How Business Uncertainty Is Forcing a New CFO Playbook

For middle-market firms, 2025 brought intense business uncertainty. The threat, and then actuality, of tariffs dominated the economic environment, with flip-flopping policy signals making it difficult to plan with confidence. Firms had to adapt to game-changing advances in artificial intelligence, with “hyperscalers” like Alphabet, Amazon and Meta pouring trillions into the technology while leaving open the question of how broad-based its long-term impact on productivity will be. Meanwhile, inflation remained stubbornly sticky, and seven AI-heavy companies powered a record bull market on Wall Street that masked broader challenges for other companies.

PYMNTS Intelligence’s latest Certainty Project report explores how navigating disruption became standard for business in the last 12 months, often with limited visibility and little margin for error. Goods producers felt the most pressure, as tariff exposure and supply chain dependencies threatened their survival. Services firms saw uncertainty gradually ease, though conditions varied across sectors.

Uncertainty’s impact went straight to the bottom line. Firms operating under high uncertainty were far more likely to report weaker financial performance, tighter margins and missed targets in 2025, while entering 2026 with more cautious growth outlooks and constrained investment priorities. These dynamics illustrate how prolonged uncertainty can lock firms into a defensive posture, pushing longer-term planning and investment to the back burner.

These are some of the findings in “How Business Uncertainty Is Forcing a New CFO Playbook,” a PYMNTS Intelligence exclusive report. This study examines how middle-market firms have adjusted their operational strategies in response to tariffs and other policy-related uncertainty. It draws on insights from a series of nine surveys of CFOs at U.S.-based middle-market companies with annual revenues between $100 million and $1 billion conducted between Feb. 12, 2024, and Nov. 26, 2025.

• Goods Firms Under Pressure
• Global Exposure
• Hitting The Bottom Line
• Year-End Reality Check
• Read More
• Methodology

Goods Firms Under Pressure

Business uncertainty spiked for goods firms in 2025 while services firms saw conditions stabilize.

PYMNTS Intelligence defines “uncertainty” as corporate executives’ assessments of unpredictability or lack of assurance in critical business areas, including accounts payable and receivable, cash and liquidity positions, macroeconomic conditions, consumer and customer demand, risk management, compliance and regulatory issues, supply chains, payments capabilities, exchange rates and competitive positions.

Overall, 26% of CFOs reported high levels of operational uncertainty across our 2025 surveys, slightly less than in 2024 (29%), while the share citing low uncertainty held almost steady. This apparent stasis, however, masks a sharp divergence between the goods and services sectors.

Goods firms scrambled in 2025 as the threat of levies on almost all foreign countries shifted from an abstract risk to a material reality. Nearly three in 10 CFOs in the goods sector indicated a high level of uncertainty in 2025, up 27% from the level seen in 2024. Services firms moved in the opposite direction, with 25% of CFOs reporting high uncertainty, reflecting a substantial drop from 34% in 2024. Meanwhile, smaller companies found it somewhat more difficult than their larger counterparts to shake off the unease in the last year.

There is even more pressure on goods firms than these year-long averages suggest. Since May 2025, roughly 50% more CFOs in the goods sector reported high uncertainty than did in 2024, and this trend did not improve as the year progressed. In fact, uncertainty for goods firms peaked in the latest survey at 157% of the 2024 average, suggesting it may still be climbing today. Services firms, conversely, have not seen uncertainty return to the 2024 average, although it came close in August 2025.

Global Exposure

Firms with greater international supply chain integration are more than twice as likely as their domestic-focused peers to face high uncertainty.

Beyond the opposite top-line trajectories for goods and services in 2025, a deeper look at the data reveals key divergences within each sector. The most significant split is between goods producers—particularly companies in manufacturing and construction and in building materials—and other goods firms such as traders and distributors. The share of CFOs at goods producers reporting high uncertainty jumped from just 13% in 2024 to 32% in 2025, a 2.5 times jump that accounts for the entire increase in high uncertainty across all companies. Traders and distributors saw uncertainty decline, with 27% of CFOs reporting high uncertainty in 2025, down from 35% in 2024.

The services sector also shows significant variations across segments. In education and healthcare, the share of CFOs reporting high uncertainty dropped by more than half in 2025, with a similarly sized decline in professional services. Conversely, uncertainty stayed elevated in 2025 in financial services and technology, with the same share of CFOs in each segment reporting high uncertainty in 2024 and 2025.

