chain Fixes You Can Implement Today

These vulnerabilities don't have to hold brands back. With the right systems, operators can turn pressure points into competitive advantages — gaining control, speed, and resilience.

The five fixes below reduce risk and boost agility. They're even more effective with Moselle's automation and AI-informed planning behind them.

Diversify Your Supplier Base

Spreading your sourcing across multiple suppliers reduces dependency and minimizes disruption when one partner falters. This dual or multi-sourcing gives your team the flexibility to pivot while creating leverage to negotiate better terms as you scale.

Start with your highest-risk SKUs:

1. Vet at least one backup supplier per SKU to build a safety net before disruption hits.
2. Negotiate lighter MOQs (minimum order quantities) or trial runs to test new supplier relationships without overcommitting. This makes diversification practical and low-risk.
3. Centralize vendor data in Moselle — including lead times, MOQs, costs, and performance — to track supplier relationships and spot gaps early.

As Umaimah advises, "Even if you're not ready to order, at least start qualifying a backup supplier so that you have them ready to go when you need them."

The benefits show up quickly in practice. For example, Loisa used Moselle's real-time inventory data and bundle-level insights to avoid stockouts and strategically time replenishments. That operational clarity freed up their VP of Operations to focus on expanding manufacturing partnerships — a critical step in diversifying their supplier base to support scale.

Automate Your Visibility and Tracking

Automation turns scattered workflows into real-time planning. What once required endless spreadsheet guesswork is now handled by Moselle — with dynamic reorder points and auto-generated purchase orders tied directly to live sales and stock levels.

This shift eliminates manual lag, creating a planning process that moves at the speed of your business.

Here's how to start automating with Moselle:

1. Set reorder points based on SKU-level velocity, lead times, and safety stock.
2. Let Moselle take over replenishment planning, auto-generating purchase orders ("buys") optimized for MOQs and supplier timelines.
3. Export and send POs to vendors with a single click, right from the platform.

With all users working from the same live data feeds, collaboration gets faster and decisions become sharper. Onboarding takes less than a week, so you can start seeing impact almost immediately.

The payoff of this transition is significant. AeroPress, for example, eliminated manual purchase planning by using Moselle's automated forecasting and centralized inventory data. With accurate, always-updating demand projections across 160+ SKUs and 15 warehouses, the team gained the visibility needed to set smarter reorder points and prepare timely, data-backed purchases. The result: a 40% reduction in weekly planning workload and the confidence that stockouts won't derail growth.

Create Forecasts You Can Trust

Unreliable, gut-feel planning creates problems that multiply: overestimates freeze cash, underestimates cause stockouts, and missed spikes can throw off entire quarters.

Moselle's bottom-up forecasting replaces guesswork with data-driven projections — giving operators plans they can trust and act on with confidence.

How to build more accurate forecasts:

1. Build rolling 6–12 month forecasts directly in the platform. They update automatically after each daily sales close, so your projections always reflect current conditions.
2. Layer in growth targets, promotions, and seasonal trends to shape demand curves that fit your business.
3. Use Moselle's variance reports (MAPE) to track forecast accuracy, refine assumptions, and improve performance over time.

This move to data-driven forecasting has proven powerful in practice. Sahajan doubled their forecasting accuracy using Moselle's customizable projections and real-time data. With more reliable forecasts, they freed up working capital and captured high-volume sales windows for their bestsellers — turning planning into a driver of growth rather than a recurring risk.

Blend Just-In-Time With Just-In-Case

Strict MOQs and long timelines make it risky for smaller brands to run lean, since a single miscalculation can quickly turn into a costly shortage.

That's why pairing just-in-time (JIT) efficiency with just-in-case (JIC) reserves creates a more balanced strategy — keeping operations agile without tipping into overbuying or frequent stockouts.

Balance JIT and JIC to stay lean without getting caught off guard:

1. Use JIT for core SKUs with predictable demand and reliable supply.
2. Use JIC as a cushion for low-cost, critical items like packaging, inserts, or raw materials — where a little extra stock goes a long way.
3. Fine-tune lead times, runway dates, and safety stock settings in Moselle to create dynamic buffers where risk is highest.

As Umaimah explains, "Typically, I advise keeping a reserve of raw materials or packaging because they're at a lower cost than a finished good. That really helps from a management of a cash flow perspective."

Doré shows the power of this blended approach. Relying on Moselle's multi-warehouse forecasting, their team plans both lean replenishment and strategic reserves. This combination keeps them nimble when retailer orders spike unexpectedly or tariffs disrupt supply — showing how thoughtful reserves can turn volatility into resilience.

Run Scenario Plans Before Disruptions Hit

Disconnected systems and lagging forecasts often leave teams stuck in reactive mode, missing key buys when it matters most. 

Moselle's scenario planning is designed to prevent this exact kind of last-minute scramble. Replacing guesswork with real-time modeling helps operators prepare for volatility and protect against stockouts.

Stay ahead of disruptions with scenario planning:

1. Create multiple forecasts in Moselle to model tariff changes, demand surges, or supply delays — all side by side.
2. Compare scenarios to identify projected runways and at-risk SKUs, so you can see exactly where vulnerabilities may emerge.
3. Translate your best-fit scenario into a replenishment plan, then generate POs directly in the platform before disruptions hit.

Scenario planning automation not only protects against supply shocks, but also eliminates up to 15 hours of weekly manual work, freeing teams to focus on more strategic decisions.

Fable, for instance, models demand across different pricing and promotion strategies with Moselle, enabling their team to plan inventory around flash sales and pre-orders. That adaptability has kept their forecasts within a 10% variance, saved $120,000 annually, kept their team lean, and reallocated resources to growth.

How Moselle Future-Proofs Your Supply Chain

In just six months, your team could spend less time chasing data and more time scaling — backed by a stable, proactive supply chain ready for what's next.

By closing these five supply chain gaps, brands using Moselle gain the visibility to manage risk and the tools to scale with confidence. As Umaimah puts it, "At the end of the day, it's about asking: what tools can we use to future-proof our inventory for the brand and the business?"

Moselle flexes to fit your business — adapting to your planning needs and real-world workflows without forcing a rigid setup. With smart forecasting and automated reordering, that clarity extends even further — replacing guesswork with precision and turning planning into a growth driver.

If these challenges sound familiar, it's time to upgrade your system. Book a demo today and see how Moselle brings operational clarity to your entire team.