Industry perspective

Cleo Included in the Gartner® Market Overview for Supply Chain Orchestration Platforms

Cleo has been included as one of the Representative Vendors in the 2026 Gartner Market Overview for Supply Chain Orchestration Platforms.

In our view, the report reflects a broader shift already underway: supply chain leaders are moving beyond disconnected integration and visibility tools toward platforms that help them coordinate decisions and execution across the business.

Published July 22, 2026 5-minute read Supply chain orchestration
A market taking shape

Supply chain orchestration is becoming a defined technology market

Gartner published its Market Overview for Supply Chain Orchestration Platforms on July 16, 2026. Cleo is included as one of the Representative Vendors within this market.

Supply chain orchestration platforms are building blocks for adaptive and agile supply chains. These platforms govern and execute operational supply chain decisions to optimize the impact of such decisions on strategic business outcomes.

In our view, the significance of this emerging market is not simply that supply chain organizations need another software category. It is that companies need a better way to turn information into coordinated action.

Most businesses have already invested in planning systems, integration technology, ERPs, warehouse platforms, transportation systems, analytics tools, and partner portals. Yet critical processes still break down in the spaces between them.

Orders move through one system. Shipments are monitored in another. EDI errors are handled by a technical team. Supplier updates arrive by email. Customer-service teams learn about disruptions after a commitment is already at risk.

Supply chain orchestration addresses those gaps by connecting systems, partners, processes, context, and decisions around the business outcome that needs to be delivered.

Why orchestration, why now?

Connectivity alone is no longer enough

In our view, supply chain orchestration is gaining traction because organizations can no longer manage growing complexity through isolated systems, dashboards, alerts, and manual follow-up.

01

Supply chain processes cross company boundaries

An order-to-cash process can involve a customer, retailer, distributor, manufacturer, warehouse, carrier, marketplace, and multiple internal applications. No single organization controls every participant, but each is affected when the process breaks.

02

Operational context is fragmented

Teams may see an individual transaction failure without knowing which order, shipment, customer commitment, service-level agreement, or revenue outcome is affected. Visibility has to extend beyond individual files and endpoints.

03

Exceptions are impacting your business

A missing acknowledgment, rejected shipment notice, late supplier update, or invoice discrepancy can quickly create fulfillment delays, chargebacks, lost revenue, or customer escalations. Identifying the problem is only the first step.

04

AI needs trustworthy supply chain context

AI can help prioritize risks, explain errors, recommend next actions, and automate repeatable work—but only when it can access accurate transaction history, process context, partner relationships, and operational data.

Closing the execution gap

Orchestration connects what happened with what should happen next

Traditional integration focuses on connectivity and data movement. Orchestration builds on that essential foundation by helping the business coordinate an end-to-end process and protect its intended outcome.

Disconnected operations

Seeing individual transactions

  • Monitor files, messages, and endpoints separately
  • Investigate technical errors without business context
  • Coordinate resolution through email and manual handoffs
  • Reconcile status across separate partner and internal systems
  • React after a shipment, SLA, or customer commitment is affected
Orchestrated execution

Managing the complete business process

  • Correlate EDI, API, file, application, and partner activity
  • Connect technical events to orders, shipments, invoices, and SLAs
  • Prioritize exceptions based on operational impact
  • Guide teams toward the right resolution and next action
  • Use real-time context to prevent avoidable disruption
The Cleo perspective

Why Cleo is helping lead the orchestration category

Cleo starts with the integration foundation that powers real supply chain execution—then layers the visibility, contextualized intelligence, governance, and action needed to seamlessly execute the business process.

01

Modern EDI as the foundation

Purchase orders, acknowledgments, shipment notices, invoices, forecasts, inventory updates, and other EDI transactions remain essential to daily supply chain execution.

02

EDI, APIs, applications, and files together

Cleo brings EDI and API integration , managed file transfer, application connectivity, and document-based partner workflows together rather than forcing teams to manage each through a separate tool.

03

Business-process context

Teams can follow transactions across an end-to-end order, shipment, invoice, or procurement process instead of viewing each message as an isolated technical event.

