Corporate strategy in 2025 reached a clear inflection point as companies shifted from expansion-led playbooks to a defensibility-first approach, prioritising resilience, execution, and policy-aware capital allocation, according to GlobalData.
Analysis from the researcher finds that corporate activity in 2025 converged around three board-level priorities: capital discipline amid tighter financing conditions, AI-led productivity initiatives moving from pilots to scaled deployments, and tariff- and compliance-driven changes to investment and supply-chain footprints.
Ramnivas Mundada, director of economic research and companies at GlobalData, comments: “2025 reset the corporate playbook. Policy volatility, higher financing costs, and more frequent disruption risks pushed companies to protect cash flows, simplify portfolios, and redesign supply chains for continuity – not just cost efficiency. Growth remains the objective, but the route to growth is now through defensibility.”
Corporate decision-making in 2025 played out against persistent inflation concerns, higher and more volatile raw material costs, and elevated energy sensitivity across key sectors.
Geopolitical flashpoints and trade-route disruptions raised logistics costs and insurance premiums, while sanctions and export controls – particularly in advanced technology and sensitive supply chains – added compliance overheads and increased friction in cross-border operations.
Capital discipline replaces ‘growth at scale’
Across sectors, companies made sharper choices on where to invest and what to exit.
Management teams increasingly prioritised targeted capex (automation, data infrastructure, and localisation), working-capital optimisation and portfolio rationalisation to protect margins amid wage and input-cost pressures.
GlobalData notes that dealmaking also became more selective, with greater emphasis on bolt-on acquisitions and staged investments.
Tariffs and compliance direct drivers of investment
GlobalData highlights that tariff exposure and regulatory scrutiny increasingly shaped where capital was deployed.
Following US tariff-related announcements, Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet and Meta collectively signaled up to around $300-billion in US investment commitments, reinforcing a broader shift toward locating critical infrastructure closer to policy stability and end-demand.
Mundada adds: “The timing of major capex signals how tariff and compliance realities are now being priced into location strategy. For many industries, ‘footprint design’ has become a risk-management decision as much as an operating decision.”
GlobalData expects tariff-aware investment to influence 2026 through improved cost and lead-time resilience, stronger compliance readiness for sensitive technologies and data-heavy operations, and higher competitive barriers as scale investment widens the gap between large players and smaller peers.
AI moves from experimentation to operating-model change
2025 also marked a transition year for generative AI and automation, with enterprises increasingly shifting from pilots to scaled deployment focused on measurable outcomes – lower service costs, faster software delivery, improved demand planning, predictive maintenance, and stronger fraud and risk detection.
However, GlobalData notes that 2026 will test whether companies can convert AI spend into sustainable operating leverage while maintaining governance, data quality, cybersecurity readiness and workforce reskilling at scale.
Outlook for 2026: execution to become the differentiator
Looking ahead, GlobalData expects the 2026 corporate agenda to centre on execution quality rather than announcement volume, with five themes shaping performance:
- Tariff-aware footprint design to become standard (nearshoring, dual-sourcing and multi-node supply chains).
- Compliance to become a growth enabler, supporting cross-border expansion and enterprise contracting.
- ROI scrutiny to intensify, favouring faster payback and strategic optionality.
- Workforce reshaping to accelerate as automation adoption scales.
- Cybersecurity and operational resilience to remain board priorities, especially across third-party and cloud risk.
Mundada concludes: “In 2026, the winners are unlikely to be those with the biggest announcements. Competitive advantage will come from execution – turning AI into repeatable productivity, building supply chains designed for disruption, and deploying capital in ways that remain resilient under tariff, regulatory and geopolitical shocks.”