Supply chains rarely make mainstream media headlines until something breaks. According to John Ward, Bospar’s Director of Content Strategy & Market Positioning, that’s exactly where companies and PR teams are getting it wrong.
A longtime business and technology journalist with deep expertise across AI, electronics, logistics, procurement and global supply chains, John has spent decades translating complex systems into stories that actually resonate.
In this Expert Insights interview, he explains why supply chain disruption is the baseline, not the story, and how companies can use supply chain intelligence to shift media narratives from crisis management to credibility, resilience and leadership.
When it comes to PR for supply chains, what are companies and execs getting wrong?
They tend to focus on two things: reactive communication when something goes awry and treating certain aspects, like logistics or the human element, as back-end issues.
Since supply chains are largely governed by market forces, there will always be uncertainty, from slight hiccups to significant disruptions. For example, in the semiconductor and electronic components supply chain, the constantly shifting U.S. tariff landscape and subsequent trade retaliations have made sourcing and procurement planning exceedingly more difficult. All the tariff “noise” causes pivots in seasonal buying patterns for the upstream electronics supply chain, which, in the first quarter of last year, saw tariff-avoidance demand surges lead to rising component pricing. Extreme weather events, congested ports, labor strife, economics, raw materials availability, geopolitics and so many more factors can negatively influence any given supply or value chain.
There’s a domino effect when just one thing goes amiss in a supply chain. Every single part is its own supply chain. From the copper supply upstream all the way downstream to having CarPlay in your new BMW when you pick it up at the dealership. It may take 25,000 to 35,000 individual parts to build a car, but only one not to. So, regardless of industry or what someone is building or buying, there will always be a supply chain issue.
The call to action for PR in supply chains is to accept these issues and move on to the future of the business, knowing it will always be disruptive. Then it’s focusing on how we can solve these problems. For instance, with agentic AI, we can look at analytics to be more predictive, then prescriptive about what to do to solve supply chain issues.
What mistakes do companies make when explaining supply chain issues to the public that could potentially damage their reputation?
People who aren’t in supply chains don’t think about supply chains. Take the semiconductor chip shortage. It disrupted automotive manufacturing, but consumers didn’t experience it as a “supply chain issue.” They experienced it as delayed vehicles or cars shipped without a functioning infotainment system, something they only noticed after purchase.
While no automaker would ever ship a car without critical systems like brakes or safety controls, features deemed nonessential were the first to be affected. That distinction matters because most consumers don’t want a technical explanation of supply chain issues; they just want to understand what’s wrong and how it will be fixed.
Semiconductors weren’t mainstream in the media a few years ago, like they are now. So when companies explain supply chain challenges to the media, they should frame them as, “Here’s the problem, and here’s our solution,” and avoid focusing on the challenge’s complexity. A reporter isn’t going to get into the technical weeds; they just want to understand why automakers are losing money. In moments of disruption, the response matters just as much as the disruption itself.
In terms of reputation, when organizations only offer commentary during crises, it can create a narrative of failure. Proactive PR updates about supply chain resilience and risk mitigation build trust and show leadership.
How can supply chain intelligence help companies get ahead of crises before they hit the headlines?
There’s a saying that those who don’t remember history are doomed to repeat it. But while the past is one thing, not everything is cyclical. Companies may understand historical risks and even have risk mitigation plans in place, but true supply chain intelligence is about anticipating what comes next.
People plan their bills of materials for supply chains years in advance and understand what’s going to happen in any given part of those spaces. And while it takes thousands of parts to build a finished product, it only takes one missing component to stop everything. That’s why foresight matters as much as hindsight.
In industries like electronics, demand forecasting has historically been unreliable because people adjust orders based on fear, uncertainty or budget, padding orders when supply feels tight and pulling them forward or pushing them out when demand changes. These individual decisions, driven by natural human tendencies to hoard, can cause other hiccups in the market, going back to the domino effect.
AI, as an element of supply chain intelligence, doesn’t eliminate human judgment, but it can help counter these distortions by identifying patterns that individual companies can’t see on their own. That’s why there’s no substitution for good supply chain intelligence, especially intelligence that extends beyond an enterprise’s own data. If companies only look at the parts they buy, without understanding how those same components are being consumed across other industries, they miss early warning signals. Rising demand elsewhere can quickly translate into longer lead times and tighter supply.
Understanding not just your enterprise-based data, but also understanding what’s happening in the market overall will help inform you.
Supply chain intelligence adoption is currently low at just 12%. As more companies eventually adopt supply chain intelligence, how will that change how PR should position them in the media?
PR should position companies that adopt supply chain intelligence as more efficient and effective.
For public companies, inventory is a liability, which is why metrics like days of inventory matter across industries like retail and automotive. When companies use AI and predictive intelligence to manage inventory more precisely, they can demonstrate that they’re thinking upstream and downstream about their supply chains. That kind of visibility builds trust. If a company can explain how an event far upstream, like a flooded mine in Australia, may affect input costs months later, such as aluminum, it signals credibility, even if those impacts feel abstract to outsiders.
This same intelligence also shows up in how companies solve customer problems. Forward-looking supply chains are more resilient, which means they can respond faster when disruption hits. It’s similar to failover in technology systems: Just like strong infrastructure minimizes downtime by quickly switching databases, resilient supply chains can quickly pivot from one supplier to another when tariffs change.
AI and advanced analytics help companies see these patterns earlier, avoid overreaction and make smarter decisions. Ultimately, organizations that invest in smarter supply chain intelligence can position themselves to the media as more efficient, more forward-looking and a more reliable partner because their supply chains are more resilient.
How can companies that implement supply chain intelligence get the most from PR?
Companies that implement supply chain intelligence get the most from PR when they use it to demonstrate a real, operational understanding of the marketplace.
Supply chain intelligence enables companies to position themselves as thought leaders by explaining what’s actually happening beneath the surface: how lead times are changing, what’s going on with supply and demand, and how design dynamics will be affected next. When companies share these insights, they move beyond generic market commentary and show that they understand industry mechanics in real time.
How should companies talk about AI-powered supply chain intelligence without sounding hype-driven?
Talk about outcomes and less about how you get to them. Audiences don’t care how you get a result; they care what it delivers.
The same applies to AI in the enterprise: Most stakeholders aren’t interested in how AI works, only what it enables. If something solves a real problem, the technology behind it is secondary.
For supply chain-driven companies that aren’t selling AI itself, the smartest PR approach is to reference AI briefly, then move quickly to the value it creates. Saying “we use AI” is fine, but it should be a supporting detail, not the headline. What matters is how intelligence helps mitigate risk for suppliers, adapt to tariffs, shift shipping lanes or improve resilience.
Talk more about the value than how you arrive there.
How can PR help companies translate complex supply chain data into clear, compelling public messaging?
The supply chain is enormously complex, even for a simple product like a pen. Behind it are layers of upstream dependencies, such as plastic resins, and even events like hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico can disrupt production far earlier than most people realize. While that complexity matters operationally, it doesn’t translate well to a general audience.
You have to make it approachable, especially to mainstream media. Reporters don’t care about the resins or ABS plastics that go into a pen. So talk about it in a way to make it real and immediate for someone who isn’t familiar with supply chain.
Let’s say my iPhone stops working, and I need a new one. But I can’t get my new iPhone because a weather event is disrupting the supply chain, causing delays. Talk about it from the perspective of a person, not necessarily just an enterprise, saying, “If this happens, you don’t get a phone.” Make it relatable and easy to digest for a wide audience.
