Tariffs, supply chain chaos, and price volatility are now the norm.
And months ago, manufacturers were focused on weathering the immediate storm:
Stabilizing supply chains
Managing unpredictable costs
Protecting margins wherever possible.
But as conditions continue to evolve, the question has shifted from “How do we survive?” to “How do we stay competitive in a market that may never stabilize?”
To explore what that next stage of adaptation looks like, we revisited a discussion from earlier this year with leaders from Eagle Crusher, the Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM), Above The Fray, and Shopware – to determine what actions manufacturers (and similar organizations) should take to stay resilient when the variables never seem to stop moving.
The past: The lead up and impact of tariffs on manufacturers
When talk of new tariffs first surfaced, manufacturers entered a months-long waiting game. No one knew exactly when they would take effect – or how severe the blowback would be once other nations inevitably retaliated.
The uncertainty itself became disruptive.
Supply chain managers held off on large orders
CFOs paused pricing commitments
Operations teams braced for ripple effects to strike anywhere in the network
Vulnerability for manufacturers
When the tariffs finally hit, U.S. manufacturing and construction companies were caught in the crossfire. The Washington Center for Equitable Growth put it plainly:
“Importantly, manufacturing would likely be the most vulnerable industrial category regardless of the commodity or country specifics of a given tariff regime. Some manufacturing subsectors may be less harmed than others, but the overall reliance of the sector on imported inputs means manufacturing will face greater intermediate tariff costs compared to other industries.”
Eagle Crusher felt that vulnerability immediately.
“Price increases on quotes – from suppliers, from raw materials to finished goods – jumped up to 40%,” said Daniel Friedman, Vice President of Marketing at Eagle Crusher. “That far exceeded the actual tariff levy.”
Even domestic suppliers joined in, raising prices simply because the market allowed it. Or the increased cost required organizations to share the load with consumers.
John Somers, Vice President of the Construction and Utility Sector at AEM, noted, “A lot of people assume domestic manufacturers aren’t impacted – but that’s not true. You’re still sourcing components from all over the place. If those are hit, it trickles through the whole machine.”
“And for some, the cost of imported goods increasing created the opportunity for domestic suppliers to increase their margins,” he explained. “And they did.”
Difficulty adjusting in an industry that requires long-term planning
As the ripple effects became clear, many companies realized there was no quick fix. They couldn’t simply react their way out of volatility.
Especially when the factors are far more difficult to predict.
“We’re not really seeing a true leveling out because there’s no stability in the tariff scheme right now,” Friedman admitted. “Every new update resets expectations.”
For an industry built on long production cycles and multi-year forecasts, sudden market swings left little room for rash decisions. Manufacturers had to adjust what they could control.
Reevaluating supplier relationships, contract terms, and margin structures – while simultaneously looking six to twelve months ahead. Planning became less about predicting specific tariff changes and more about building resilience into every assumption.
The present: Operating in a market that never fully stabilizes
Fast forward six months, and the day-to-day challenges for manufacturers can be boiled down to three key points.
1. Rising import and input costs are now a constant variable
The compound impacts of tariffs are now baked into the cost of doing business.
Quotes still move unpredictably, raw material prices continue to fluctuate, and domestic suppliers have to contend with the reality that there’s no immediate relief to offset higher costs.
2. Workforce shortages are becoming a defining constraint
Even for companies that have stabilized supply chains and pricing, labor remains the bottleneck.
Entire regions are experiencing long-term population decline
Reshoring requires skilled talent that isn’t readily available
Technical workforce pipelines are failing to keep pace with industry demand
As John Somers of AEM put it, “We’re talking about nearshoring, but that takes people. We need legal immigration reform, more technical training, and more investment in workforce development. Otherwise, we’re just moving the problem closer to home.”
3. Major capital purchases are slower and scrutinized
With cost uncertainty and economic caution in the air, customers and dealers alike are slower to commit. Large equipment purchases now involve more stakeholders, longer evaluation cycles, and an increased need for trust-building and value justification.
How manufacturers are finding stability in the instability
Despite these compounding pressures, many manufacturers have shifted from defensive reaction to strategic adaptation.
The common thread?
