In a world of shifting demand patterns, rising customer expectations and ongoing supply disruptions, the companies leading the charge in 2025 have something in common: customers are at the center of their planning universe.
According to the newly released 2025 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Supply Chain Planning Solutions, the market is tilting toward tools that empower businesses to stay responsive, data-driven and customer-aligned, without sacrificing speed or scalability.
In this post, we’ll explore how forward-thinking companies are using customer-driven supply chain planning (SCP) to thrive, what differentiates them from the pack, and what to look for when evaluating planning software.
What Does It Mean to Be Customer-Driven?
Customer-driven supply chain planning goes beyond demand forecasting. It’s a mindset and increasingly, a capability that enables businesses to:
- Align supply with actual customer demand, not static historical trends
- Respond quickly to changing preferences, product lifecycles, and market signals
- Leverage real-time data from across the enterprise, from sales and marketing to inventory and logistics
- Build trust and agility into customer relationships with greater fulfillment reliability and service levels
Customer-centric SCP is no longer a future ideal, it’s an essential capability for staying competitive amongst a rapidly evolving landscape.
Why Leading Companies Are Adopting This Approach
Companies that are thriving in today’s volatile landscape are doing three things exceptionally well:
They’re Planning with Real-Time Customer Intelligence
These organizations go beyond sales orders to understand why demand is shifting. By integrating CRM data, point-of-sale insights and even customer sentiment analysis, they can anticipate trends earlier and personalize customer solutions, helping them uncover problems before they arise.
They Prioritize Execution, Not Just Vision
Many companies get caught up in theoretical models and AI hype. But the ones making measurable gains are those who can actually execute; translating forecasts into plans and plans into performance. It’s no surprise that Ability to Execute is a key axis in Gartner’s evaluation.
They Leverage Flexible, Scalable Tools
As businesses grow or diversify, their supply chains become more complex. Leading companies use planning platforms that scale with them, adapt to their unique needs and don’t require ripping out existing infrastructure just to get started.
What to Look for in a Planning Partner
When evaluating supply chain planning solutions in 2025, companies are prioritizing:
- Configurability to model complex and industry-specific requirements
- Scenario planning to test customer-driven strategies across market conditions
- Automation that enhances planners’ speed and accuracy—not just dashboards for the sake of reporting
- Collaboration tools that connect sales, marketing, finance, and operations in one planning environment
- Proven track record of delivering results across industries
What the 2025 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ Reveals
This year’s Magic Quadrant™ shows a clear trend: vendors that prioritize customer impact and real-world execution are separating themselves from those who over-index on theoretical capabilities.
While each organization’s needs are unique, the report offers valuable insight into which platforms are enabling customer-centric planning at scale—and which ones are still catching up.
Final Thoughts: Customer-Centric Planning Ends in Results
Customer-driven supply chain planning is more than a buzzword; it’s a business imperative. The companies thriving in 2025 are those who’ve embedded the voice of the customer into every layer of their planning process.
Whether you’re evaluating a new solution or reassessing your current one, the 2025 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Supply Chain Planning Solutions is a valuable resource for understanding the strengths, weaknesses and direction of the vendors and solutions shaping the future of supply chain planning.
GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally, Magic Quadrant is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.
Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s Research & Advisory organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Supply Chain Planning Solutions, By Pia Orup Lund, Joe Graham, Caleb Thomson, Shane Brett, Eva Dawkins, 14 April 2025
