From exception to baseline: geopolitical risk as a corporate operating condition – Wayport Advisors, Jan 2026

Wayport Advisors, member of the British Chamber, publishes a monthly series of articles on current geopolitical risk designed to help companies make strategic decisions in complex environments. These insights enable businesses to anticipate risks and navigate uncertainty effectively to achieve their goals. In this post, we are sharing an excerpt from their publication this past January.

Geopolitical risk is no longer treated by corporates as an episodic shock, but as a structural operating condition, with tariffs, sanctions, licensing and regulatory divergence reshaping how investment, supply chains and compliance are managed in real time.

The last months have made the shift visible. Corporates and investors are not only monitoring instability, but integrating it into financial and strategic decision-making. In practice, geopolitical exposure is being priced and stress-tested, with scenario planning increasingly treated as a core input into capital allocation, sourcing, market entry and contract strategy.

The normalisation of geopolitical risk in corporate decision-making

At the start of 2026, a noticeable change has emerged in how global companies and investors frame geopolitical risk. As reported by Reuters on 23 January 2026 from the World Economic Forum in Davos, asset managers and corporates are increasingly demanding structured geopolitical analysis and scenario planning to support core financial and strategic decisions. The objective is no longer to “monitor” instability, but to price it, stress-test it and embed it into planning assumptions.

This aligns with a broader diagnosis shared by multilateral and corporate-facing institutions. The World Economic Forum warned in January 2026 that global supply chains have entered an era of “structural volatility”, driven by geopolitical fragmentation, shifting trade rules and the politicisation of critical resources. The Global Risks Report 2026 reinforces this view, positioning geopolitical competition and state intervention as persistent rather than cyclical features of the operating environment.

What is changing is not the presence of geopolitical risk, but the degree to which it is now openly treated as an operational input. Corporates are reinforcing internal capabilities, seeking independent intelligence and formalising scenario analysis to inform investment, sourcing and market exposure.