Trade teams are gaining visibility, influence, and resources as they become strategic architects of resilience and growth within their organisations.
Key Insights:
- Trade teams are becoming strategic business partners — Trade is no longer an administrative, reactive function but rather a driver of business strategy and operational resilience.
- Tariff mitigation strategies — Many organisations are absorbing tariff costs as a tariff mitigation strategy.
- Technology adoption is surging — Organisations are rapidly adopting automation to improve efficiency and supply chain visibility and are exploring AI and other advanced technologies.
For decades, corporate trade departments have operated in relative obscurity, being viewed largely as cost centers that manage compliance and transactional paperwork. Over the past 12 months, however, there’s been a dramatic change. Corporate trade departments are emerging as a strategic business function within their organisations, due mostly to the unprecedented wave of tariff volatility that is forcing businesses to fundamentally rethink how they view trade management, according to the Thomson Reuters Institute’s 2026 Global Trade Report.
