This issue's key takeaways:
- Tariffs, political instability, and climate events were leading causes of risk and disruption throughout global supply chains
- Data analytics and supplier collaboration were key elements of proactive and creative risk management strategies
- Artificial intelligence’s impact is only just beginning
- Companies need to be forward-thinking and data-driven to find competitive advantages in a business environment of increased risk
Risk trivia:
Keeping tabs on the vast fortunes of the world’s wealthiest individuals is a juicy (i.e: resentment-filled) way to spend a few minutes of one's time.
While the richest people list shifts as a result of fluctuations in the stock market and other economic hocus pocus, the top ten is largely the same men year after year.
Which leads us to today’s trivia question:
Can you name a woman who has appeared in the Top 10 of the Forbes World’s Billionaires List?
Snapshot: Looking back at the supply chain challenges and opportunities that defined 2025.
By James H. Gellert, Executive Chair, RapidRatings
As the last leaves of autumn and the first snow of winter has hit the ground, we are reminded that another calendar year is almost over. Looking back at 2025 is an exercise in reliving challenges big and small, though supply chain professionals may push back and argue that a more accurate description of 2025’s challenges would be big and bigger.
In the spirit of evaluating where things currently stand, let’s spend some time reflecting on the major hurdles, constraints, and opportunities for growth we saw in 2025.
The Obvious: Trump’s tariffs
Ahh yes, tariffs.
If you can think of a single word that more aptly captures the economic events of the past year, I’d love to hear it. No other issue has lived in the headlines more consistently, disrupted global trade more completely, or forced changes to logistical and financial plans with as much urgency. If tariffs were an entertainer they’d have won an Academy Award (and a Razzie), released the top-selling album, starred in the most watched television show, and performed at halftime of the Super Bowl, all in one year.
Unfortunately, the Trump tariffs have not been entertaining, just stressful and chaotic. Implementation began immediately following Trump’s inauguration in late January, and by April the average applied tariff rate had risen from 2.5% to an estimated 27%.
The repercussions were dramatic: companies had to invest billions in reshoring, reconfigure their supply chains, and develop contingency plans to manage the financial realities created by rising costs. And these are just the companies that had the resources to do the above. Many many more had to freeze plans, husband cash and wait out the uncertainty while suffering higher costs and lower margins.
Tariffs were the most volatile force of the year and will continue to shape how supply chain professionals consider risk long after 2025 ends.
The Persistent: Geopolitical instability
International tensions are a major risk factor in any given year, and 2025 was no different.
A US trade war with China. Retributive and antagonistic tariff policies between traditional (albeit cautious) trade partners. Escalating frictions leading to an increase in untested trade alliances. Ongoing wars between Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Palestine. According to data from the World Economic Forum, there are 110 armed conflicts taking place across the globe, which both reflects and portends a risk landscape of incredible uncertainty.
The World Bank’s Global Supply Chain Stress Index, which monitors, among other things, delays at ports and in shipping cargoes, is running well above long-term trends.
For supply chain professionals, it all added up to an overlapping web of evolving risk, as issues of cost, sourcing, materials, labor, and financing increasingly beset supply chain management.
The Strategic: Data analytics’ pivotal role
This perilous risk landscape has increased the importance of proactive risk management.
The stakes of success are high, and every decision, every delivery, every detail matters. Companies that incorporated financial health analytics into their decision-making processes were ahead of the curve in 2025.
By applying data analytics to the massive quantities of data generated throughout a supply chain network, including financial health data, organizations noticed patterns and gained key insights into areas of their operation to which they otherwise would be blind.
As managing risk grows in importance, so does having the ability to accurately assess and predict crucial risk factors pertaining to a supplier's financial health and resilience.
The Intensifying: Climate events and repercussions
2025 was another year in which the damage and scope of climate-related disasters continued to grow.
Massive wildfires in California devastated the region, while flooding in Texas, hurricanes in the East and South, and snowstorms across the country all caused major disruption to supply chains in 2025.
As destructive climate events become the new normal, supply chain professionals are forced to develop coherent strategies for unpredictable and unprecedented scenarios.
The Adaptive: Supplier-base collaboration
It’s hardly all doom and gloom, as companies are using innovative methods to adapt to elevated risk conditions and build more resilient supply chains.
One component, leveraging data to maximum effect, we discussed earlier, but another is incorporating the knowledge and information of the supplier-base to improve services and fine-tune processes. As external forces grow more uncertain, organizations are looking internally, and within their supply networks, for competitive advantages.
This type of holistic collaboration with suppliers increases access to quality, wide-ranging information and helps companies generate creative solutions that are increasingly difficult to develop in today’s precarious business climate.
The Widening: Supply Chain/Procurement linkage to the CFO’s Office
While not new, CFOs really care more about supply chain risk now than ever before. Sure, there’s always been a focus on cost controls from procurement and supply chain, but the most sophisticated companies are doing more. COVID put supplier collaboration in the CFO’s field of vision and the tariff environment reinforced how supply chain analytics can be used for mutual financial benefit. We see more companies unlocking working capital efficiencies for themselves, and their suppliers, while strengthening overall supply chain resilience. Win win.
The Inevitable: AI
Hovering behind every corner in 2025 was the rapidly expanding role of artificial intelligence, and the looming spectre of its future domination.
Among many staggering AI statistics listed by Forbes, its $244billion market size and 31% growth since last year stand out, and while there’s no shortage of impressive (and some would say, scary) numbers that convey AI’s status as a driver of change, I’ll skip all that and just state the obvious: AI is here and global supply chains will be massively impacted.
More data, insights and actionable intelligence are fantastic and RapidRatings has long been a proponent. An irony we’ll continue exploring in 2026 is how much supply chain risk is introduced with the growth of AI, even while AI will help mitigate supply chain risk going forward. Much more on this to come.
Trivia Answer:
The answer is….there hasn’t been one!
Not a single woman has cracked the top ten of the annual billionaires list.
Granted, the list only goes back to 1987, and several women have made the top twenty (Alice Walton, Francoise Bettencourt Meyers, Julie Koch), but thus far the very top of the billionaires list remains very much a boys-only club.
If you’re curious about how RapidRatings offers the most accurate and comprehensive financial data analytics in the industry, check out RapidRatings.com to learn more.
