Executive planning cycles and geopolitical risk

In May 2026 the insurer Sentry had 625 US executives surveyed: owners, CEOs, CFOs and CROs of companies with at least ten employees. Of these, 98 per cent say the events of the first half of the year have changed their long-term planning and risk management. Seven in ten now plan at shorter intervals and 61 per cent are building more fallback options into the plan. Almost nine in ten find it harder to assess risks than before, because geopolitics moves faster than their picture of it. At the end of 2025, 54 per cent were still confident the company would come through 2026 well; halfway through the year, 82 per cent are more worried than at the start.

Uncertainty itself has become the problem. In early January The Conference Board asked more than 1,700 executives, including more than 750 CEOs, about their biggest threat for 2026. US CEOs put uncertainty at the top (43 per cent), ahead of a recession (35 per cent). Globally, recession still comes first at 36 per cent, with uncertainty second at 29 per cent. Almost half name better financial planning as their main financial priority for the year. Andrew Jones, a researcher at the same institute, writes in Directors & Boards that uncertainty has become the normal operating environment for boards. Jones advises boards to work with scenarios rather than a single forecast, and to agree in advance which signal will prompt management to act.

The finance teams have already started. In September 2025 BARC surveyed 261 companies worldwide: 49 per cent have shortened their planning and forecasting cycle and 40 per cent make more use of simulations and scenarios. Only 8 per cent still believe they can make a stable plan for longer than twelve months, and 6 per cent say they have fully implemented the measures for more resilient planning. The topic is moving up the boardroom agenda too. In the annual survey by WTW and Reed Smith of 975 executives and non-executive directors, geopolitical risk rose from 15th to 7th place among thirty liability risks; 59 per cent call it very or extremely important.

Planning is shifting in the car industry too. In June 2026 KPMG surveyed 775 executives at carmakers, suppliers, dealers and mobility companies in Europe, Asia and the Americas. Just over half (52 per cent) now regard continuous change as the norm in the sector, with no end date, and 5 per cent feel very well prepared for geopolitical and regulatory pressure. KPMG recommends replacing fixed annual planning cycles with the continuous reallocation of capital, talent and management attention.

How solid is this? Four organisations find the same thing within a year, each in its own group, from finance controllers to non-executive directors. But the series is short, the shortening of the cycle itself has only been measured twice and the evidence is largely American. Whether the shorter cycle will last once geopolitics calms down will only become clear in a few years.