Managing supply chain risk in a volatile world 

04 September 2025

Global supply chains have faced mounting pressure in 2025. As businesses plan and consider new strategies, Allianz Trade’s expert risk reporting offers valuable insights to help you build more resilient supply chains and protect your growth.

As summer draws to a close and a new “school year” begins, September marks a moment of planning ahead – not only for students, but for businesses too. At the start of 2025, companies braced themselves for geopolitical tensions, trade disputes, and evolving threats in areas like cybersecurity and the environment. As the year’s progressed, these concerns have not only materialized – they’ve grown and compounded, creating new levels of economic volatility and uncertainty, and heaping pressure on global supply chains.  

To effectively manage evolving supply chain risks, businesses need a proactive approach. Allianz Trade’s Country Risk, Sector Risk, and Collection Complexity reports provide companies with clear and regularly updated insights, helping you identify vulnerabilities in your supply chain and spot opportunities to strengthen it, and act confidently in the face of significant global uncertainty. 

For businesses looking to expand overseas, Allianz Trade’s Country Risk reporting helps you evaluate non-payment risks by market. Using proprietary data and expert analysis, we assess each country’s business environment through political, economic and sustainability factors. These factors fall often beyond a company’s control but play a crucial role in shaping trends in global supply chains and non-payment risk.

With our proprietary, quarterly-updated ratings model, every country receives a short- and a medium-term rating. Together, they can give you a clear picture of the likelihood of non-payment when entering or operating in a market. Country Risk reporting may also support both buyers and suppliers. Buyers can use these insights to identify and secure reliable sources of supply worldwide. Suppliers can assess the safety of potential export markets and get concrete insights of the length and likelihood of buyer payments.

For example, a European automotive manufacturer is considering components from a new supplier and has identified two candidates in different markets offering competitive pricing. However, Allianz Trade’s latest Country Risk data shows that one market carries higher risk due to political instability and weaker business environment. By choosing the lower-risk market, the manufacturer can reduce the chance of payment defaults, keep costs more predictable and secure a smoother flow of components.

Allianz Trade’s Sector Risk  reporting helps companies assess non-payment risks in 17 key sectors across 70 countries worldwide. Designed to complement our Country Risk reporting, the methodology is similar, with each sector assigned a Risk Rating based on the evaluation of four key determinants: demand, profitability, liquidity, and the overall business environment. 

Each sector is assigned one of four risk levels – Low, Medium, Sensitive, or High – reflecting the output of the assessment process. Our unique grading system combines both our own internal data and information from secondary sources with informed, qualitative human insight, ensuring that any sector-specific challenges, emerging trends, and potential market shifts are factored in alongside more measurable indicators. 

By merging quantitative analysis with the on-the-ground expertise of our credit analysts and Economic Research team, our Sector Risk Rating gives businesses a clear and balanced view of potential non-payment risks across industries. Companies can not only use it to detect early warning signs in their own sector, but also to anticipate challenges in parallel sectors that influence their supply chains. For instance, the health of the industries your customers operate in can be monitored, to gauge the likelihood of payment delays. Equally, the stability of supplier sectors can be reviewed to inform contract negotiations, or to diversify your suppliers. 

With this holistic perspective of sector dynamics, your business can now take more proactive steps to protect liquidity and build resilience against supply chain disruptions.

Designed to be used alongside our Country Risk analysis, Allianz Trade’s Collection Complexity reporting helps businesses evaluate the payment behavior of companies in a specific country, assessing how easy or difficult it is to collect debts there based on legal, procedural, and cultural factors. Each country is assigned one of four risk levels – from Notable to High, Very High, and Severe – based on our quantitative and qualitative assessments of the complexity of the payment and debt collection landscape. 

When combined with Country Risk, our Collection Complexity reporting offers a fuller picture of your company’s risk exposure, allowing you to set more realistic expectations around payment timeliness and your chances of recovering debts. You can leverage these insights to tailor credit terms and payment structures, or to introduce contractual protections that reduce the risk of loss in challenging markets.

For example, if you identify a growth opportunity in a country with a Collection Complexity rating of “High”, you might mitigate those risks by negotiating advanced payment terms or introducing stronger contract clauses. You may also decide to secure trade credit insurance to protect your payments. 

By anticipating potential payment obstacles before they arise, our Collection Complexity reporting can help protect your cash flow as you pursue exciting growth opportunities in new markets.

Updated quarterly by our industry-leading Economic Research team, Allianz Trade’s Country Risk, Sector Risk, and Collection Complexity reports fuse decades of experience with on-the-ground insights from our global network. 

Our reports go beyond simply delivering market data; they offer businesses real world market intelligence and actionable insights to help them make more confident, informed decisions in an increasingly unpredictable global trading landscape. With these insights, you can identify challenges just as they’re emerging and take proactive steps to mitigate supply chain risks before they develop into crises.

Much like starting a new term, preparing now can set your business up for success in the months ahead. As you begin strategizing for 2026, our detailed and timely expert reports provide the knowledge you need to anticipate and manage setbacks, seize growth opportunities, and build supply chains that are resilient and future-proof. 

Click the links to access our latest Country Risk, Sector Risk, and Collection Complexity reports, and contact our A-Team to discover more ways Allianz Trade can help you effectively manage global supply chain risks and secure your growth.