Post by Carlos Guijarro

FIFA World Cup 2026™ - Canada, Mexico and the United States is finally here! Everyone knows the trophy is coming home to #Spain. That's not what this is about 😅 What actually excites me is how real-time logistics is about to get stress-tested at a scale never seen before. 48 teams. 104 games. Three countries. One enormous operational challenge. The numbers are already striking: - Rock-It Cargo processing 1,500+ time-sensitive shipments per day - Retailers managing demand surges driven by AI-powered forecasting - Container front-loading — partly fueled by World Cup merchandise — driving spot rate spikes on transpacific lanes (aggravated by the current geo-economic dynamics...) (And don't get me started on ticket prices) But here's what this tells me as an operations leader: The World Cup is Peak season. Except there's no second chance, no phased rollout, and no "we'll fix it next week." Every match is a hard deadline. Every shipment is time-critical. Every forecast error has a visible, immediate consequence. This is even more critical due to cross-border restrictions. I've lived versions of this. Managing demand surges where volume spikes faster than any model predicts, and the network has to absorb it in real time (with an equally unpredictable capacity volatility) — taught that : 1. The plan is not the only point. The cadence of decision-making is. When reality diverges from forecast, the teams that perform are the ones that can pivot in hours, not days. 2. Resilience is designed in advance, not improvised under pressure. Carrier concentration risk, single points of failure in the network, insufficient buffers — these were always problems. The surge just makes them visible. 3. AI forecasting is only as good as the judgment applied to it, and the value of the data behind. The retailers using AI-powered demand forecasting will still need operators who know when to trust the model — and when to override it. The World Cup will produce some extraordinary logistics stories over the next few weeks, and remarkable games to watch. Some will be about things that worked beautifully at scale. Others will be about what broke — and why. I'll be watching both. Mostly for Spain, but still. 🏆 #FIFA #WorldCup2026 #Logistics #SupplyChain #OperationsLeadership #PeakDemand #Leadership