They’re building resilience before the next disruption hits in the following ways.
Avoiding vs. resolving: Planning before crisis
Somers summarized it plainly: “The goal should always be to avoid, not resolve.”
Most companies are well-practiced in firefighting – reacting once disruption arrives. But the manufacturers adapting best today are the ones intentionally building the capacity to absorb volatility without scrambling every time something shifts.
During COVID, some diversified sourcing early, and that choice is now paying dividends. “Wherever they’re sourcing from, they have more options,” Somers said.
In other words, resilience is often developed in the midst of a crisis. And in an environment where there’s no clear resolution, the current approach to planning is not to yearn for ‘going back to normal.’
Instead, the successful manufacturers treat this as the ‘new normal’ moving forward.
Innovating because of chaos, not in spite of it
For Jason Nyhus of Shopware, uncertainty initially stalled digital investment. Companies delayed major platform upgrades and hiring decisions, waiting for stability that never came. But recently, the mindset has shifted.
“Everybody realized we’re all playing on a very level playing field of chaos,” Nyhus explained. “So some said, ‘This is our chance to differentiate while everyone else is paused.’”
This marked a turning point: volatility became a window for strategic advantage. Business areas, like digital commerce, that were previously ignored or seen as a nice-to-have, were suddenly emerging as potential strategic advantages.
While being conscious of budget and rising costs is a continued necessity, exploring alternative paths for growth is becoming increasingly viable. And while it does require some up-front investment, the pay-off is often well worth it.
Efficiency over expansion
Want a good example of this revised approach to investment initiatives?
How about manufacturers focusing on building internal stability and operational clarity. Basically, cleaning house to remove pain points related to efficiency and redundancy.
Nyhus described it this way: “The business case for digital used to be growth. Now it’s about efficiency. How do we automate the work that only two people know how to do? How do we de-risk the business?”
Noah Oken-Berg of Above The Fray echoed this approach. “You start with a pilot – one problem, one process – and you show it works. That’s how you get momentum.”
At Eagle Crusher, this took the form of reorganizing their entire production floor. Not to increase output, but to increase usability, agility, and training capacity. For other organizations, this can look like:
Improving digital ordering systems for existing customers
Reworking product catalogues to work better in digital storefronts
Conducting a data audit to ensure everything is clean, organized, and usable
All of these things, while potentially important, would have been seen as side initiatives. Work that could eventually produce results but had been pushed aside in favor of aggressive growth.
Now, when traditional growth levers (like market expansion, equipment investments, etc.) are far riskier, these ‘house cleaning’ activities suddenly become safer bets with long-term guarantees attached.
Investing in people to prepare for the next cycle
“You can rearrange the factory all you want, but if there aren’t enough people to work there, it doesn’t matter,” explained Friedman.
That reality is pushing manufacturers to rethink workforce development. Rather than competing endlessly for a shrinking pool of skilled labor – or paying premium wages to fill urgent gaps – more organizations are choosing to build the talent they need internally.
The logic mirrors what Silicon Valley companies like Google did several years ago when they introduced alternative credentialing programs to bypass traditional education gaps.
Manufacturing organizations have been making similar moves for a number of years now. However, with more recent skill gaps appearing, more individual businesses are designing or collaborating on:
Training programs
Internal certifications
Mentor-apprentice tracks
Ongoing education opportunities tailored to the actual work
Some are even building internal academies or partnering with trade schools and technical institutes to co-develop curriculum that maps directly to future production needs.
As Friedman put it, the companies making these investments now aren’t doing it because the payoff is immediate. They’re doing it because the next wave of volatility is inevitable.
“When things pick up, the investments we made in our people are going to pay off,” he said. “That’s how we keep long-term stability in a short-term world.”
Getting closer to the customer
Across the industry, the companies gaining ground are the ones shortening the distance between themselves and the end user. Somers summarized it clearly:
“The winners are going to be the ones that get the information and the knowledge and the trustworthiness to the end user the quickest.”
Digital tools aren’t replacing relationships – they’re enhancing them. Field reps become more effective with better data. Dealers close faster with clearer product insights. End users trust more when information is easy to access.
