Building Resilience in an Erratic Economy

Uncertainty is no longer a temporary condition. Instead, it’s becoming the standard operating environment for enterprise finance and risk teams.

In this environment, risk resilience is a strategic imperative. But understanding where to start and what to prioritize to enhance resilience can be difficult. Nearly 40% of the leaders responding to a Dun & Bradstreet Pulse Survey admitted they are not fully prepared for a full range of risks, even though most have increased investment in risk mitigation during the past 18 months.

To help credit, treasury, and risk professionals address these challenges, Dun & Bradstreet economist Grant Hixon and financial risk expert Rhonda Buras have shared compelling data, trend analysis, and best practices in a recorded webinar. Keep reading for highlights that can help you assess and manage risk more effectively in today's jittery financial climate. (You can also watch a recording of the full webinar here.)

See the Big Picture: Slower Growth, Diverging Policy, More Angst

According to Hixon, the global economy is resilient — having avoided a major downturn — but far from risk-free. Structural weaknesses remain. For business leaders, the priority is to build resilience to navigate ongoing uncertainty.

“Forecasting growth feels particularly challenging,” Hixon noted, due in part to continued inflationary pressures, tight financial conditions, and trade realignments rippling through markets.

Global monetary policy adds another layer of complexity. Central banks remain cautious. While some continue modest policy easing or signal a pivot from tightening, most are reluctant to cut aggressively because upside inflationary risks have not yet fully receded. “I expect that a central bank ‘pause and evaluate’ path will dominate rather than a bold shift to full easing mode,” Hixon said, pointing to the pass-through effects on investment and pricing.

Though apprehension around trade and economic policies has moderated, macroeconomic uncertainty remains high, and that generally puts the brakes on business activity. When markets feel unsettled, companies often delay big investments, slow down hiring, and even see supply chains stall. “When uncertainty rises," Hixon noted, "investment tends to become sluggish and business decisions tend to be shelved.”

Despite the mixed data, Hixon suggested that a “soft landing” for the U.S. economy still looks possible, supported by robust but gradually easing growth, moderating inflation, and recession odds that are easing from earlier peaks. Labor market softness has emerged as a key concern and so have still-elevated rates of corporate bankruptcies. He recommended that finance leaders scenario-test liquidity, stress-test cash flows, and lock in flexible risk plans before conditions tighten again.

Six Key Trends That Can Threaten Your Risk Position

Buras and Hixon urged finance and risk professionals to focus on six particular trends in this unpredictable climate, due to their potential impact on financial outcomes.

1) Rising Interest Rates: Even with recent cuts, rates remain historically high and their lingering impact will likely keep pressure on credit access, borrowing costs, and companies’ ability to service debt.

How to strengthen your risk policies: Consider repricing risk and working capital. Build a dynamic cost-of-credit component into pricing for higher-risk accounts to protect margins and cash flow. “For high-risk accounts, assess a cost of credit in your pricing to create a liquidity buffer," Buras suggested.

Finance teams may want to tighten their automated order approvals by factoring in risk signals, like recent payment issues or frequent over-limit activity, so exposure doesn’t increase as higher rates take a toll. It’s also a good time to review reserves, following CECL guidelines, to make sure they reflect the latest default risks by sector and region.

2) Inflation and Cost Pressures: Input costs remain unpredictable. Global inflation has cooled but remains sticky in some regions due to tariffs and energy costs. The ability to pass those costs along varies by sector.

How to strengthen your risk policies: Group customers by how sensitive they are to inflation, then adjust cash flow forecasts and credit limits accordingly. “Compare your margins against your risk exposure,” Buras advised. If the potential loss is greater than what the relationship brings in, consider lowering limits or moving to secured terms.

Keep an eye on changes in buying patterns too. Are larger orders a sign of real growth, or are they happening because other suppliers pulled terms? Dig into the reasons behind volume changes.

3) Geopolitical Instability: Sanctions, elections, and regional conflicts are shifting currency, energy, and logistics risk in real time. Cyber risk is also surging.

How to strengthen your risk policies: Integrate country and counterparty risk at onboarding and review. “Assess country‑level risk as well as company‑specific risk,” Buras emphasized, especially where your customers’ suppliers (or customers’ customers) operate.

Look closely at ownership structures, including private equity ties, to see how financial trouble could spread and who’s ultimately responsible. Recent bankruptcy trends help show why this is so important.

4) Trade Disruptions and Tariffs: Though effective U.S. tariff rates have fallen from recent peaks, they remain elevated by historical norms. The result is structurally higher import costs and decision-maker uncertainty for supply chains and pricing strategies. “Tariffs, or just the threat of tariffs, feed into wider business uncertainty around supply chains, input costs, and pricing,” Hixon said.

