In the lead-up to the 2026 SCMAP Supply Chain Conference we asked our delegates what their current biggest supply chain pain point is.
51% of our delegates told us it’s the price of fuel. Not a surprise, considering the year so far has been about the impact of the war in Iran – and the resulting blocks on the strait of Hormuz – on global fuel supplies, something that affects us particularly hard as a fuel importer. This arguably is the root of many of our current supply chain challenges, particularly the delicate balancing act between keeping costs down so as not to pass them on to the consumer (and protect whatever slim margins is left of our FMCGs) and remaining profitable enough to allow us to remain competitive, to invest in our people, our fleet and our behind-the-scenes processes.
Despite the overwhelming number, it isn’t the only issue our delegates were facing. 20% of them said they’re struggling with adopting new technologies, particularly artificial intelligence, in their operations. Economies across Southeast Asia have been particularly enthusiastic about embracing AI, but the very fast pace of development, coupled with the state of discourse floating (or masking, in some cases) genuine concerns about its impact on how we live, has put us in a difficult position: where exactly do we start, especially if our profits are already being slashed by high fuel prices?
In addition, 16% of our delegates cite port congestion as a major pain point. We opened registration, after all, at the height of congestion issues not just in our major seaports but also our airports. It reflects how behind we remain in providing adequate infrastructure to support our (somehow) thriving logistics ecosystem. Add to that the 6% who cite government regulations as a main pain point, and you have a significant chunk of our delegates still keen to look at the government’s shortcomings in being one step ahead of developments that are shaping how logistics is done in the future, from AI regulations to EV adoption, and most importantly of all, in ensuring unhampered movement of goods, with as little intervention as possible from local authorities whenever we cross provincial borders. Alas, the shortcomings will continue, judging from how infrastructure investment has slowed down in the past twelve months after the flood control scandal was first revealed.
We know all this coming into this year’s conference. The theme was “Reenergizing Our Supply Chains Through Talent, Transformation and Collaboration”. The question was, “what problem does it solve?”
Well, maybe it wouldn’t immediately solve any issues. As I write this, another geopolitical crisis – the takeover of Iran-backed Houthi rebels of several islands in the equally critical Bab al-Mandab strait – is triggering another wave of oil price speculation. We’re now also dealing with the weakest Philippine peso in history, which benefits OFWs and our net income but hits our ability to pay for our imports and our debts. We’ve been using the term “perpetual disruption” to describe the last few months, if not years; I’ve seen others use “polycrisis” or, well, some other words not fit to print. How can a two-day conference solve all that? We don’t. But we hope to get the conversation going, by providing some inspiration.
A key takeaway I had from my seat at the tech booth across the last two days is to thoroughly understand your problem before rushing towards a solution. I’ve been thinking about this mostly on AI, and how it’s being presented – by those with a keen interest to earn, and earn a lot, from it – as an epochal technology that we should embrace, stat, or else we will be rendered obsolete. But that leads stakeholders to be more overwhelmed. So why not use AI to address one issue first? It’s not the only tool we have in our arsenal. We have decades of human expertise, refined processes, and institutional relationships at our disposal.
Take the rush towards electric vehicles. Sure, it does solve one problem – it makes us less impervious to fluctuations in oil prices – but legitimate concerns over charging infrastructure and range anxiety still need to be addressed. I know the vehicles themselves have an answer to this, but there are other elements at play, some unique to the Philippines, that raises anxieties. But here, again, is where the other tools we have can come in handy. Technology enables us to do more, but it’s human expertise and relationships that pushes the bloody thing forward.
The importance of people in competitive supply chains has never been as thoroughly underscored as in these moments. We spot the problem, we spot the circumstances, and after a lot of talking and collaborating, we spot the solutions – and technology helps us reach those decisions faster, and maybe ease the processes along the way. But we still have the drivers’ seat. In this period of perpetual disruption, knowing we are not entirely hopeless is a comforting thought to have. We have the wheel. We always have.
On behalf of the SCMAP team, my thanks to all of our speakers, sponsors, delegates and partners for helping us make possible, once again, the biggest and most prestigious event in Philippine supply chain. On to the next one – and hopefully under somewhat better circumstances, too.
Henrik Batallones is the marketing and communications director of SCMAP, and editor-in-chief of its official publication, Supply Chain Philippines. More information about SCMAP is available at scmap.org.
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