October 3, 2025 Manufacturing Resilience Requires Financial Agility

Mid-sized manufacturers and other companies must revamp contingency plans now to stay financially nimble through global market shifts in 2025 and beyond.

By Joe Voss, Fractional CFO (Boston), The CFO Centre

The global economic landscape in 2025 continues to evolve rapidly, and often, unpredictably. From raw material price swings to shifting labor dynamics, geopolitical tensions, and changing consumer demand, the pressures facing companies, especially mid-sized enterprises, are unrelenting.

For these firms, scale can be both a strength and a vulnerability. They’re big enough to have complex operations and significant fixed costs, but often too small to absorb shocks with the ease of a much larger company. As a fractional CFO supporting a range of industrial and manufacturing clients, I’ve seen firsthand how financial resilience has become a defining trait of success. And that resilience hinges on a simple truth: it requires financial agility, discipline, and focus.

To remain competitive heading into 2026, mid-sized companies must not only update their contingency plans—they must completely rethink how those plans are built, implemented, and executed. And, most importantly, company leadership must not only focus on the importance of these processes, but they must also be invested in the process and support the trajectory directed by the planning process. Below are five best practices to do just that.

1. Make Budgeting a Continual Process

Traditional budgeting has become obsolete in today’s market. Annual budgets, often set in Q4 of the previous year, struggle to reflect the real-time shifts in demand, supply costs, and capital needs. This is especially problematic for companies that rely on long lead times and inventory cycles.

A better approach is to implement rolling forecasts and scenario planning. These tools allow management to adjust quickly to changing realities—such as a 15% dip in demand, an unexpected rise in commodity prices, application of shifting tariff strategy or changes in financing costs. A strong forecasting model doesn’t just react; it anticipates multiple paths forward and prepares responses for each.

CFO Tip: Build different working scenarios—baseline, best case, and downside—and establish financial and operational triggers that determine when to shift gears. Examples of effective triggers include liquidity measures, working capital dynamics, sales velocity, and changing cost structures.  Update forecasts monthly or quarterly, not annually, and encourage company leadership to react and adapt accordingly. This can be a powerful opportunity to stay ahead of and address issues as they develop.

2. Strengthen Liquidity and Cash Reserves

If 2025 has reminded us of anything, it’s that liquidity is not optional—it’s the highest priority. Yet many mid-sized companies run lean on cash, depending on receivables and just-in-time payments to stay afloat. Even more significant is a desire to emphasize growth over liquidity, which can lead to significant issues when cash runs low.

Instead, companies, all companies, should focus on prioritizing liquidity first, then profitability, then growth. In this order, always. This doesn’t always seem logical, but fundamentally it is the clearest pathway to success. The reasons should be obvious but let’s take a minute to highlight why it is important.

Liquidity, and an ample supply of cash, gives company leaders the best opportunities to make the best decisions. I once left a large technology company to lead a small manufacturing company that was always short of cash and regularly tapped into a limited line of credit. The decisions leadership made, on an almost ongoing basis, reflected this approach and they were usually poor in terms of keeping costs low and running an effective and profitable business. Being short of cash puts a company in survival mode, reducing opportunities to act strategically and with enough forethought to stay competitive and profitable.

The second priority, profitability, needs to stay ahead of growth to keep the company viable and positioned well. Positioned to be competitive, to run efficiently and to use best practices in the market and for all stakeholders. It is key to achieve this before seeking expansive growth.

Once a company has achieved solid liquidity and profitability (or projections to near-term profitable operations), focusing on profitable growth will lead to opportunities for greater value creation. Growing a profitable company, or scaling into profitable operations through growth periods, is best accomplished through prioritizing these strategies in the best order.

Of course, maintaining liquidity can be accomplished in several ways. Companies should focus on a layered approach to accessing capital. This includes cash on hand, committed lines of credit, and alternate financing options like asset-based lending or equipment sale-leasebacks. Managing all of these cash sources is critical, and to do so leadership needs visibility—clear, daily insight into where cash is coming from and where it’s going.

CFO Tip: Institute a cash flow forecast reviewed weekly. It is best to create a 52-week view, with the nearest quarter’s level of activity (13 weeks) monitoring sources and uses of cash. It is important to create assumptions for these items and continuously monitor results, to verify that the model is valid and a good predictor of cash balances. Train team leaders to understand cash’s role in strategic decisions—from hiring to capital expenditures- and use their input to improve the process.

3. Diversify and Stress-Test the Supply Chain

Even companies with strong financial controls can be blindsided by operational disruptions. Suppliers, especially overseas, are still experiencing delays, regulatory friction – including a shifting and changing landscape related to tariffs and other duties, and capacity constraints. Determining the best supply-chain structure is critical to balance diversity of suppliers versus obtaining best value due to relationships and volumes sourced from single suppliers.

Companies need to map supply chain vulnerabilities and build in redundancy—even if it comes at a cost. Consider domestic secondary suppliers, inventory buffers for critical components, and digital supply chain visibility tools to forecast issues before they become disruptions.

CFO Tip: Work with operations to create a “supply continuity scorecard” that quantifies exposure to any single vendor or region. Incorporate this data into broader financial contingency planning. Include KPIs that focus on financial and operational indicators of success, including lead times, shipment times, quality measures, cost measures and stability measures of the supplier.

4. Create a Resilience Operating Framework

Resilience isn’t built in the finance department alone—it’s an organizational mindset. This is where finance should lead cross-functional planning and establish an internal resilience operating framework.

What does that look like? It’s a cross-departmental team (finance, operations, HR, sales) that meets regularly to identify risks, monitor KPIs, and pre-plan actions. What happens if orders fall or sales volumes change significantly? If a key supplier halts production? If financing terms change? What happens if staffing changes affect operations?

CFO Tip: Identify 3 to 5 critical performance thresholds (e.g., order backlog, margin erosion, DSO increases, etc.) that indicate stress. Build action plans for each and create contingency plans so that these are unplanned emergencies but actions ready to be taken.

5. Digitize Financial and Operational Data

You can’t make agile decisions with lagging or siloed data. Many mid-sized companies still depend on Excel-based processes, outdated ERP modules, or fragmented reporting systems. But to drive resilient decision-making, companies need real-time, integrated dashboards that connect operations, sales, and finance.

Modern finance functions should champion the use of analytics, not just to track performance but to predict risks and opportunities. The right digital tools empower finance leaders to shift from backward-looking accountants to forward-looking strategists.

CFO Tip: Invest in financial planning and analysis (FP&A) software that connects with your ERP and CRM. Use it to visualize and share key business insights with non-financial stakeholders in real time. Plan with the executive team to regularly review results and create a framework of action plans to deal with events and trends as they occur. Being ready for action can create a much better environment for success.

In conclusion, consider agility as a strategic asset. Contingency plans used to be something that sat in a drawer, only pulled out during a crisis. That approach no longer works. In today’s market, financial agility is a constant, not an emergency response. Companies that embrace this mindset are not only weathering volatility—they’re finding new ways to grow amid it.

For mid-sized enterprises, this means building systems that flex, people who can act, and plans that adjust—before they’re forced to. Those who prepare now will not only survive whatever 2026 brings but emerge as stronger, more confident leaders in their industries.

About the Author:
Joe Voss is an astute strategic business leader and fractional CFO with 30+ years building high-performing finance teams and growing companies through effective financial leadership.

He has a strong foundation starting with Big 4 public accounting and is a Certified Public Accountant, excelling in a variety of industries.

Joe has a wide range of experience, from working with start-ups to Fortune 100 leaders, working in both domestic and international businesses, primarily B2B with some B2C exposure.

Subscribe to Industry Today