In 2025, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a supply chain-related report that doesn’t open with a variation on the volatility and uncertainty of the global landscape. Spoiler alert: this is no different – and for good reason – it is the context driving a magnitude of business decisions, every day, the world over.
With the surge in globalization, supply chains became longer, more interconnected, and more complex. This was a revolution; global supply chains offered access to markets, labor, resources, and quality at an almost unimaginable scale and price point. Yet, in the haste and excitement that followed, a trade-off formed.
Under the surface, a multifaceted network of vulnerabilities was growing; some of these new supply routes were riskier than previous ones and offered little resilience out of the box. Companies that knowingly or unknowingly accepted this trade-off, but did not understand and plan for the risks that ensued, were not prepared for what came next.
The volatility and uncertainty of recent years have catapulted the risk-resilience trade-off up the C-suite’s agenda. Risk has breached the surface as we face an era-defining global trade reconfiguration driven by trade wars, political conflict, protectionism, crises, regulatory pressures, and economic instability.
