Adapting rather than reacting to trade tariff chaos
The first half of 2025 has been characterised by the uncertainty of will-they-won’t-they trade tariffs in the United States, making it difficult for many global firms to weigh up whether the way they will interact with one of their biggest markets. But according to Oliver Wight partners Kirsty Braines and Les Brookes, and Board Field CTO Rich Wagner, knee-jerk reactions to tariff changes could end up creating even more business volatility, if firms are not careful.
“When faced with disruption, the natural instinct is to act quickly” explain the experts, via Oliver Wight’s website.
Since the tariff announcements, this is a pattern which has emerged across multiple industries. Businesses have hastily switched suppliers, redirected shipments mid-route, or abandoned market segments all together, without comprehensive analysis.
While it might be tempting to "create a war room" to manage tariff impacts, however, a siloed, reactive approach will often generate more problems than solutions – especially when the US tariffs have been postponed or changed on multiple occasions. This can also create contradictory decisions. While leadership might call for a company to cease shipments from China to America, due to tariff impacts, procurement might still approve purchases that would ultimately travel that exact route.
Distinguishing signal from noise
“Without an integrated approach to decision-making, their actions increased volatility rather than mitigating it,” the consultants argue. “Organisations with robust Integrated Business Planning (IBP) processes have a distinct advantage in this environment. Rather than reacting to each piece of news in isolation, they evaluate implications across their entire enterprise – from demand patterns to supply networks, from product portfolios to financial outcomes.”
While some organisations make isolated decisions that create further instability, integrated businesses systematically evaluate scenarios that consider a number of factors. These include demand impacts across different market segments; supply chain reconfiguration options and timelines; and product portfolio adjustments to maintain profitability, among others.
At the same time, technology can give a key advantage in realising this. Advanced analytics platforms now offer powerful capabilities to enhance this signal detection process, for example. Rather than relying on human intuition alone, then, AI-powered correlation engines like Foresight could be used to “objectively identify which external factors genuinely influence business performance”.
“Most importantly, its hypothesis testing and validation capabilities help organisations understand the relationships between external events and business outcomes with unprecedented clarity,” the experts add. “Leading brands like Kraft-Heinz and Whataburger are already leveraging this approach to gain competitive advantage. By automatically identifying the most relevant industry indicators and correlating them with internal data, these organisations can develop scenario-based forecasts grounded in actual macroeconomic indicators rather than guesswork.
From reactive to meaningful planning
The consultants continue, “The power of this approach becomes particularly evident when addressing tariff challenges. Foresight enables organisations to build baseline, optimistic, and pessimistic forecasts grounded in real-time tariff assumptions. Companies can adjust key assumptions – including employee wages, interest rates, unemployment, industrial production, producer prices, and consumer spending – to reflect potential downstream effects of tariffs.”
The power of advanced analytics, however, only manifests when coupled with robust enterprise planning processes. This integration challenge “represents the critical gap between method and meaning that many organisations struggle to bridge” – with firms having invested heavily in transactional systems that execute business processes effectively, but lacking integrated planning layer needed to transform data into insight and insight into business decision making.
The solution combines process experience with technological capability. According to Oliver Wight and Board, IBP provides the methodological framework – connecting strategy to execution through structured planning processes that span functions and time horizons. Meanwhile, platforms that combine planning capabilities with advanced analytics provide the technological foundation to transform data into meaning.
“As tariff impacts continue to unfold, the contrast between reactive and integrated approaches will become increasingly apparent,” the experts conclude. “Some organisations will exhaust resources chasing noise, while others will focus energy on the signals that truly matter, creating stability amid volatility and opportunity amid disruption.”
