Global supply chains aren’t shrinking. They’re shifting.
In 2025, sourcing decisions are shaped by the different facets of volatility and uncertainty in the global marketplace. However, businesses are not retreating from global trade. They are rethinking and reconfiguring the layout.
Developed in collaboration with Oxford Economics, The Global Sourcing Risk Index analyzes the top 20 global economies, plus 10 fast-emerging economies, against 10 key sectors and eight risk dimensions: Geopolitical Conflict, Climate, Governance, Control, and Compliance, Human Rights, Trade Barriers, Labor Cost Volatility, Input Cost Volatility, and Supplier Concentration.
The Index offers a strategic view of high-risk country-sector pairings across each of the risks, and how procurement leaders can respond with clarity and control.
What The Global Sourcing Risk Index Reveals:
- Why global trade is not deglobalizing but reorienting
- How countries like Mexico, Turkey, and India are rising as sourcing hubs while also appearing among the highest-risk locations
- Where $4.7 trillion in investment is flowing into reindustrialization across energy, semiconductors, and manufacturing
- Why 75% of executives are now prioritizing resilience over short-term profitability
- How AI, automation, and digital twins are reshaping sourcing strategy and enabling faster decision-making
- Why risk appetite, transparency, and data are three pillars of resilience
- Which sectors face the most concentrated sourcing risk, including energy, food, and manufacturing
The Index, supported by data modeling, country-level analysis, and procurement expertise, equips sourcing teams with the insights to make confident, informed decisions in an increasingly complex world.
Access the Global Sourcing Risk Index
“Risk is now front and center in every sourcing decision and in the management of every complex supply chain.”
Global sourcing is no longer defined solely by cost and efficiency. In 2025, global supply chains are being reshaped by five major forces: reorientation, reindustrialization, digitization, sustainability, and a sharper focus on risk. Trade is not collapsing but realigning.
The Index brings these dynamics into focus, helping procurement teams identify where risk is growing, where opportunity lies, and how to respond with resilience.
The (shareholder) value in resilience
As the lowest cost has been replaced by predictability and control, risk is now front and center in every sourcing decision and management of every complex supply chain.
Or at least, it is becoming that way as an increasing number of organizations now cite resilience as a core business objective and driver of shareholder value.
So, if today’s forward-thinking organizations are reassessing supplier risk and considering strategies like China plus one, or even the US plus one… Where should they be looking? And what should they be looking for?
Deglobalization? Reconfiguration?
The truth around deglobalization is nuanced.
The IMF and World Trade Organization continue to forecast modest year-on-year growth in global trade volumes, but globalization is slowing. Over the last two decades, international trade as a percentage of global GDP has plateaued, a signal that hyper-globalization has slowed or saturated.
Yet, supply chains and trade remain deeply interconnected. Recent reports suggest that every central region still relies on imports for at least 25% of its critical resources, goods, or services.
Global trade isn’t collapsing. It’s reorienting, with some new principles at its heart…
Reorienting – more trade done along geopolitical lines
A milestone in trade reconfiguration was Mexico surpassing China to become the US’s top trading partner in 2023.
This event had been some years in the making, reflecting Mexico’s strategic proximity to the US and the deterioration of direct trade relationships between the US and China.
Pre-tariffs, pre-rule of origin, friendshoring, and nearshoring were already on the rise in some of the world’s largest economies, such as the US, Germany, and the UK, shortening the geopolitical distance of trade. Countries such as Poland, Turkey, India, Colombia, Brazil, and ASEAN nations have been the key beneficiaries of this investment.
Reindustrializing – future-proofing high-value industry
A wave of strategic onshoring is happening in the US and Europe, typically in high-value sectors or for critical goods.
A recent report forecasts the cumulative investment in reindustrialization over the next three years to be $4.7 trillion in 2025, up from $3.4 trillion in 2024*.
Moreover, the same report states that 75% of executives** claim to be strategically prioritizing reindustrialization over short-term profitability.
Digitizing – Putting technology at the “core of new”
Resilience is no longer just about where you source but also about how smartly you do it, and new trade patterns have their foundations in technology.
Emerging technologies like AI, automation, IoT, and digital twins are reshaping how supply chains are designed, monitored, and managed. Their potential is vast: to map risk in real-time, automate decisions once reliant on spreadsheets and instinct, and shift the competitive balance back toward domestic production.
While the business case is not always clear cut in the short term, technology is core to the reindustrialization agenda.
Sustaining – aligning supply chains to ethical, environmental, and social goals
Sustainability and procurement have a complex relationship. A 2024 global survey found that 70% of companies used sustainability goals as a key driver of procurement decisions.
However, it was also estimated (by Earth.org) that around 4% of corporate Net Zero plans stood up to scrutiny.
In 2025, the goal posts are clearly moving. There is a flurry of emerging legislation around sustainability, particularly in Europe, but also a reduced focus on sustainability emanating from the US government. Corporately, momentum is still growing, if slowing.
