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Trevor Jordaan on Becoming AI Fit and Building the Next Generation of Composable Supply Chains
Focus: composable & modular enablers Focus: innovation governance & collaboration Stage 1: de-risk today Stage 2: optimise tomorrow Stage 3: design for advantage For: supply chain leaders Focus: change management & skills Type: interview Oct 14, 2025 6:22:46 PM SCL-X 12 min read
When I began researching why the current supply chain innovation model feels stuck, one thing stood out: for all the talk about digital transformation, very few technology providers mention composability at all. Most still lead with the promise of end-to-end integration or “one platform for everything.”
Blue Yonder was a rare exception - one of the few supply chain vendors explicitly discussing composability and modularity in its product and strategy narrative. That led me to reach out to Trevor Jordaan, Senior Director at Blue Yonder, whose background spans operations, consulting and enterprise software.
Our discussion explored what composability really means in practice, why so many transformation programmes stall and what Trevor calls becoming “AI fit.”
Contents
What composability means in practice
JP Doggett: Trevor, when I looked at Blue Yonder’s positioning, I noticed you’re one of the few major vendors to use the word “composable.” What does that mean for you?
Trevor: It’s not a marketing term for us - it’s a practical way of helping customers de-risk innovation.
Most organisations still think about transformation as a big-bang event. Composability is the opposite: it’s about making that journey modular. You break it into smaller, achievable steps that let you deliver value earlier and keep learning as you go.
At Blue Yonder, our cognitive platform spans planning and execution, so it’s been designed to evolve in parts. But the concept applies far beyond our technology - if you have a strong data foundation, you can connect, test, scale and replace components as needed. That’s how real-world change happens - iteratively and intelligently.
Technology vs organisational readiness
JP: So it’s less about architecture and more about how innovation is approached?
Trevor: Exactly. Technology is advancing fast - but the harder part is organisational readiness.
I often use the analogy of a helicopter. You can park the best helicopter outside someone’s house but if they can’t fly it, it’s useless. The same goes for technology - you can have the most advanced system in the world but without people who know how to use it and leaders who understand the journey, it will never take off.
Building AI fitness
That’s where the idea of being AI fit comes in. Like getting physically fit, you can’t skip steps. You build capability gradually - in leadership, governance and everyday users - so the organisation can absorb and sustain change.
Barriers to adoption
JP: What stops companies from building that fitness?
Trevor: Mostly fear and misunderstanding.
Many still view automation through the wrong lens: “how many people can I have less?” rather than “how can I do more with the same people?” AI should increase capacity, not just cut cost. That mindset drives the wrong kind of business cases.
The other barrier is knowledge. A lot of supply chain leaders came up through operations, not data or technology. They know how the business works but were never trained to work with AI. They don’t need to become data scientists but they do need enough digital fluency to interpret what the tools are doing. Without that, adoption stalls.
Digital fluency in supply chain teams
JP: That seems to come up often - the need for digital fluency in supply chain teams.
Trevor: It’s essential. There’s a gap between the technical experts who build the tools and the people who use them. Most training is either too academic or too technical. We need something in between - applied learning that helps people use these systems in a business context.
Otherwise, you get organisations that believe in change but don’t know how to make it real. They invest heavily but because they can’t interpret or challenge the outputs, they never extract full value.
The capability gap
JP: You said in our call that many companies will soon have all the right tools but won’t know what to do with them.
Trevor: Yes and I stand by that. Everyone’s implementing AI, analytics, automation - but in three to seven years, usability will be the biggest challenge.
They’ll have Ferraris in the garage and no one who can drive them.
The technology gap is closing fast but the capability gap is widening. That’s why change and adoption are so critical. The real work now is helping people and organisations become confident, data-literate users.
How composability helps
JP: How does composability help close that gap?
Trevor: Composability reduces the cost of experimentation. You can innovate faster and safer because you’re not committing to everything at once.
If you’ve got a solid data layer - whether it’s in Snowflake, Azure or within your platform - you can plug things in, test them, isolate them, replace them if needed. That’s what makes innovation continuous instead of episodic.
But it only works if you have good data governance. Without that, modularity just becomes complexity. The foundations still matter most - clean, connected and governed data.
Cyber risk and modularity
JP: And what about cyber risk? We’ve seen high-profile supply chain attacks recently - JLR, M&S, Co-op. Does more modularity mean more exposure?
Trevor: It increases the number of connections but it also gives you more control points.
With the right governance, composability can actually make security stronger because you can isolate breaches and patch systems faster. The challenge is coordination - making sure vendors and customers are building compatible security frameworks.
As supply chains & ecosystems become more interconnected - especially for sustainability and traceability - shared security responsibility will become a central part of digital collaboration.
Final advice for supply chain leaders
JP: If you could leave supply chain leaders with one piece of advice, what would it be?
Trevor: Invest in people before platforms. Build AI fitness before you buy AI tools.
Technology amplifies what already exists - the good and the bad. Start small, prove value quickly and scale what works. You can always go faster later but you can’t unspend a failed transformation.
The next few years will define who becomes truly AI Fit - not the organisations with the most technology but those with the most adaptive people.
Closing thought
For Trevor, composability isn’t a buzzword - it’s a realistic path to sustainable transformation. It’s about building the right foundations, strengthening human capability and giving organisations the freedom to evolve at their own pace.
As he puts it: “Technology gives you potential - but people turn that potential into performance. The businesses that master both will lead the next era of supply-chain transformation.”
JP Doggett