Navigating Operations in the Age of Chokepoints

A friend of mine was suffering with significant pain from old sports-related injuries. After trying a dozen different therapies, they discovered a new treatment, earlier this year, that is working to bring them back to full function, free of pain.

While there are many components to this treatment, the main one centers on ensuring full nerve flow between the “fuse box” at the top of their spine and various parts of their neck, back, torso and legs. Recovery has been a sequential process of bringing these different muscle groups back online.

While it’s a less direct method, other people I know have found similar relief through acupuncture — using it to unblock the flow along the various energetic meridians of their body.

Why am I spending time talking about all of this in a supply chain blog, you ask?

Well to start, we are currently transfixed by the flow of energy moving (or not) through the Strait of Hormuz, which ultimately impacts the cost and effort required to buy and move materials and products through our value chains.

It is also a reminder that we can extend the concept of blockages, or chokepoints, to any other resource vital to our enterprise operations: critical inputs, such rare earth minerals, strategic components and ingredients, etc. Perhaps that’d be closer to the circulatory system, but still just as impactful.

Recent discussions with the COO/CSCO community point to significant spillover effects of the war in the Middle East.

• Some companies have seen triple-digit percentage increases in Middle East shipping costs due to fuel and insurance surcharges. Others with lighter, higher-margin products have shifted significant shipment volumes from ocean to air freight, likewise contributing to much higher freight costs.
• One leader pointed out that, even once the current conflict is resolved and the Strait is fully open for navigation, there will be future unwinding required to sort through mismatched demand and supply for empty shipping containers — just like the imbalances experienced after the initial COVID pandemic shutdowns.
• Equipment manufacturers with more complex bills of material, including automakers, are starting to see supply shortages. There is an acknowledgement that some of this is coming from cascading shortages of petrochemical-based plastics and resins impacting the supply of traditionally commoditized components.

What should we do about this situation?

There are a few areas where we see leading COOs/CSCOs and their teams proactively working to make their value chains more “choke-proof” beyond the latest crisis.

• Assessing and uncovering the next supply chain and operational chokepoints. We are in a new era when it comes to disruptions to our value chains. In the old days, supply chain teams did well to create a risk register highlighting potential vulnerabilities and impact probabilities. Many of these events were random, such as factory fires or plotting a probabilistic trend in climate-based disruptions. Nowadays, disruptions can just as often be a geopolitically motivated chokehold, weaponized against a country or alliance, even sometimes a critical company headquartered inside the target area. A new question to ask might be who would want to “do some choking” that would lead to my supply or distribution being severely impacted.
• Working around future chokepoints through investment in more optionality with the ability to pivot.  At a recent senior supply chain executive roundtable on the war in the Middle East, one high-tech company leader was citing future investments in response to the current crisis. They noted that, while they might not invest in entirely new sites to manufacture products, they will absolutely enable a larger swath of their portfolio to be produced at more existing sites. When paired with operational visibility and the ability to pivot supply locations quickly, this company will be able to skirt local disruptions for longer periods of time, generally making them more antifragile.
• Seeking ecosystem solutions to chokepoints. Many value chain risks can reside upstream in smaller, less capitalized and capable suppliers. These critical partners are often the early “canaries in the coalmine” for disruptions, including the latest chokepoints of 2026. Chokepoint mitigation plans should extend to supply and distribution networks and will likely require strategic investments and/or partnerships to execute. We’re starting to hear about this type of evaluation from members of our community.

Resilience isn’t built by waiting for blockages to clear. It’s forged by finding new pathways. The leaders who thrive are those who anticipate tomorrow’s chokepoints and adapt before disruption strikes.

Stan Aronow
VP Distinguished Advisor
Gartner Supply Chain
Stan.Aronow@gartner.com