'EY' recommends 4 guidelines for strategic adjustment and risk management amid global volatility

• Amid global uncertainties, businesses must adapt their strategies to rapidly evolving circumstances to maintain stability and competitiveness.
• Alongside strategic shifts, businesses need to integrate risk management arising from strategic decisions as an integral part of comprehensive operations.

Bangkok, 21 October 2025. Over the past five years, the global business landscape has experienced a series of major events, both anticipated and unforeseen. These events have significantly impacted business operations, prompting Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) to rapidly adjust their strategies to changing circumstances, ensuring organizational stability and competitiveness.

Findings from the EY-Parthenon CEO Outlook survey, which gathered insights from over 1,200 CEOs worldwide, revealed that nearly half of these business leaders expressed deep concern over the global developments impacting business operations. The key challenges affecting Thai businesses include: 1). Post-pandemic economic volatility, specifically fluctuations in energy prices and rising fuel costs; 2). Geopolitical conflicts and wars, such as the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Iran-Israel tensions, and Thailand-Cambodia disputes; 3). Trade and tariff disruptions, especially the imposition of US tariffs; and 4). AI and technological disruption to rapidly transform organizational performance.

Chakkaphan Athapornmongkon, EY-Parthenon Partner, stated:
“Businesses worldwide are facing a wave of unprecedented uncertainty driven by multiple disruptive factors. The concerns voiced by most CEOs are no longer exaggerations. The key is to ‘embrace uncertainty’ and adapt to it. We can no longer rely on conventional strategies. Survival and growth today depend on the ability to adjust strategies quickly and intelligently to overcome challenges and turn crises into opportunities for sustainable long-term growth.”

4 key strategies global CEOs are rapidly adjusting

However, the survey indicated that nearly all executives who expressed concern have already taken action to adjust their strategies to mitigate potential business impacts, focusing on four main strategic areas:

1. Resilience from Geopolitical Risks – The survey found that 42% of CEOs expressed concern that geopolitical, macroeconomic, and trade uncertainties could impact business growth. To mitigate these risks, 85% have already adjusted their strategies, including postponing investment plans and relocating production bases or sourcing from new markets to diversify exposure. However, these shifts may increase working capital risk and lead to higher logistics costs.

2. Resilience against Tariff and Trade Risks – The survey indicated that 85% of executives expressed moderate to high concern about trade and tariff issues and have already adjusted their strategies in response. This adjustment focuses on developing or redesigning new products and implementing cost reduction measures to preserve profit margins. However, shifting to new markets may introduce several risks, including Execution Risk – as establishing market presence often requires significant time and investment, with costs potentially increasing by 15-30% during the transition to new manufacturers, Dependency Concentration Risk – resulting from overreliance on a single market rather than diversifying across multiple regions, and Regulatory Compliance Risk – arising from differences in legal and regulatory frameworks across new markets.

3. Resilience through AI adoption – A majority of CEOs (36%) plan to increase investments to scale up AI implementation across their organizations, having begun to observe more tangible results from pilot projects. They also aim to develop comprehensive AI governance frameworks covering all aspects of the organization. However, AI adoption brings several associated risks, particularly investment risk, as it requires specialized expertise and training to ensure that investments deliver tangible value rather than being wasted. In addition, personnel costs are expected to rise, since AI specialists typically demand higher salaries compared to general employees.

4. Resilience through M&A and Partnerships – Only 1% of CEOs indicated that they would not change their approach to business transactions, while 99% chose to adjust.  The most prominent shift is toward joint ventures, favored by 67% of respondents. However, M&A and partnership activities come with several inherent risks, including Misaligned Strategic Objectives, Culture Management Gap such as differences in work styles, values, and communication, Governance Disputes such as inappropriate organizational structures, unclear roles, or voting rights, and Performance Risk where business synergy fails to create the expected shared value, resulting in a failure to achieve expected business outcomes.

“Today’s business world no longer competes solely on products and services — it competes on ‘the ability to adapt’. Organizations must therefore adopt 'flexible strategic plans' to effectively navigate volatility. At the same time, an emerging and unavoidable challenge is the 'risk arising from strategic adjustments,' which must be managed systematically and in a timely manner to safeguard business stability and effectively build a long-term competitive advantage.” Chakkaphan concludes.

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This news release has been issued by EY Corporate Services Limited, a member of the global EY organization