Recent disruptions, from the COVID-19 pandemic to geopolitical tensions and climate-related events, have highlighted a critical dimension of supply chain performance: trust. When supply chains are disrupted, it is not only systems or contracts that determine how quickly organisations recover, but the quality of relationships between companies and their supply chain partners.
For decades, supply chain performance has been measured using a familiar set of indicators: cost, efficiency, delivery times and operational reliability. These metrics remain essential. Yet in an increasingly volatile global environment, they tell only part of the story.
Recent disruptions, from the COVID-19 pandemic to geopolitical tensions and climate-related events, have highlighted another critical dimension of supply chain performance: trust. When supply chains are disrupted, it is not only systems or contracts that determine how quickly organisations recover, but the quality of relationships between companies and their supply chain partners.
Trust is difficult to quantify, yet it is becoming one of the most valuable assets in modern supply networks. Behind every consignment successfully delivered lies a complex web of relationships between manufacturers, logistics providers, transport operators and distributors. In stable times these relationships often remain invisible. When disruptions occur, however, they become essential.
The pandemic revealed how fragile global supply networks could be. Organisations that relied heavily on single sourcing or purely transactional relationships found themselves exposed to shortages, delays and bottlenecks. Others, with more diversified partner networks and stronger logistics ecosystems, proved far more resilient.
The lesson was clear: resilience does not simply come from flexibility or diversification. It also comes from transparency, collaboration and trust between partners.Today, companies increasingly recognise that a reliable supply chain is not merely an operational process but an ecosystem built on strong, cooperative relationships.
Making trust measurable
Historically, trust in supply chains was seen as intangible, something built over years of cooperation but rarely assessed in a systematic way. That is beginning to change.
More organisations are now looking to evaluate the quality of their supply chain partnerships alongside traditional performance indicators. One approach is to measure how partners themselves perceive collaboration, communication and long-term alignment.
While customer satisfaction has long been measured in a structured and systematic way across most large organisations, supplier satisfaction has historically received far less attention. Even today, relatively few global companies assess supplier sentiment with the same level of rigour. This gap highlights both the novelty and the strategic importance of initiatives that seek to quantify trust within supply ecosystems.
GEODIS recently undertook a global survey of its supply chain partners to better understand these dynamics. Conducted in 2025 by the independent research firm INIT, the survey gathered responses from 536 suppliers and subcontractors across multiple regions and business lines, providing a representative global overview of partnership quality.
The results highlighted the strength of these relationships. Eighty-nine percent of respondents reported overall satisfaction with their partnership with GEODIS. The survey also produced a GEODIS recommendation score of +83, with more than eight out of ten partners indicating they would be extremely likely to recommend working with the company.
Beyond these headline figures, the survey revealed strong interest in deeper collaboration. More than 80% of respondents expressed willingness to strengthen their engagement with GEODIS, particularly in areas such as co-development, decarbonisation and digitalisation.
This structured approach to measuring supplier satisfaction is closely aligned with GEODIS’ Responsible Purchasing strategy, which is designed to foster transparency, fairness and long-term value creation across the supply base. By embedding these principles into procurement practices, GEODIS is strengthening relationships as well as reinforcing accountability and trust throughout its ecosystem.
While such surveys cannot capture every aspect of trust, they provide valuable insight into how partnerships function in practice and where collaboration can be strengthened.
Trust as a driver of resilience
Supply chains today operate in an environment defined by uncertainty. Natural disasters, labour disruptions, regulatory shifts and geopolitical tensions can affect logistics routes or sourcing strategies overnight. In this context, trust becomes a practical operational advantage.
When organisations trust their partners, they are more willing to share information about risks, capacity constraints or emerging disruptions. They are also more likely to collaborate on solutions, whether that means rerouting shipments, redesigning sourcing strategies or developing alternative production pathways.
The past few years have also accelerated a broader shift away from single-source dependency toward diversified networks designed to mitigate disruption risks. Within these increasingly complex ecosystems, the role of a Fourth-Party Logistics provider (4PL) has become particularly important. A 4PL acts as an orchestrator of the supply chain, coordinating multiple logistics providers and service partners to deliver integrated transport and logistics solutions for customers.
Managing such networks successfully requires more than operational expertise. It depends on building strong, collaborative relationships across a wide range of partners.
Diversification alone is not enough. Effective risk mitigation requires trusted partners who can respond quickly and collaboratively when challenges arise. In this sense, trust functions as a form of operational infrastructure, less visible than warehouses or transport routes, but equally critical.
From transactions to partnerships
Another important shift underway in supply chain management is the move from transactional procurement toward longer-term partnership models. Traditional procurement strategies often focused primarily on cost reduction and short-term contracts. While these approaches can drive efficiency, they may also limit collaboration and discourage innovation.
Today, companies increasingly recognise that stronger partnerships can unlock greater value. When organisations and their partners work together over the long term, they are more likely to collaborate on product development, sustainability initiatives and digital transformation.
This evolution is particularly evident in areas such as decarbonisation. Reducing the environmental footprint of supply chains requires coordinated action across multiple actors, from transport providers and logistics operators to technology platforms and infrastructure partners. Ultimately, stronger partnerships make it easier to align priorities and implement collective solutions.
Transparency in a digital supply chain
Digitalisation is also playing a crucial role in strengthening trust across supply networks. Advanced data platforms, tracking technologies and collaborative portals allow supply chain partners to share information more effectively. Greater visibility enables earlier identification of potential disruptions and more coordinated responses.
In many logistics networks, digital tools now provide near real-time visibility of shipments and supply chain risks. This transparency allows organisations to detect vulnerabilities earlier and respond more quickly when disruptions occur. The benefits are clear: by reducing uncertainty and ensuring that partners operate with shared information, digital technologies can reinforce the foundations of trust across supply ecosystems.
The future of trust-based supply chains
As supply chains continue to evolve, the organisations that thrive will likely be those that recognise the strategic importance of trust.
This does not mean abandoning traditional performance metrics. Cost efficiency, operational excellence and service reliability remain fundamental. But they must increasingly be complemented by measures that capture the health of partnerships, collaboration and shared long-term goals.
In many ways, the old management principle still applies: what gets measured gets improved. By measuring aspects of partnership quality, through surveys, engagement metrics and collaborative initiatives, organisations can gain deeper insight into how their supply chain ecosystems function and where relationships can be strengthened.
In a world where disruption is becoming the norm rather than the exception, resilient supply chains depend not only on infrastructure and technology but on the strength of the partnerships that hold them together. Trust, once considered intangible, is rapidly becoming a core performance indicator for the supply chains of the future.
About the Author
Benjamin Hulot is the Group Chief Procurement Officer at GEODIS. Evolving in large international groups (Veolia, Crown…) and consulting firms (Andersen, EY, CGI Business Consulting) for the past 25 years, Benjamin has developed strong expertise in economical and operational performance management. This includes the management of efficiency plans and, more recently, a focus on the new multifaceted performance driven by ESG (new business models, double materiality, decarbonization plans, DPEF/CSRD…), in the context of transformation through large multi-disciplinary and multicultural projects.
