Companies spent much of 2025 navigating an unpredictable operating environment, adjusting their supply networks to tariff shifts, climate-related disruptions, and geopolitical tensions with little warning. A new survey from consultancy West Monroe suggests that the coming year won’t bring calmer conditions, but it will demand a more structured, data-driven form of agility.
According to West Monroe’s analysis of 250 manufacturing, retail, and distribution executives, most organizations spent the past year making rapid operational adjustments in response to policy changes while experimenting with emerging AI tools to keep pace. Leaders noted that the speed of change often exceeded the speed of insight, creating a persistent gap between action and certainty.
Rapid Reactions Exposed Data Blind Spots
West Monroe found that nearly half of surveyed companies responded to major trade policy changes within a single business week in 2025. Yet that responsiveness came with consequences: many decisions were made before key cost, supplier, or capacity data could be verified. Executives described a cycle where reaction was necessary, but confidence in the decision-making process lagged.
The shift toward 2026 planning reflects a desire to break that pattern. Companies are looking to tighten order-level visibility, improve landed-cost accuracy, and develop better intelligence on supplier stability, capabilities that help ensure speed does not undermine outcomes. This aligns with broader market evidence: recent data shows that companies investing in multi-node planning models and predictive scenario tools during 2025’s tariff cycles reported fewer downstream corrections in production and logistics schedules.
AI Adoption Expands as Priorities Reset
West Monroe’s survey indicates that a quarter of respondents identified inventory optimization as their primary focus for 2026, followed by fulfillment speed and cost discipline. Technology investment continues to climb as well. Among middle-market firms, 91% now use generative AI in some capacity, and many cite tangible returns, from shorter processing times to improved workforce productivity and lower operating costs.
These adoption patterns mirror a wider industry trend. According to trade reports, manufacturers that embedded AI into planning workflows during 2025’s volatility saw measurable improvements in cycle-time consistency and automated exception handling, reinforcing why AI is becoming a foundational capability rather than an experimental add-on.
Taken together, the data suggests a sector moving from reactive posture to deliberate resilience, underpinned by tools and processes built for constant adjustment.
What May Quietly Redefine 2026
One factor that warrants closer attention in the year ahead is the growing disconnect between how quickly trade conditions shift and how slowly many firms can validate supplier and cost data. Recent reports on tariff enforcement and freight rerouting show that upstream impacts often surface unevenly, with delays in how price changes, capacity constraints, and risk signals propagate through multi-tier networks. Companies that plan for this information lag, by building processes that test assumptions early, pressure-test orders against multiple scenarios, and anchor decisions in the most stable data they can verify, may find themselves operating with a steadier hand. It’s a practical adjustment, but one that could meaningfully influence how resilient networks become as volatility persists.
