> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.ceo.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # When the world breaks down, someone has to figure it out - URL: https://www.ceo.com/blog/when-the-world-breaks-down-someone-has-to-figure-it-out/ - Published: 2026-04-01T23:58:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-08-14T00:18:19.000Z - Description: Companies solve supply chain problems fast, easy, and almost never cost-effectively. The bill comes later. - Author: CEO.com - Tags: #blog The hat on your head, the phone in your hand, the chair you are sitting in. All of it moved across oceans and borders and distribution centers before it reached you. Most of the time, you never think about it. That is the goal. But right now, global shipping is anything but invisible. It is loud, expensive, and deeply unstable. The companies caught in the middle are making consequential decisions in real time, often without the data to make good ones. And the bill for those decisions is showing up in margins, in customer experience, and in competitive position. Hannah Testani has been watching all of it. She is the CEO of [Intelligent Audit](https://www.intelligentaudit.com/?ref=ceo.com), a company that analyzes global transportation data to help businesses identify what they did wrong and what they should do differently. She has spent her career inside one of the most complex and overlooked industries in the world. "Disruptions in supply chain are, selfishly, good for us," she [told CEO.com](https://www.ceo.com/c/podcast/why-every-disruption-is-a-hidden-opportunity-hannah-testani-ceo-of-intelligent-audit). "When things are easy, and anyone can do it, anyone can do it." ### **You are already behind** Since early 2025, broad [tariffs have reshaped ](https://www.globaltranz.com/resource-hub/2026-shipping-industry-report/?ref=ceo.com)the cost structure for U.S. importers, layering new duties on goods from China, Mexico, Canada, and dozens of other countries. The US-China truce, extended through November 2026, bought some time. It did not buy confidence. Analysts are already pricing in renewed volatility around July or August, well before the deadline arrives. The deeper problem is structural. Tariffs are [no longer a set-and-forget cost](https://shiptheory.com/blog/international-shipping-in-2026-your-business/?ref=ceo.com). Trade agreements, political decisions, and regional policies are changing frequently, often with little notice. Businesses are now expected to apply the correct tariff at the exact moment a shipment leaves the warehouse. Most companies are not built to carry that burden cleanly. What happens in practice is what Testani watches play out constantly with her clients. Disruption forces a company to rethink its supply chain, and the first instinct is speed, not strategy. "Most people solve problems quickly in the way that is easiest and makes the most sense. Almost never the most cost-effective. They are in firefighting mode, not engineering mode. You solve the problem in the moment and then look back later and realize there was a better way." If a company was sole-sourced from China before tariffs, it probably isn't anymore. It is now being manufactured in China, India, Latin America, and possibly the US. More carriers. More origin points. More complexity. And more opportunity for the wrong decision to compound into a very expensive one. ### **The long way around** The armed conflict in Gaza, combined with the persistent threat of piracy, has effectively rendered the Suez Canal corridor too dangerous for many carriers, forcing ships to reroute around the Cape of Good Hope, a longer and more expensive path. That [detour adds weeks to transit times](https://www.freshfruitportal.com/news/2026/01/07/global-shipping-outlook/?ref=ceo.com) and a high cost to every shipment that takes it. Some carriers are beginning to return. But the return is its own problem. A full reopening of the Red Sea would remove one of the last remaining supports for container rates by shortening voyages and freeing up vessel capacity, worsening what [analysts describe as structural overcapacity issues](https://gulfnews.com/business/markets/container-shipping-heads-toward-a-harder-2026-as-red-sea-reopening-pressures-rates-1.500441624?ref=ceo.com). The industry spent two years propped up by disruption-driven pricing. That support is unwinding. The companies that locked into a single routing approach when the Red Sea closed are now the ones scrambling to adapt as it reopens. Testani has watched this pattern repeat across every major disruption of the past decade. The companies that fare best are not the ones that predicted what was coming. They are the ones who could move once it arrived. "Maybe before you could ship something via airplane right from anywhere to the US. Now, maybe you have to break it up into ocean containers. And as you are making those changes, you are working with new providers, and your shipping characteristics look completely different." She