Business resilience more vital than ever after years of epic uncertainty
Global Trade Strategy & Resilience Taskforce looks to focus businesses on broader challenges of geopolitical events, trade and tariffs
For any corporation that’s been in business since the start of 2020, it’s lived through the first global pandemic in over one hundred years, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – with its subsequent impact on world energy – plus a global tariff war that’s thrown international trade into turmoil.
Against this backdrop, Deloitte has created a cross-functional Global Trade Strategy & Resilience Taskforce, which supports clients who are experiencing major trading impacts from geopolitical events.
"A deeper understanding of resilience planning means that companies need to have a genuinely comprehensive understanding of supply chains and markets."
Lousie Kelly, Global Trade Strategy & Resilience Lead
Louise Kelly leads this Deloitte taskforce: “The Taskforce was a response to client challenges – not just in terms of dealing with tax matters or a particular technology solution to supply chain – but how can they look at their business more holistically and respond robustly to the challenges. The Taskforce takes expertise from different areas of our business to determine how we can best support our clients to address the issues arising in supply chain and trade.
“There’s a danger, at the moment, that clients may predominantly focus on immediate tariff mitigation, but this would be at the expense of developing broader resilience strategies, with long-term impacts, in a world of ongoing geopolitical instability.
“A deeper understanding of resilience planning means that companies get a comprehensive view of supply chains and markets, know how to navigate foreign direct investment and domestic direct investment landscapes, and ultimately identify and stress test weaknesses against future shocks. Our Taskforce aims to help them do exactly that.”
Louise and the Taskforce hosted the Global Trade Summit 2025, in conjunction with the Sunday Business Post earlier this year creating a forum for c-suite executives and policymakers to forge durable solutions that can build business resilience.
Louise continues: “One of the things that organisations sometimes forget is that there can be huge opportunities lurking behind these huge geopolitical shocks. We have worked with clients across manufacturing, international food and pharmaceutical sectors to support their resilience.
“One of the plus points coming out of the past five years is that there’s a real sense of urgency among clients to swiftly adopt resilience planning measures, develop comprehensive risk frameworks, and to make resilience a key issue across all organisational levels – not just a single team or individual charged with pushing resilience.
Peter Browne is the Head of Strategy at Suir Engineering who attended the summit. “I found the summit to be incredibly informative with actionable insights from highly experienced and well-informed panel members. The themes including leadership, preparation, resilience, and talent were highly resonant to our business.”
“This need for resilience to become a company-wide issue is underscored by the make-up of our Taskforce,” continues Louise, “which is a collaborative effort across Strategy, Technology, and Tax. This multi-focus is absolutely essential when it comes to supporting our clients facing the challenges of uncertainty.
Ultimately, it’s the only key to ensuring long-term stability, regardless of what challenges are in store for us.”
