Ryan Rotar, vice president of healthcare market strategy at Tecsys, outlines how supply chain resilience can be maintained in the face of tariffs.
Tariffs introduce a kind of disruption that can feel sudden and disorienting. Policy can shift with little notice, vary by country and product type, and arrive after production and distribution plans have already been set in motion. For pharmaceutical leaders, the core issue is rarely the tariff line item itself. The bigger problems lie within the chain reaction that follows the tariff announcements: hurried decisions made on incomplete information that ripple through sourcing, pricing, inventory strategy, service levels and, ultimately, patient access.
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When tariffs are applied, or even threatened, behaviour changes quickly and unpredictably. Buyers may place unusually large orders to hedge cost exposure. Distributors may adjust lanes, change purchasing behaviour or increase safety stock to protect continuity. Manufacturers may accelerate some steps, delay others, or re-route product to avoid fees. Then the pattern can reverse on a dime. Orders fall off because customers are now sitting on surplus, policy shifts again, or someone discovers product that had been effectively invisible inside the network. The early surge gets interpreted as real demand, only to become a steep correction weeks later. This whiplash strains forecasting and production planning, distorts allocation decisions, and increases the likelihood that the wrong product ends up in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Supply chain resilience begins when manufacturers and distributors stop managing volatility through partial insights and their gut instincts. And a resilient supply chain is one built on visibility that is broad, current and trusted, supported by repeatable playbooks that keep decisions steady under pressure.
Why tariff risk becomes operational risk
Tariffs are usually discussed as a cost issue, but their impact is operational at the core. A pulse survey from KPMG following last summer’s tariff news found that 55% of US businesses planned to reconfigure their supply chains in response to new or increased tariffs – a change that would take nearly half of the respondents 7-12 months to implement and up to 1-2 years for another 21%.
When costs change, leaders are forced to act fast, often without a complete picture of inventory and demand across the network. A manufacturer may not know what stock is available across third parties and channels, or which customers are genuinely at risk of shortage. A distributor may have a clear view of its distribution centres yet lack reliable demand signals from downstream care settings. Even within a single health system, inventory practices may be strong at one site and inconsistent at another, driving ongoing reordering based on habit instead of need.
The most expensive inventory is the inventory no one knows they have. If teams cannot see product sitting in overflow rooms, compounding areas, hazardous drug storage, or other secondary spaces, they will keep ordering what they always order. This results in trapped working capital, higher waste from expiration, and urgent last-minute buying that tends to come at a premium.
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By GlobalDataUpstream partners absorb the consequences as well. Steady orders look like steady demand. When hidden surplus is discovered and orders suddenly stop, manufacturers face cancelled forecasts, excess production and abrupt shifts in allocation decisions. Tariffs can trigger these behaviors, but limited visibility is what allows them to persist and compound.
End-to-end visibility as the base layer for resilience
For manufacturers and distributors, end-to-end visibility means having a connected view across all warehouses, plants and channels that supports planning and execution across the network, including the data needed to meet compliance requirements and confirm product movement with confidence.
That visibility begins with integration. When organisations connect wholesalers, third-party vendors, and internal systems into a shared data foundation, leaders can stop treating inventory as scattered pockets and start managing it as a coordinated asset. Integration also closes the loop between what was planned, purchased, received and actually used. That loop becomes crucial when tariffs pressure both margin and service.
Integration is not just a technical project. It’s how companies replace their “best guesses” with real signals and reduce the instability that comes from downstream blind spots, where inventory exists but remains invisible to the people making buying decisions. When forecasting, replenishment, and allocation draw from a shared source of truth, the supply chain becomes calmer amid disruption rather than amplifying it.
Building a disruption playbook that works under real pressure
Tariffs are only one form of disruption. In any given year, the same supply chain may face extreme weather, geopolitical instability, route closures, labour shortages or cyber threats. According to a recent survey of US hospital executives, pharmacy and supply chain leaders, 77% say they are not fully prepared for major disruptions. And many operations do not have a solidified playbook on how to handle supply disruptions, despite jumping into action when a disruption is detected. This is where preparedness breaks down. Disruption planning can no longer be an annual exercise to check the box; it needs to be a continuous operational priority.
A resilient approach starts by mapping vulnerabilities across the network, including single points of failure that look efficient on paper but become fragile in real life. Many organisations use a digital twin, a computer-based model of suppliers, routes, warehouses and dependencies that allows teams to run scenarios and see where a tariff, a port delay, or a supplier failure would cause the most damage. That clarity enables structured prioritisation instead of reactive improvisation.
Resilience then improves when redundancy is built where it matters most. It comes at a cost, but so do shutdowns, service failures, expediting premiums, and reputational damage when patients are affected. The goal is not to duplicate everything. It is to avoid dependency on one facility, one lane, or one supplier for critical items.
Most importantly, disruption planning must be routine. Teams need repeatable playbooks, clear roles, and fast escalation paths. They also need the habit of looking for early warning signs, whether that is unusual ordering behaviour, a weather pattern that threatens a site, or suspicious network activity indicating cyber risk. When conditions change quickly, speed of response often beats perfect planning.
Where AI helps, and what it should be used for
Artificial intelligence (AI) can help, but only if it is treated as a speed tool rather than a magic solution. In tariff-driven volatility, timing is a competitive advantage because decisions often must be made before the full picture becomes obvious. AI can analyse large volumes of data, surface risk signals, and recommend actions for leadership to validate. In shortage management, it can bring together risk factors such as weather threats, inventory levels, days on hand, and feasible alternatives, while also scanning shortage histories to gauge the practical risk of switching.
Beyond crisis response, AI can support executive decisions tied directly to commercial performance. It can help leaders evaluate insourcing versus outsourcing by weighing labour, materials, and utilisation patterns, and it can support complex contracting decisions where tiers, mix commitments, and competing offers create too many variables for quick manual comparison. For distributors, AI can also strengthen compliant secondary sourcing by scanning alternatives, checking contract status, and guiding procurement decisions when primary channels tighten or when tariff changes make a traditional source less viable.
Technology that changes behaviour, not just speed
Technology can also change behaviour, not just accelerate tasks. Tools like RFID can compress tracking work dramatically, freeing teams for higher-value activities and improving the reliability of inventory records. The deeper impact is cultural. When teams experience fast, accurate data capture, they stop accepting slow manual processes as inevitable. They begin to question other entrenched workflows and push toward repeatable, scalable operating models. That mindset becomes part of resilience because it reduces dependence on improvisation and individual heroics.
A clear call to action: stop planning on partial truth
Tariffs will continue to introduce uncertainty, and manufacturers and distributors cannot control when policy shifts occur. What leaders can control is whether they run their supply chains on partial truth or on trusted, shared signals.
The path to resilience is straightforward even when execution is difficult: build end-to-end visibility through integration so inventory and demand reflect reality rather than habit; use contracting and standardisation to limit exposure and reduce avoidable complexity; make disruption playbooks a routine operational capability informed by vulnerability mapping and targeted redundancy; and apply AI where it removes the heaviest burdens first, especially in shortage planning, sourcing decisions, and inventory rebalancing.
In a market where disruption is the norm, the advantage will go to organisations that see the whole board, act earlier than peers, and keep supply steady while others scramble.
