Challenge: A manufacturer of top-tier athletic apparel and footwear is also a supplier for its own retail and wholesale channels. As a global company, it lacked visibility into purchase orders and struggled with shipment tracking. This led to restrictions in the company’s ability to collaborate with a supplier base of several hundred vendors and factories — as well as limited end-to-end visibility.

With the U.S.-versus-the-world trade war threat heating up, Harley-Davidson Inc. and Jack Daniel’s maker Brown-Forman Corp. may just be the canaries in the coal mine.

When Volvo Car Group broke ground on its first U.S. assembly plant in 2015, it was a proud proof point for the Swedish automaker’s rebound and global expansion, not a chess move in anticipation of a possible trade war.