pauses on this point. It sounds straightforward. In practice, at scale, with hundreds of lanes, dozens of carriers, and cost structures that shift week to week, it is anything but. "I do not think most executives realize how much money is being left on the table simply because no one has the time to go back and look at what actually happened." ### **Too many ships, not enough direction** Beneath the geopolitical noise lies a slower, structural problem that will outlast any ceasefire or trade truce. Around 1.5 million TEU of new vessels are due for delivery this year, and the total orderbook [now exceeds 31 percent of existing fleet](https://www.maritimeanalytica.com/p/is-container-shipping-quietly-heading?ref=ceo.com) capacity, the highest orderbook ratio since 2011\. Carriers are reaching for familiar tools. Slow steaming. Blank sailings. Idled vessels. Freight rates are already falling. For shippers, falling rates look like good news on the surface. But a market that swings this dramatically in either direction is hard to plan around. Overall [consumer spending is expected to decelerate](https://www.supplychaindive.com/news/supply-chain-trends-risks-2026-retail-manufacturing/808797/?ref=ceo.com) this year as affordability concerns and a softening labor market stress shoppers' wallets. The pressure is not just external. It is moving through the entire chain. ### **The capability gap** Every conversation about supply chain eventually gets to technology. Rarely does it get to the people behind the technology, and that is a mistake. [Labor is no longer a stable input](https://unival-logistics.com/2026-shipping-logistics-challenges?ref=ceo.com) for supply chain leaders. It is a strategic constraint. Shortages in dockworkers, drivers, and specialized technicians are affecting everything from container handling to last-mile delivery. The companies that are pulling ahead are the ones that figured out how to see more with the people they have. That is where AI enters the conversation in a way that actually matters. Testani is direct about how most companies are misreading that opportunity. She separates AI into two lanes: productivity and innovation. Most leaders, she says, are only operating in the first. "Productivity is what most people talk about today. It allows teams to be more effective at what they already do. But innovation is what you can do with technology that you simply could not do before. I think we should spend a lot more time thinking about that." Her own AI solution is built on that distinction. It operates more like credit card fraud detection than traditional logistics software, learning a company's shipping patterns and flagging anomalies in real time before they become expensive problems. "Supply chain is incredibly complex right now. There are tariffs, there are not tariffs, there are new tariffs, there is a war, there is a new war. Our AI watches those patterns and makes you aware when something does not add up." She is honest that even this is not a complete answer. The technology is only as useful as the willingness to act on what it surfaces. "You have to just start implementing and be ready to make changes. If you are paralyzed waiting for the next new thing, you will never make progress." She has watched companies buy sophisticated tools and then flinch at what the data tells them. The visibility is not the hard part. What you do with it is. ### **The opportunity inside the chaos** Pull all of this together, and the picture is not pretty. Tariffs that reprice every shipment with little warning. Major trade routes in flux. A fleet too large for the demand it is serving. A labor market that cannot fill the gaps. And underneath all of it, the relentless pressure to make good decisions faster than the competition. The businesses being punished hardest right now are the ones built for a stable world. Sole-sourced in one country. Running the same carriers on the same routes with the same assumptions baked in for a decade. Not because bad luck found them. Because stability was the plan and stability is gone. Winners in 2026 will be [those who recognize the critical decision points](https://unival-logistics.com/2026-shipping-logistics-challenges?ref=ceo.com) happening right now, identify them early, and act on them to reshape their operations quickly. Testani would not disagree with that framing. But she would push it further. This is not a 2026 problem with a 2027 resolution. Disruption is no longer an exception in shipping and logistics. It is the operating environment. "When there is any kind of disruption, companies now have to go solve a new problem. Supply chains become more complex. They are going to have more carriers, more locations they are shipping from and to. Complexity is good for us." The world is not getting simpler. The question every executive running a company that ships anything needs to answer is whether they are building the capability to use it, or still waiting for things to calm down. They are not going to calm down.