Bridging the Peak-Season Performance Gap

The disconnect between peak-season confidence and actual performance continues to haunt supply chain leaders. As our recent industry research revealed, while 93% of executives entered the 2024 peak season confident they would meet customer expectations, a sobering 58% struggled with delivery timing and order accuracy when the pressure intensified. This confidence-to-reality gap isn’t just a statistical curiosity — it represents millions in lost revenue, damaged customer relationships, and operational inefficiencies that ripple throughout the supply chain ecosystem.

A post-peak season analysis reveals three distinct areas where the gap between expectations and reality was most pronounced.

System performance limitations. Pre-season, 70% of executives expressed strong faith in their fulfillment systems. Post-season data showed that only 42% achieved successful system performance during peak demands — a 28-point confidence gap. The culprit: fragmented systems architecture that couldn’t support dynamic response to shifting demand patterns.

Many organizations discovered too late that disconnected warehouse management and order management systems created information silos that hampered inventory visibility and cross-facility coordination. When order volumes surged, these architectural limitations became bottlenecks that prevented agile decision-making.

Labor management challenges. Perhaps most troubling was the 51% of organizations that planned to rely on traditional approaches to automation plus seasonal hiring, only to find that 65% experienced significant staffing challenges during peak season. The labor equation has fundamentally changed, with constant turnover and training challenges highlighting a critical need for more sophisticated workforce strategies.

As one logistics leader in our study noted: “Balancing the cost of labor with business profitability was tough, especially when we had to pay overtime or hire temporary workers.” This sentiment echoed across organizations regardless of size or sector.

Inventory visibility issues. While most organizations claimed comprehensive inventory visibility in pre-season assessments, post-season data revealed that 48% struggled with real-time inventory accuracy across multiple fulfillment nodes. This visibility gap directly impacted