The risk landscape in which companies operate today is changing at a rapid pace. The Global Risks Report 2026 by the World Economic Forum clearly shows that global risks are increasing, becoming more dynamic, and more closely interconnected. Depending on the time horizon, there are significant differences in the risks expected to materialize. While geopolitical, economic, and societal risks dominate in the short-term two-year horizon, ecological and technological risks move to the forefront over the long-term ten-year horizon. This development confronts companies with the challenge of designing strategies that remain viable under highly complex and uncertain conditions.
Short-term Risks: Geopolitical, Economic, Societal
Within the two-year horizon, the Global Risks Report identifies risks that have immediate impacts on markets, value chains, and investment decisions. At the top are geopolitical and geoeconomic risks. Interstate conflicts and the use of economic policy instruments such as tariffs, sanctions, export controls, or subsidy programs have increased and are increasingly interconnected. For companies, this significantly raises uncertainty regarding market access, cost structures, and location decisions.
Disinformation, societal polarization, and social tensions also rank high. These risks do not operate solely at the political level but can have tangible operational consequences, for example through regulatory interventions, reputational risks, or reduced reliability of institutional frameworks. Extreme weather events remain relevant even in the short term, particularly where sites, logistics, or critical infrastructure are affected.
For companies, this means that short-term risks are shaped less by individual events than by increased volatility across the entire environment. Strategic assumptions regarding supply chain stability, demand development, or political framework conditions that previously applied are losing their robustness and should be critically reassessed.
Long-term Risks: Environment, Technology, and System Stability
Over a ten-year horizon, the Global Risks Report indicates a clear shift in the focus of risks. Extreme weather events, biodiversity loss, and critical changes to Earth systems dominate the long-term risk landscape. These risks often do not unfold abruptly, but rather gradually—yet with potentially profound consequences for resource availability, production conditions, and the attractiveness of locations.
In addition, there are long-term technological risks, particularly in connection with artificial intelligence. Unintended side effects of new technologies may intensify societal tensions, trigger regulatory responses, or put existing business models under pressure. Companies should prepare for the fact that long-term competitiveness will increasingly depend on their ability to actively shape ecological and technological transformations.
What This Means for Corporate Strategies
The comparison of short-term and long-term risks makes it clear that companies face a dual challenge. On the one hand, they must remain capable of acting in the short term in order to respond to geopolitical escalations, economic shocks, or regulatory interventions. On the other hand, they must not lose sight of long-term structural risks, even if these are less visible in day-to-day operations.
Corporate strategies must therefore accomplish two things at once: they must provide clear orientation toward strategic objectives while simultaneously enabling flexible adjustments along the way. This requires a stronger integration of strategic planning, risk analysis, and decision-making processes. The existing uncertainties within a complex risk landscape cannot be minimized, but they can be deliberately integrated into strategy.
Why Clear Strategies are Needed Now More Than Ever
Given high uncertainty and rapidly changing framework conditions, some may argue that corporate strategies are losing relevance. From this perspective, short-notice tariffs or suddenly escalating conflicts could render long-term strategies obsolete.
However, this line of thinking falls short. Precisely under conditions of high uncertainty, strategies are indispensable. That said, they only work if they are designed differently than in more stable times. Strategies should be understood less as a fixed path and more as a clear framework for action that defines priorities and guardrails for decision-making. In this way, strategies provide orientation when external signals are contradictory and help ensure consistent decisions even under time pressure.
It is crucial that strategies explicitly account for the handling of unforeseen events. This includes the regular review of core assumptions, systematic work with scenarios, and clarity about which corporate objectives are intended to remain valid even under changing conditions. Operational flexibility is not a substitute for a consistently pursued strategy; rather, it is part of strategy execution within clearly defined guardrails.
Conclusion
The escalating and simultaneously fragmented risk landscape significantly raises the demands placed on corporate strategies. Short-term geopolitical and economic risks, together with long-term ecological and technological changes, intensify the uncertainty surrounding corporate decision-making. Companies that align their strategies with these realities, regularly review their assumptions, and deliberately strengthen their decision-making capability under uncertainty improve their chances of remaining capable of action even in a volatile environment.
Next Steps
For decision-makers who wish to reflect on their strategic assumptions and decision-making processes in light of these developments, I offer an initial, non-binding introductory consultation. The aim of this conversation is to reflect on the company’s situation and strategy.
As a next step, a strategy stress test may be a meaningful option. This stress test is designed to deliberately examine the existing corporate strategy under realistic stress scenarios and to identify concrete levers for greater strategic robustness and clarity.