2024 was a turbulent year for supply chain management — and 2025 promises even greater complexity and disruption. Sphera data points to an uptick in geopolitical tensions, natural disasters, and shifting regulatory frameworks that will challenge leaders who seek predictability, cost controls and resilience.
And yet, businesses that adopt the tools of the times will grow despite these bottlenecks and barriers. Automation and artificial intelligence are poised to redefine this era of risk mitigation. By leveraging emerging technologies to predict and adapt to hard-to-spot threats, organizations can overcome disruptions before they hit.
Read on for a look at 2025’s biggest risks to supply chain resilience — and the ways businesses can move forward with confidence.
Geopolitical tensions are compounding across the globe
Supply chain logistics rely on careful coordination, precise delivery windows, quick pivots and slim margins — making them especially vulnerable to sudden changes. In today’s interconnected, global economies, the following conflicts present growing risks to established shipping norms:
- Military action and war: In 2025, ongoing wars in the Middle East and Ukraine will continue to shift trade routes, restrict shipping, create shortages and inflate fuel costs.
- Trade relationships and tariffs: Changing relationships between North American trade partners and between the U.S. and China will likely manifest additional tariff costs, export restrictions and more complex demand planning.
- Technology restrictions and policy shifts: Changes in national leadership could lead to tightening restrictions on sensitive technologies like AI, rerouting supply routes and infrastructure to different regions.
As these tensions continue to escalate, businesses must prioritize resilience by preparing early for disruptions and diversifying their supply chain strategies. Technology has a huge role to play.
For instance, our Supply Chain Risk Report 2025 identifies 2024 as the first year that preventive insights surpassed event-based risk insights as they relate to supplier financial health. As the relationships between global economies become more fraught, leaning into advanced technology to foresee and mitigate risk will become increasingly vital.
Natural hazards and quality challenges will define the year
Natural disasters will remain a major supply-chain risk factor in 2025, growing in frequency and severity. Early in the year, U.S. wildfires caused evacuations, road blockages and power outages that halted transportation and slowed supply chains. These disasters, as well as floods and tropical cyclones, are set to become more commonplace in the coming years, even impacting major ports in New York, Beijing, Boston and Tokyo. Already, Queensland, Australia has experienced severe flooding, triggering prolonged blackouts and stopping road transport. Climate change pressures will likely compound these risks by raising temperatures and sea levels.
As a result, companies must rethink supply strategies to build greater resilience. Reshoring, nearshoring, and ‘friend-shoring’ are common ways businesses can relocate production to less risky areas. Early contingency planning, supplier diversification and supplier engagement can give companies the flexibility to source materials in less vulnerable areas before extreme events occur. Supply chain risk monitoring tools and intentional supplier partnerships will also prove powerful vehicles for reimagining supply chain strategies.
Prepare early for compliance risks
We’re tracking several important regulations requiring careful supply chain monitoring. Canada recently announced a new regulation demanding transparency into international sourcing. The EU has prioritized decarbonization through the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) and Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). And Australia’s Modern Slavery Reporting Requirements and the UK’s Modern Slavery Act set out to eliminate unsafe and harmful working conditions.
But regulatory risks have already evolved in early 2025. In February, the European Commision announced the Omnibus package. This proposed legislation simplifies some of their most important sustainability reporting standards, including the CSRD, CSDDD, CBAM and EU Taxonomy Regulation. And the changes have the potential to transform the way companies monitor supply chains and plan for the future.
The proposed changes include extending the deadlines for CSDDD and CSRD compliance by one year and two years, respectively. The package would reduce the scope of specific reporting requirements, freeing many smaller companies from compliance obligations. It would also simplify some of the previous emissions calculations and reporting requirements.
As these regulations continue to shift, it is essential organizations use the time they have to understand their obligations, prepare for compliance and engage with their partners. Under pressure to ensure transparency and resilience, companies must recognize the need to plan early, combining deeper supplier communication and contingency planning with data and advanced supply chain software to stay ahead of these regulatory changes. From monitoring carbon emissions, ethical labor practices and sustainability metrics across the supply chain to ensuring compliance with evolving sustainability regulations worldwide, companies will need to take a more proactive approach to remain compliant in the months and years ahead.
Growth in 2025 means accepting and adapting to uncertainty
Planning, technology adoption and early communication will equip leaders to prepare for 2025. As regulatory scrutiny tightens, and weather grows more hazardous, just-in-time manufacturing and logistics plans are no longer enough. Instead, organizations will need continuous threat monitoring, trusted suppliers and data-driven insights.
The Sphera Supply Chain Transparency solution brings together cutting-edge tools and premium, third-party data to offer the foresight and supplier engagement needed to respond. Integrated AI risk alerts and expert research teams work together to give organizations actionable, predictive insights they can use to boost end-to-end resilience.
Start preparing for 2025’s biggest supply chain threats by downloading the Sphera Supply Chain Risk Report 2025. Or, contact a Sphera expert to uncover the risks poised to affect your organization.