04

Intelligent exception management

Cleo AI helps categorize issues, explain their business impact, identify likely causes, and guide teams toward the appropriate resolution.

05

Proactive risk detection

Anomaly detection, compliance monitoring, and chargeback prevention help teams identify unusual activity and process risk before it becomes a more expensive business problem.

06

Flexible execution and service models

Organizations can operate through self-service, Cleo Managed Services, or a blended model while maintaining visibility into partner activity and business-critical processes.

From connection to action

What orchestration looks like in practice

Cleo helps coordinate the data and activity surrounding revenue-critical supply chain processes—from the first partner connection through execution, monitoring, issue resolution, and continuous improvement.

1

Connect the ecosystem

Onboard customers, suppliers, retailers, carriers, 3PLs, marketplaces, applications, and internal systems.

2

Automate the transaction flow

Move, transform, validate, and route EDI, API, file-based, and document data through repeatable business processes.

3

Get a complete, live order view

Follow an order or procurement workflow across partners, transactions, applications, milestones, and business events.

4

Detect risk and disruption

Get contextualized intelligence for failed transactions, missing milestones, unusual activity, compliance risk, and other exceptions requiring attention.

5

Take Action

Give technical and operational teams the context, guidance, and workflow needed to respond before commitments are missed—or let autonomous agents do the work for you.

Customer perspective

The value of orchestration is visible in the outcomes customers experience

Cleo customers are using a connected integration and execution foundation to improve visibility, automate critical processes, and operate more effectively across their supply chain ecosystems.

We use Cleo Integration Cloud to manage all of our EDI, which is the lifeblood of our supply chain operations. TaylorMade’s relationship with Cleo moves our B2B data transformation 100 percent into the cloud and enables the hundreds of thousands of monthly communications that drive our business.
Jen Niethammer Senior EDI and Compliance Coordinator, TaylorMade
The Cleo Integration Cloud platform is secure, easy to use, and highly flexible to meet our business requirements. Today, more than 98% of our B2B transactions are running through CIC, and we can see everything that’s going on.
John Hwee Director of IT, Duraflame, Inc.
Cleo has provided much greater flexibility across our critical operational systems. With EDI and API capabilities in a single toolset, the ease of data transformation, and the increased automation through Cleo, we are laying the required foundational elements for our business to properly operate at a global level.
Jim Anderson Chief Operating Officer, Four Hands
Over time we have adapted our organization to fit the new mold of what consumers need. Cleo is core to that, and we count on Cleo Integration Cloud for making all of these revenue-critical interactions with our trading partners, retailers, and eCommerce systems work as they should, end-to-end, with our internal systems of record.
Jan Arvay Vice President of IT, Sauder Woodworking
Our view of what comes next

The orchestration category will be defined by execution—not more dashboards

Supply chain organizations do not need another system that simply tells them something went wrong. They need technology that can understand the process, determine what is affected, help prioritize the response, and coordinate the next action.

That requires a strong integration foundation. It requires real-time access to the EDI transactions, APIs, applications, documents, partner activity, and operational events that reveal what is happening across the business.

It also requires intelligence that can connect technical events to business commitments—and execution capabilities that help teams move from insight to resolution.

From moving data to governing outcomes

In our view, that is the central promise of supply chain orchestration: helping organizations continuously coordinate their ecosystem around outcomes such as revenue, fulfillment, customer service, supplier performance, compliance, resilience, and growth.

We appreciate being included as a Representative Vendor in the Gartner Market Overview and welcome the opportunity to contribute Cleo’s perspective as this market continues to develop.

Ready to move from disconnected integration to orchestrated execution?

Explore how Cleo connects EDI, APIs, applications, partners, and operational intelligence to help your teams protect the supply chain outcomes that matter most.

Attribution and disclaimer

Gartner, Market Overview for Supply Chain Orchestration Platforms, Balaji Abbabatulla, Christian Titze, 16 July 2026.

GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally 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 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.

All interpretations and opinions identified as “our view” are Cleo’s own.