- Inverto’s latest Risk Management Study shows increased risk fragmentation as supply shortages surge and costs remain volatile
- 83% of companies are experiencing ongoing supply shortages, driven by a broader mix of causes including supplier capacity constraints
- 89% of participants use digital tools for risk management, 67% to a large extent. This is 21 percentage points higher than in the previous study.
London, May 21, 2026 – European companies are increasingly operating in a permanent state of disruption, as overlapping geopolitical tensions, supply chain constraints and cost pressures reshape the risk landscape, according to latest research from Inverto, a BCG company.
The Risk & Resilience Study 2026*, based on a survey of more than 400 senior executives in Europe, confirms that risks are no longer dominated by singular crises but are instead converging, creating a more volatile and complex operating environment for businesses.
“The defining feature of today’s risk environment is not the severity of a single shock, but the fact that multiple risks are emerging simultaneously,” said Stéphane Crosnier, Managing Director at Inverto. “Companies must continuously redesign their supply chain and risk strategies to remain competitive. The greatest opportunity still lies in proactively strengthening procurement and supply chain resilience to reduce exposure to overlapping risks before they materialise.”
One of the clearest signs of this shift is the fragmentation of risk itself: among 18 potential risks, no clear frontrunner emerged, with each risk mentioned by only 14% to 21% of participants. Today, companies face a broad range of threats, including supplier reliability issues, geopolitical tensions, tariffs, cybersecurity risks and price volatility to name a few. For businesses, this signals a structural change: risk can no longer be prioritised in isolation but must be managed as a system of interdependencies.
Nowhere is this more visible than in global supply chains. The study finds that 83% of companies are experiencing supply shortages, up sharply from previous years, with disruptions driven by a broader mix of causes including supplier capacity constraints, logistics bottlenecks, insolvencies and continued conflicts across the globe.
Lack of visibility in the extended supply chain remains a particular weak point. Only a minority of companies have full transparency beyond their immediate suppliers, leaving them exposed to risks deeper within their supply chains.
“Achieving end-to-end supply chain visibility remains a major challenge for businesses. With multiple disruptions impacting supply, these factors are compounding the risk for businesses beyond their immediate suppliers. Identifying risks further up the chain can help organisations to identify gaps before they become an issue that impacts productivity or the ability to deliver goods,” Crosnier says.
Efforts to stabilise costs are proving increasingly difficult. While companies report improvements in supplier reliability and supply security, both up 5 percentage points year-on-year, price stabilisation has weakened by 8 points to just 34%, underscoring the persistence of cost volatility across global markets.
This is placing procurement functions under growing pressure, with quality, price risks and cyber security now emerging as the top priorities, each cited by nearly a third of respondents.
In response, companies are beginning to redraw the map of global supply. The research points to a marked shift from multi-sourcing trends as response recent crises like Covid, Ukraine war and trade tariffs, towards more concentrated and regionalised supply chains, with 46% of businesses consolidating suppliers and around a third pursuing nearshoring or reshoring strategies. This shift is being primarily driven by trade tariffs.
These moves confirm the broader pivot away from cost-optimised globalisation towards resilience-led design. But they also introduce new tensions.
“Companies are having to make difficult trade-offs,” Crosnier said. “Many organisations are still determining how much they are willing to pay for resilience in front of such a volatile environment.”
Despite increased investment in risk management, the study suggests that many organisations remain on the back foot. While 67% of companies now use digital tools for risk management to a large extend (89% in total), companies are still using the insights reactively as opposed to proactively. The most utilised digital tools are used by task forces for acute risk events as the most cited measure (27%), while proactive tools such as early risk detection systems (21%) and AI-based supplier monitoring (23%) are less frequently used.
“The pivotal step is moving from reactive responses to predictive risk management, using data and AI to anticipate disruption before it occurs and invest on increasing supply chain resilience where it matters. This helps companies being able to deliver and meet their customer’s expectations where others fail,” Crosnier explains.
In a world where disruption is continuous and interconnected, the ability to anticipate, absorb and adapt to shocks is fast becoming a defining competitive advantage. Businesses therefore should translate their digitally enabled risk management to proactive risk mitigation strategies.
About Inverto
Inverto is one of the world’s leading management consultancies for strategic procurement and supply chain management. The firm goes far beyond pure cost management in its services, creating genuine added value and competitive advantage for its clients. Inverto transforms procurement and supply chain functions, fosters innovation, resilience, and sustainability, and thereby enables long-term success.
As a subsidiary of Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Inverto extends BCG’s extensive service portfolio with a broad range of procurement optimization solutions. Inverto currently employs more than 700 experts across three continents. Its clients include globally recognized brands from all industries as well as leading private equity firms.
More information at www.inverto.com.
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