As a result of rising geopolitical tensions, accelerating technology adoption and changing macroeconomic conditions, executive leaders view the current business landscape as less predictable than ever before.
According to BDO’s 2025 Techtonic States Report, 61% of global business leaders now view resilience as their organization's most important characteristic, a fundamental shift that reflects the new reality of operating in an increasingly volatile world. Once the backbone of risk management, traditional single-scenario planning is no longer sufficient in an environment of accelerating change.
When surveyed on their predictions for the future business landscape, 73% of executives said their organizations must prepare for multiple potential futures simultaneously, suggesting that this complex risk environment will persist indefinitely. Rather than viewing current conditions as a temporary disruption, organizations must adapt to a landscape where risk drives strategic decision-making and operational planning.
The Four Worlds Framework
BDO surveyed 1,050 C-suite leaders across 10 global markets, ultimately identifying four distinct potential business scenarios that could become reality by 2028. Each scenario, which forms the foundation of their "Four Worlds Framework," demands a fundamentally different risk management approach.
World Fragmented refers to a business environment with deeply segmented markets due to policy volatility, shifting geopolitical alliances and supply chain disruption. Current data suggests we are already operating in fragmented conditions, with 52% of leaders expecting this environment to persist. Of all the potential futures in the framework, this scenario has caught businesses most flat-footed, primarily due to inadequate early warning systems and over-reliance on previously stable supply chains.
World Divided is best described as geopolitical bifurcation that creates competing economic models between East and West. This scenario, which 33% of business leaders anticipate will become reality by 2028, is characterized by divergent regulatory standards, technology fragmentation and fundamentally different approaches to compliance across regions. In this world, organizations would face the challenge of operating across incompatible economic systems with conflicting requirements and compliance metrics.
World Accelerated is marked by rapid technological advancement and aligned global networks. While only 8% of leaders expect this scenario to occur, it would require organizations to expertly manage artificial intelligence governance challenges, accelerated workforce adaptation needs and heightened cybersecurity vulnerabilities as technology transforms entire industries. With only 42% of leaders reporting that they currently have AI-ready data infrastructure, meeting these requirements would prove particularly challenging.
World Sustained represents measured, human-led technology adoption with gradual change. While the most moderate hypothetical, it is the least likely anticipated business future (7%). While this environment is seemingly less disruptive, it carries the hidden risk of external shock vulnerability, as organizations optimized for gradual change may lack the agility to respond to sudden market disruptions.
Building Multi-Scenario Resilience
Businesses do not need to focus on identifying the "right" scenario—the imperative issue is building the capacity to succeed in whatever future materializes. Specific risks and compliance challenges will vary depending on each organization's industry, geography, operating model and risk tolerance. Even if these scenarios evolve into hybrid versions or as entirely different business models unfold across regions and sectors, some preparations and investments can be universally applicable. To build resilience, organizations should focus on the following:
- Early warning systems enable organizations to track leading indicators across all potential futures rather than waiting for one scenario to fully materialize. These systems should integrate social media monitoring, policy analysis and market intelligence to provide decision-makers with sufficient warning to implement contingency plans. This includes monitoring regional technology divergence, investment surges and regulatory stability.
- Digital agility forms the foundation for success in business resilience planning, with employee-driven technology adoption creating more resilient and adaptable systems. Rather than restricting employee technology use, successful organizations encourage and monitor it, ensuring their workforce can adapt quickly when facing policy shifts, regulatory changes or rapid transformation.
- Supply chain diversification and flexibility represent perhaps the most imminent preparatory measure across all scenarios. Whether confronting market segmentation, economic bifurcation or gradual change, diversified sourcing provides essential protection in each future business scenario. Organizations should move beyond isolated, transactional supplier relationships to create integrated networks that incorporate third-party vendors into crisis simulations. It is also imperative to develop contingency plans that activate automatically when specific triggers occur.
- Enhancing cybersecurity remains critical as cyberattacks increase globally. With 76% of leaders expecting increased cybersecurity risk from market fragmentation and 68% citing technology advances as a reason for intensifying cyberrisk threats, comprehensive security must address multiple threat vectors simultaneously. Essential elements include immutable backup systems (e.g., unchangeable, offline storage), consistent data recovery drills, and integrated cyber simulations involving all relevant stakeholders.
- Financial flexibility refers to maintaining resources for both protection and opportunity. Organizations need to understand their value chain dependencies and keep reserves available for quick pivots when conditions change. This approach requires building intentional "slack" in the system—extra capacity that enables rapid response regardless of which future business model emerges.
- Stakeholder communication and trust must be established long before crises occur. Resilient organizations invest in stakeholder mapping and relationship building during stable periods, creating clear escalation, notification and reporting processes that maintain confidence in any scenario.
Resilience also requires focusing on fundamentals that transcend the Four Worlds scenarios. Customers will always demand quality products, competitive value and reliable delivery regardless of whether markets become fragmented, divided, sustained or accelerated. By anchoring investments while building scenario flexibility around them, organizations can create stable foundations for uncertain futures.
The Resilience Imperative
Risk professionals must transition from protecting against known risks to becoming resilience architects who build organizational capacity to succeed in any future. This transformation requires abandoning the comfortable predictability of single-point planning in favor of frameworks that embrace uncertainty as a competitive advantage.
Effective risk management functions act like brakes on a sports car: They do not slow the vehicle down—they enable it to move faster with confidence. By pressure-testing initiatives against multiple scenarios, risk professionals can identify fragile assumptions and build robust alternatives that withstand various future conditions. This approach requires the integration of risk management directly with scenario-planning processes rather than treating it as an afterthought.
The mandate is clear: Organizations must embed multiple perspectives into scenario planning beyond simple best-case and worst-case thinking. They should include key stakeholder viewpoints to develop a holistic understanding of what each scenario means for their specific business, then build the architectural resilience to thrive regardless of which future emerges. The organizations that thrive will be those that prepare for multiple futures simultaneously, treating uncertainty not as a problem to solve but as a new normal to navigate indefinitely.