Overview

In June this year, the CCM Institute issued a report titled "Geopolitical Disruption: Commercial Paralysis". It confirmed the extent to which international businesses are experiencing geopolitical disruption, and the frequency with which this is creating buyer / supplier tension. Very few responses indicated a clear or planned strategy to address the volatility which has become the new normal.

A panel at the NCMA World Congress 2026 featuring the report's author along with a U.S. Army program executive, a Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) acquisition director and the CEO of Resolutiion, a supply-chain risk expert. The conversation backed up many of the report’s findings, but introduced some important contrasts in both preparedness, overall response and future direction.

The panel confirmed the report's three big problems: people can't tell where supply-chain risk will hit next, no single team owns the full picture and when it comes to revising contract terms, both sides often wait for the other to move first. The panel also introduced unique perspectives: a new executive order on supply-chain visibility, informal use of AI to check supplier claims and tension between reshoring rules and what even counts as a "commercial" product anymore. One gap stood out: the defense panelists seemed more prepared than the report's average respondent, indicating the extent to which Federal defense agencies plan for resilience and are funded accordingly. By contrast, the report shows supply chain teams are mostly struggling to obtain the budget flexibility needed to establish supply security.

Where the session confirms the findings of the report

Nobody can locate the risk in advance. The report says organizations don't know which part of their supply chain will break next. The DLA director confirmed this directly, saying today's risk is "very unexpected, unpredicted," unlike the more predictable risks of the past.

No one owns the full picture. The report says no single team sees the whole risk picture. The DLA director admitted exactly this about a new supply-chain visibility rule: "Even when we have data, we don't have the tool to put all that data into just yet to make sense of it."

Rather than seeing the situation as a shared problem, both sides often wait for the other to move first. The report describes a standoff where everyone plays it safe, and the whole system gets stuck.

Disputes get resolved quietly. The report found 63% of disputes get worked out through renegotiation, not formal claims. The DLA director said dispute numbers aren't rising but conversations are now mostly about supply-chain problems.

Reshoring worries focus on physical goods. The report found reshoring concerns are highest for physical products, not tech or services. This was echoed in the panel discussion where focus was on hardware, parts, and where things are actually made.

Federal contracting brings new and distinctive perspectives

A new executive order. Signed the same week as the panel, it requires companies to report visibility across multiple supply-chain tiers, turning the report's suggested "commercial intelligence" idea from a nice-to-have into a legal requirement.

Why COVID-style teamwork hasn't come back. Back then, huge government spending meant nobody had to argue about who pays. Today, that question is unresolved and lies at the heart of the tension.

AI as an informal fact-checker. One program executive said he uses a public AI chatbot in real time to double-check supplier excuses before escalating them. This is an early, homemade version of what the report recommends building formally.

"Commercial" is becoming a fight. Contracting officers are now being forced to demand proof that products weren't made in banned countries before calling something "commercial", connecting reshoring rules to product classification, offering an insight that the report does not cover.

New tools for flexibility. The panel discussed Other Transaction Agreements and group buying as ways to stay flexible on smaller purchases.

Making parts instead of buying them. 3D printing and reverse engineering are being used to avoid depending on single suppliers.

Industry groups as emergency phone trees. Trucking, rail, and PPE associations were cited as examples, acting as informal networks DLA uses to coordinate sourcing during a crisis.

Where the session and the report diverge

The gap isn't about facts it's about how prepared people are. The report found 85% of organizations operating with a largely tactical response to geopolitical risk, with a high proportion unwilling to pay extra to make supply chains safer. The defense panelists described a very different reality: DLA plans fuel sourcing globally, runs simulations for risk scenarios, and treats resilience as a normal cost of doing business. There’s an important message here for corporate and public sector CFOs.

What's changed overall

The core problem hasn't changed but the rules around it are moving faster. A new executive order and tighter country-of-origin checks are turning yesterday's abstract risks into today's compliance deadlines. Some organizations, mostly well-funded ones like DLA, are getting more advanced, but this is the exception, not the rule. Most companies are still making small, tactical changes (new tools, new sourcing methods) rather than fixing the bigger structural problem, which is exactly what the original report calls out.

What this means for the practitioners:

The new executive order gives teeth to the growing exhortations for supply chain visibility and will force Federal suppliers to comply, building both methods and momentum for others to follow.

Arguments over price adjustments are often really about a bigger, unresolved question: who pays for resilience. That demands a strategic conversation, not a stand-off.

Procurement teams: Treat flexible buying methods and non-traditional manufacturing as real tools for handling disruption, not just backup plans.

Global organizations: Expect more fights over what counts as "made where" as reshoring rules tighten: plan this into your buying process.

Notable quotes

"This is a structural problem. We've got a set of principles, a set of acquisition rules that can often feel like it's constraining us from actually doing what we need to do."

— Panel moderator

"It's commercial (a standard product), but if I put all these caveats on top of it, it’s not really commercial anymore."

— Army program executive

"We don't have the tool to put all that data into just yet to make sense of it."

— Defense Logistics Agency acquisition director

Conclusion

The panel backs up the report's main point: geopolitical disruption is a structural problem, not just an attitude problem. The biggest change since the report came out is that a new executive order has turned a "nice idea" (commercial intelligence) into something companies may soon be required to have and some people are already building. Going forward, policy is likely to keep moving faster than most organizations' internal tools and processes which makes the report's original advice (build shared interest before rigid contract terms, and connect governance to real decisions) more urgent than ever.