How to strengthen your risk policies: Build inventory buffers where possible to protect against tariff or lead-time surprises. Update onboarding processes for distributors and resellers, especially if end customers start skipping intermediaries because of tariff-related price gaps. Recheck credit terms and limits to make sure they still fit the situation.

5) Debt Sustainability: Higher interest rates and uneven growth are pushing bankruptcy risk back up from the ultra-low levels after the COVID pandemic. Watch for early warning signs, such as maxed-out credit lines, aging creeping higher, and a spike in disputes.

How to strengthen your risk policies: Review leading indicators like credit-limit utilization, frequent manual releases, and dispute patterns (especially around discounts, terms, and taxes, which can signal stalling tactics). Keep an eye on external filings and any changes in bank references. “We never want to be the person chairing the creditor committee by being the only one they paid on time — until they stopped,” Buras warned.

Also, make sure your exposure matches your margin. If you’re carrying a $100,000 exposure for only about $1,000 in margin, it’s time to rethink terms. Consider secured deals, partial prepayments, or alternative pricing.

6) Supply Chain Disruption: Dun & Bradstreet’s Global Business Optimism Insights report shows optimism about supply chain stability remains at risk of disruption. Most businesses anticipate improved control over delivery lead times, better ability to contain supplier costs, and reduced supplier concentration, but firms remain pragmatic and still perceive that long-term stabilization of supply chains is a work in progress.

How to strengthen your risk policies: Don’t just look at your direct customers; monitor secondary and tertiary risks, because your customer’s suppliers (and your own) can impact you. Buras suggested checking for overlaps among suppliers and customers to uncover opportunities for set-off arrangements or tighter terms with counterparties.

In addition, tailor your risk policies by industry and country. During the pandemic, sectors like hospitality needed special treatment. Expect similar adjustments as supply chain costs and tariffs continue to shift.

Key Processes That Can Impact Resilience

It's essential for enterprises to identify and monitor the processes that can significantly impact risk and profitability management. According to Buras, four particular processes stand out for their potential to address vulnerabilities and increase the effectiveness of risk approaches in today's unpredictable economic environment.
 

Process	Actions
Customer Onboarding	Benchmark current application volumes vs. six-month averages to detect demand dislocations. Adjust tiering for returning/lapsed customers; scrutinize why they're back and whether other suppliers have tightened terms.  Layer in industry and country risk scoring at the point of credit decision.
Portfolio Monitoring	Maintain hierarchies and ownership charts (including private equity) to see where risk is concentrated. Flag sector hot spots (e.g., retail reliance on overseas sourcing) for earlier reviews. Combine in-house payment data with third-party monitoring for a fuller view; trust but verify data sources.
Receivables Management	Track buying-pattern changes and ask why (for instance, is it growth vs. displacement). Compare payment behavior across divisions and delivery locations; divergence can signal emerging stress.  Tighten or automate order-release gates using risk signals (such as aging creep, over-limit frequency, etc.).
Liquidity Management	Build liquidity buffers via pricing add-ons for high-risk accounts. Reallocate reserves (according to CECL) by sector/country as risk evolves. Align exposure to profitability, and be willing to shift terms when the numbers no longer work.

Of course, communication is also a crucial process. Teams should communicate regularly and frequently, and be sure to ask each other these important questions:

• Where are we exposed to floating rate risk, and do our customer terms and pricing reflect our cost of capital?
• Which segments are most cost‑sensitive due to inflation, and how are we updating forecasts and limits for them?
• Which suppliers and customers sit in countries with higher geopolitical risks, and what are our options for addressing them?
• What is our inventory and pricing strategy under higher tariffs, and how quickly can we adapt?
• When it comes to debt sustainability, what indicators of customer stress should we monitor, and how do these indicators inform our automated controls?
• Within our supply chain, are we monitoring secondary/tertiary exposure and ownership changes that affect counterparty risk?

Resilience Is Powerful and Possible

Enterprise finance and risk teams are facing an increasingly complex web of risks that demand better visibility, faster decision-making, and more flexible risk management strategies.

By focusing on particular risk trends and processes, you can improve your understanding of customers and suppliers, and identify threats and vulnerabilities more swiftly. You’ll also develop richer insights to determine which data-driven actions will strengthen your organization’s profitability, resilience, and continuity.

Watch the Webinar

Want more economic analysis and risk management best practices to help you reduce threats, enhance your resilience, and protect your bottom line? Watch the full webinar now.