The prospect of significant U.S. tariffs has the world and markets on edge. A fundamental shift toward a more fragmented global trade environment will impact economic growth, inflation, margins, consumer prices, global workforces and more.
But if businesses focus solely on the size of the tariffs — and where they land — they'll miss a profound challenge and opportunity that this moment presents.
That's because the real test isn't the tariff. It is whether a company's data infrastructure can flex to match the extreme uncertainty stemming from what's happening: rapid policy announcements, sudden pauses, potential exemptions and ongoing, often opaque, negotiations with trading partners.
This trade volatility will stress test a finance function's data maturity — and many finance teams will fail this test spectacularly.
Why? They lack the ability to rapidly access, analyze and act on data across the enterprise. They lack comprehensive, real-time visibility into complex global supply chains. They need to know — within minutes, not weeks — how a new tariff will impact raw materials, values, suppliers, goods classifications and more so they can calculate potential duty impacts accurately and identify hidden exposures. They need to know their tariff exposure, by region, exposure to potential retaliatory measures, and what products' margins can absorb the impact and which cannot.
If a finance team needs weeks to compile this data from disparate systems — or if the data isn't reliable — the company will face a strategic vulnerability more concerning than the tariffs themselves.
Data maturity powers financial agility
What will separate leading companies from those that struggle in this environment isn't their tariff exposure — it's their financial agility. That agility is built on a foundation of data maturity.
Effective tariff management requires integrating data from multiple, often disparate, internal systems, such as ERP, procurement, logistics, transportation and customs compliance. Siloed data makes it difficult to obtain a holistic, accurate view of tariff exposure, to calculate costs and to assess mitigation strategies.
The companies poised to turn volatility into advantage have:
- Broken down data barriers between finance, procurement and operations, enabling a unified view of their value chain.
- Built analytical muscle through scenario planning so they can rapidly model alternative futures and their financial implications. They can confidently evaluate complex trade-offs, such as whether a "China+1" strategy — shifting some production to places like Vietnam or Mexico — makes sense based on serious analysis and not just gut feeling and incomplete information.
- Leveraged automation to reduce time between insight and action.
The hidden cost of data immaturity
On the flip side, companies with more immature data capabilities face a much harder task in planning in today's uncertain environment. As such, many organizations have fallen into analysis paralysis. Because they cannot access reliable data quickly, they default to a "wait-and-see" approach. This might seem prudent, but it actually compounds their vulnerability. That's because strategic adjustments to things as complex as supply chains take considerable lead time.
While seeking clarity is understandable, delaying steps to rejigger supply chains or add hedging programs could leave companies highly vulnerable if severe tariffs suddenly take hold.
Longer term, companies that cannot rapidly assemble accurate data and transform it into actionable insight will not only be at higher risk from tariffs, but they'll be less competitive in an increasingly volatile business environment. Today, the challenge is tariffs. Tomorrow the disruption could be weather, regulatory change, economic shifts or new competitive threats.
Building the data-driven finance function
So, how do you pass this tariff stress test and build a lasting competitive advantage for every future disruption? Start by honestly assessing your finance function's current data maturity:
- Visibility: Can you trace spend, exposure and obligations across your entire value chain, beyond tier one suppliers?
- Integration: How seamlessly does data flow between finance, procurement and operations systems? How many manual interventions are needed to get a full picture?
- Analysis: How fast can you model complex scenarios with multiple variables and develop financial implications for alternative strategies?
- Action: How fast can you move from insight to execution? Are systems built for rapid reconfiguration or do they constrain agility?
Trade uncertainty isn't going away. The current events signal a potential shift toward a higher-cost, more fragmented global trade environment.
As such, companies that address the tariffs — not just as a temporary tax to be managed but as a catalyst to transform a finance functions' data maturity — will build the financial agility that separates market leaders from followers in an increasingly unpredictable world.
The question isn't whether you'll pay the tariff. It's whether you'll use this moment to build a finance function fit for the future.
