Supply chain managers in 2025 are under mounting pressure to meet rising customer expectations while navigating a chaotic landscape shaped by disruptive policy shifts and global uncertainties. Emerging regulations like the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) and Digital Product Passport (DPP) introduce new compliance challenges, while evolving technologies offer better efficiency but also expose critical blind spots. Visibility is key to resilience and ensuring businesses can mitigate risks, maintain operational efficiency, and adapt to accelerating change.
A recent report by Impinj revealed a significant data accuracy gap that is undermining supply chain visibility, leaving businesses vulnerable to operational inefficiencies and impact from disruptive forces.
Supply Chain Integrity & Hidden Costs of Blind Spots
Supply chain integrity is the foundation of effective supply chain management. It comprises the reliability, security, and accuracy of all elements within the supply chain and ensures that products and services are delivered as intended without disruption, tampering, or counterfeiting. If compromised, the cascading effects can lead to financial loss, operational inefficiencies, and more. A report from the company Accenture found out that disruptions caused companies to miss 7.4% – 11.0% revenue growth opportunities.
Real-time supply chain visibility is essential, empowering organizations to make better informed, data-based decisions that optimize their supply chain management. But it’s hard to manage what you can’t see.
The report by Impinj’s found a concerning disparity: while a majority (91%) of supply chain professionals believe their organizations are prepared to drive accurate supply chain visibility, only 33% reported achieving real-time visibility into their inventory.
This discrepancy can impact businesses’ ability to make informed decisions and exposes them to additional vulnerabilities like counterfeit goods, theft, and delivery errors. The survey digs into how these data accuracy gaps threaten supply chain integrity by exacerbating the following challenges:
- Inability to respond to changes in market demands: 59% of organizations lack resilience to handle rapid shifts in customer demand or unexpected challenges.
- Counterfeit Goods: In the retail sector, 65% of supply chain professionals note counterfeit goods as a major issue. Without precise tracking and authentication systems, it becomes easier for counterfeit products to infiltrate supply chains, threatening consumer trust and increasing costs.
- Shrink and Theft: 60% of survey respondents from the retail industry noted difficulties in reducing losses caused by shrink and theft, and that 31% of retail respondents are investing in new systems and approaches to reduce it. This includes increasing security checkpoints during transit and delivery (48%) and implementing new technologies for tracking goods (41%)
- Misloads and Delivery Errors: The logistics sector struggles with misloads, label inaccuracies, and other delivery errors, with 74% of respondents indicating that it is a challenge to reduce the volume of misloads and delivery errors.
Bridging the Data Accuracy Gap
To address these supply chain pitfalls, businesses are increasingly adopting technology-driven solutions to enhance visibility and accuracy. Enhanced visibility plays an essential role in operational efficiency, helping to reduce costly errors such as misloads, delivery inaccuracies and inventory shrinkage, while also mitigating the risk of counterfeit goods.
Solutions that enhance supply chain visibility range from cloud-based platforms and digital twins to robotics, blockchain, machine learning, IoT sensors, and radio-frequency identification (RFID). Among these, RAIN RFID – a battery-free, wireless technology – has seen widespread adoption due to its ability to provide real-time, granular inventory data.
According to the RAIN Alliance, 52.8 billion RAIN RFID tag chips were shipped globally in 2024, reflecting a 32% year-on-year growth. This technology enables supply chain managers to track the location and authenticity of goods with better precision. For example, Zara integrated RFID into its operations to monitor goods from production to stores, ensuring better stock and availability. When it comes to the food supply chain, RAIN RFID is used to manage inventory levels, reduce waste and spoilage, and improve response times to foodborne illness outbreaks.
Regardless of the technology, enhancing a supply chain’s visibility with accurate and real-time inventory data fuels AI-driven automation and predictive analytics, ensuring that supply chain forecasting and decision-making are based on reliable insights to drive meaningful business outcomes.
Beyond operational benefits, the adoption of technology solutions can support sustainability initiatives by improving supply chain transparency allowing businesses to identify inefficiencies, optimize logistics, reduce waste, and verify product lifecycle data.
Building a Resilient Supply Chain in 2025
Closing the supply chain data accuracy gap is not just a technological challenge but a strategic imperative. Businesses with strong supply chain visibility will be better equipped to navigate inevitable disruptions, comply with regulations, and meet sustainability goals. By investing in a technology-driven approach, organizations can build transparent, adaptable, and high-integrity supply chains that drive success in 2025 and beyond.
About the author:
Gaylene Meyer, Impinj Vice President of Global Marketing and Demand, leads a team focused on delivering world-class marketing and communications that engage partners and customers worldwide.
