By: Tom Strohl for Forbes Business Council
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A January report (download required) from the World Economic Forum found 94% of chief economists expect further fragmentation of goods trade over the next three years, while 82% also anticipate greater regionalization of trade, coupled with a continued shift from goods to services.
These forecasts underscore a radical transformation in the global supply chain landscape, where persistent tariff fluctuations, rising costs and geopolitical instability are forcing companies to rethink global sourcing strategies. The age of defaulting to low-cost country sourcing is giving way to something more complex: supply chain resilience as a strategic differentiator.
Amid volatility, many companies are finding their planning processes cannot navigate this level of uncertainty. Traditional models, often fragmented across departments, are frequently focused on near-term (monthly, quarterly or current fiscal year) goals and are highly reactive to change, rather than responsive to it.
Today’s environment requires a more dynamic approach—one that connects execution to strategy and gives leadership visibility into what’s happening now and in the years ahead.
This is where I believe integrated business planning, or IBP, can come in. Sales and operations planning, the precursor to IBP, was an operational tool used to balance product supply with demand. Today, IBP has evolved beyond these foundational functions; it’s a process that aims to give leaders deeper visibility into their organizations, enable agile adjustments and ultimately operationalize strategy.
As the president of a consulting firm that specializes in IBP, here’s why executives may consider implementing the IBP framework, along with how you can get started.
Tariffs: Strategic, Not Just A Line Item
Tariffs impact everything from supplier viability to customer pricing strategies, yet I see many organizations still treat these decisions in silos. This can lead to slow responses, suboptimal trade-offs and undisciplined reactions. Executives must lead the shift from siloed planning to a unified, enterprise-wide approach.
Leaders can use IBP to align strategic objectives with financial and operational execution. IBP requires leadership buy-in, collaboration and data transparency, so I recommend using a centralized planning platform that allows for real-time insights and consistent metrics. This can help companies standardize processes and adopt rolling forecasts, so they can, in turn, respond faster to market shifts.
This transformation requires cultural change, targeted training and phased implementation. But when done right, it fosters long-term strategic alignment. A single version of truth can help companies assess tariff exposure—considering cost, risk, resilience and customer impact—through a shared decision-making lens.
Scenario Planning: A C-Suite Capability, Not A Back-Office Task
From new tariffs to port disruptions, supply chain volatility is the norm. The Business Continuity Institute’s Supply Chain Resilience Report 2024 revealed that nearly 80% of organizations had experienced supply chain disruptions in the past year. These disruptions are no longer anomalies; rather, they are a defining feature of today’s operating environment. Without systems that connect financial modeling to operations, businesses are left guessing.
By integrating financial forecasts with real-time operational data, leadership teams can model multiple scenarios and make informed decisions about supplier diversification, pricing strategy or inventory positioning. This foresight turns disruption into a manageable risk, not a reactive crisis.
Integrated scenario planning is a critical component of a mature IBP process, as it enables organizations to anticipate disruption and respond with agility. For example, in the manufacturing sector, companies have used scenario planning to model supply risks from geopolitical events and their impact on production schedules and margins. During crises like the pandemic, I saw many organizations adopt weekly IBP cycles, integrating best-, worst- and base-case scenarios to inform decisions on inventory, workforce and cash flow. This approach supports faster decision-making, aligns tactical execution with strategic goals and strengthens resilience across the value chain.
How Leaders Can Adopt IBP
To implement IBP effectively, start by defining the strategic outcomes you want your organization to achieve, such as margin resilience, supply chain agility or stronger alignment between financial and operational plans. This vision must be clearly communicated and backed by executive sponsorship. In my experience, 9 out of 10 businesses fail to successfully implement their strategy. Among the reasons for this is that only a small fraction of the workforce understands the vision and strategic objectives. IBP is the conduit through which these strategies are operationalized. Therefore, senior leaders must sell their vision and strategic objectives to the entire organization.
From there, prioritize building cross-functional governance, establishing accurate and reliable data and selecting a scalable planning platform. Starting with a high-impact pilot, like demand and supply planning, can demonstrate value and build momentum.
Remember that success depends on driving cultural alignment, breaking down silos and using IBP outputs to steer real business decisions. High-performing cross-functional teams cannot exist when multiple versions of truth are used to run the business. Silos in organizations become fortified when multiple plans exist. The single biggest driver to break down silos and develop solid cross-functional governance is to drive the business to a single version of truth.
This means that marketing, sales, product supply and finance should all be working the same plan. Only then can leaders effectively assess gaps to the annual business plan and the longer-range strategic objectives through IBP. Once leaders have this visibility, cultural alignment can take root and cross-functional teams can be deployed to apply corrective actions to close any gaps.
Challenges To Prepare For
IBP is as much about people, culture and leadership as it is about tools and processes. In practice, organizations often trip over adoption hurdles such as siloed functions and a lack of cross‑functional alignment, which can undermine IBP’s ambition to unify strategic, operational and financial plans across the enterprise.
Leadership vacuum or insufficient executive engagement can also derail implementation, as IBP demands visible top‑team ownership and accountability, not just sponsorship. Additionally, I’ve found companies frequently over‑invest in software solutions, often opting for overly complex platforms that delay value realization.
IBP can, and should, be stood up in months rather than years, with technology playing a supportive role to behavior‑ and process‑driven transformation.
Ultimately, tariffs, inflation and geopolitical instability aren’t short-term challenges—they’re enduring. While IBP doesn’t eliminate risk, it fundamentally changes how companies respond. Organizations can use this approach to help evaluate trade-offs, align execution with strategy and build the resilience needed to thrive in an unpredictable world.