Supply shocks, including the impact of ongoing geopolitical uncertainty in the Middle East, will now be priced into the cost of business and supply chains, according to ANZ’s Nicholas Anzman.[reference:53] Speaking to ANZ Institutional Insights, Anzman — ANZ’s Head of Trade and Supply Chain Product Management and Development — said regional conflict, trade tensions, and instability would continue to expose the vulnerabilities of global supply chains, and businesses were changing how they assess and manage geopolitical risk in response.[reference:54] ‘Australian corporate treasurers and CFOs are now thinking about embedding geopolitical risk as a structural component of managing the business,’ he said.[reference:55]
Risks previously considered low-probability events with limited operational impact, according to Anzman, will likely now be recognized as material factors with direct implications on supply chains and business continuity.[reference:56] ‘Geopolitical risk is now going to be priced in to how businesses operate across the globe,’ he said. ‘That is going to have significant ramifications about how businesses will now think about deploying resourcing into new markets and what sort of contingency measures need to be surrounding higher-risk markets to ensure the continuity of supply.'[reference:57] In the longer term, the volatility seen on markets through the first half of 2026 is ‘here to stay,’ according to Anzman.[reference:58]
For business, part of the solution is strengthening systems and intelligence capabilities across all levels.[reference:59] ‘You’re going to see a market shift [in] how data is going to be captured to understand the vulnerabilities and the strategic concentrations that businesses have within their supplier relationships and networks,’ Anzman said.[reference:60] This shift is already evident in increased scrutiny around the security of supply, even in regions previously considered very stable. Investing in intelligence will help businesses ‘think about diversification or alternative supply arrangements,’ Anzman said—as well as how they get that intelligence ‘into the hands, and in the dashboards, at the treasurer, procurement and even at the C-Suite level and beyond.'[reference:61]
The implications for supplier risk management are significant. Manufacturing supply chains face two concurrent yet structurally distinct forces of disruption in 2026: geopolitical trade fragmentation, which affects landed costs and supplier availability, and AI-driven automation adoption, which is reshaping labor assumptions, supplier capabilities, and production cost structures simultaneously.[reference:62] Geopolitical risk is visible and regularly discussed. The AI-related supply chain risk is subtler and, at most mid-sized manufacturers, almost entirely absent from contingency plans.[reference:63] The organizations that succeed in this environment will be those that treat geopolitical risk as a structural cost of doing business rather than a temporary challenge to be managed reactively. They will invest in continuous monitoring capabilities, build diversified supplier networks, and embed scenario planning into strategic decision-making. Geopolitical risk in 2026 is not optional to manage—it is a structural feature of the operating environment that requires systematic, continuous attention.
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