As Oken-Berg put it, “People don’t want something completely new. They want something familiar, done differently.”
The future: Where manufacturers should focus next
These challenges aren’t going away. And neither is the opportunity to use this moment to get stronger.
The manufacturers positioned to thrive over the next 12–36 months are moving toward initiatives that will do the following:
1. Get closer to customers
“The winners will be the ones who get knowledge and trust to the end user the quickest.” – John Somers, AEM
If the last few years revealed anything, it’s this: your customers are the clearest indicator of what actually matters. The best way to avoid wasted effort is to stay very close to the people using your equipment, maintaining it, selling it, and troubleshooting it.
That means:
Asking more questions and asking them earlier
Validating decisions with customers, not just internal teams
Knowing how they actually buy and use your products – not how the organization assumes they do
It also means making it easier for them to get the information they need without timing delays, hoops, or heavy back-and-forth.
This is where digital comes in. Not to replace relationships, but reinforce them when you can’t directly interact.
Give your field reps tools that help them answer questions in minutes, not days
Make technical specs, manuals, parts compatibility info, and lead times easier to access
Ensure dealers aren’t waiting on internal approvals just to quote your product accurately
Reduce friction anywhere the customer is trying to learn, evaluate, or buy
This isn’t about being everywhere. It’s about being reachable, helpful, and consistent.
A better catalog, a smarter quoting workflow, or clearer product documentation doesn’t feel like innovation. But they’re the exact improvements that change the customer experience immediately.
2. Lean into MVP-based digital transformation
“It’s taken a lot more creativity – finding solutions that can do proof-of-concepts, solve one business problem, show impact, and then iterate from there.” – Noah Oken-Berg, Above The Fray
One of the biggest mistakes manufacturers make when they think about digital transformation is assuming it needs to be massive, complicated, and expensive from day one.
That’s usually what stalls progress. If the project feels too big, no one wants to be the one who sticks their neck out to push it forward.
But the most successful manufacturers aren’t rebuilding everything. They’re fixing one problem at a time, which again relates to a clear customer pain point.
That looks like:
Modernizing the way quotes are requested and returned
Replacing PDF catalogs with guided digital ones that reps and dealers can use anywhere
Improving how parts are searched, configured, or ordered
Eliminating the internal “only two people know how to do that” processes
These aren’t glamorous moves.
But they are high-impact, lower-risk steps that prove the value of doing more. And that proof matters, especially in organizations where people have been doing things the same way for a long time.
These small wins build belief. And belief is what unlocks budgets, buy-in, and trust.
3. Expand to new sales channels
“Digital shouldn’t replace your sales team – digital should make them better.” – Jason Nyhus, Shopware
The traditional sales model still works, but it doesn’t reach everyone anymore. Buyers research differently, evaluate differently, and expect faster clarity before they ever talk to a rep.
So, while the majority of your efforts should be on strengthening your existing sales channels, part of your focus should be on opening up new channels.
This is where earlier digital improvements begin to pay off.
If quoting is easier… If parts lookup is clearer… If reps and dealers have better tools…
Then, expanding into new channels, like DTC, becomes far easier to make a reality.
New sales paths that build on existing workflows could include:
A digital parts storefront for high-volume consumables
Self-service quoting for common configurations
Dealer portals that reduce back-and-forth and improve response time
Select DTC offerings for maintenance parts, accessories, or niche product lines
The net effect? You remove friction at every level of the sales chain and provide more ways for you to meet customers where they’re at in the current crises and the next.
The edge belongs to the adaptive
Tariffs will continue to shift. Labor markets will likely tighten. Economic confidence will rise and fall.
None of that is fully controllable. But how manufacturers respond is. And the companies that treat volatility as fuel – not paralysis – are the ones that win.
As Somers put it: “If it’s not tariffs, it’ll be something else. You can’t wait for stability to innovate.”
Watch the full conversation
We dive deeper into these insights – along with real examples, challenges, and successes – in our full discussion with leaders from Above The Fray, Eagle Crusher, AEM, and Shopware.
Check out the full conversation and let us know what questions you have for this group. We’d love to get them back together and get an update on what their expectations are for manufacturers heading into 2027.
Further reading