Another critical dividing line is dependency on international supply chains, which can expose companies to U.S. tariffs. At middle-market firms with only domestic suppliers, 18% of CFOs in 2025 reported high levels of operational uncertainty. This share nearly doubles to 33% among those with 40% or more of their suppliers located overseas. A related factor is the ability to manage tariff-related supply chain disruptions. CFOs with little or no confidence that their firms can adapt are far more likely, at 54%, to cite high uncertainty than those who are even somewhat confident, at 17%.

Hitting the Bottom Line

High business uncertainty translates into materially worse financial outcomes, not just caution.

Uncertainty compounds many operational and commercial challenges. Across our 2025 surveys, roughly one-quarter of CFOs at high uncertainty firms (23%) said that uncertainty caused client turnover in the last 12 months, compared to less than 10% of those at medium- or low-uncertainty companies. The high-uncertainty cohort was also more than twice as likely as the low-uncertainty group to indicate that uncertainty prevented them from expanding their customer base, at 21% and 10%, respectively.

These and other uncertainty-fueled challenges translate directly into financial pain. Slightly more than half of CFOs at high-uncertainty firms (53%) agreed that uncertainty reduced their revenue in the last 12 months, while just 8% of their low-uncertainty peers said the same. Uncertainty squeezes profits too: Half of CFOs at high-uncertainty firms reported smaller profit margins due to uncertainty in the last 12 months, twice the rate seen at low-uncertainty companies.

These financial impacts create a severe drag on overall performance. CFOs at high-uncertainty firms estimate that uncertainty cut into their revenue by an average of 6% over the prior 12 months. This is twice the cost reported by CFOs at medium-uncertainty companies (3%) and triple what those operating in low uncertainty cited, making it clear that high-uncertainty conditions are materially more expensive for middle-market firms.

Year-End Reality Check

High business uncertainty locks firms into a defensive stance, limiting investment capacity and growth expectations.

In the final survey of 2025, we asked CFOs to look back on their firms’ performance over the past year. More than eight in 10 respondents at high-uncertainty firms (82%) said their companies fell short of expectations they had going into 2025, compared with 56% and 28% at medium- and low-uncertainty firms, respectively. These trends emphasize the central role that uncertainty played in financial and commercial outcomes.

Operating under elevated uncertainty has an even greater impact in other areas. While 76% of CFOs at high-uncertainty firms rated their cash flow and liquidity positions as weak, roughly one in 10 of those at medium- or low-uncertainty companies said the same. Moreover, nearly seven in 10 respondents at low-uncertainty firms described their cash flow and liquidity situation as strong. The pattern is much the same for operating margins: 76% of CFOs at high-uncertainty firms report decreased margins in 2025, versus 22% at medium-uncertainty firms and 12% at low-uncertainty firms.

Low uncertainty, meanwhile, brings enormous benefits. Roughly two-thirds of CFOs at low-uncertainty firms rated their liquidity position as strong (68%) and said their margins improved in 2025. For medium- and high-uncertainty companies, these metrics fall in the 11-17% range. Similarly, almost all CFOs whose companies exceeded performance expectations in 2025 reported low uncertainty.

Business uncertainty in 2026

The level of uncertainty middle-market firms experienced in 2025 carries over into their revenue outlooks for the next year: pessimism when uncertainty is high, and optimism when it is low. Less than one-quarter of CFOs at high-uncertainty companies believe their firms will increase revenue in 2026, while 35% predict declines. Among medium-uncertainty firms, 72% predict growth, while only a few expect contraction. Low-uncertainty companies almost universally forecast higher revenue (96%).

All of this means high-uncertainty firms will stay on the defensive in 2026. This caution is reflected in largely unchanged priorities between 2025 and 2026. For example, 29% of CFOs at high-uncertainty companies said their firms will prioritize supply chain improvements next year, the same share that named this area as a priority in 2025. Market expansion and cash flow optimization also remain flat. The most significant shift is a greater focus on customer experience: 41% of CFOs at high-uncertainty firms say their firms will prioritize it in 2026, up from 29% last year.

Meanwhile, very few high-uncertainty firms will prioritize technology investments in 2026. Only 12% will focus on AI adoption or digital transformation—and they may do so to reduce costs rather than build new products or capabilities. Even fewer will prioritize talent acquisition and retention. These trends demonstrate a lack of appetite for investment in longer-term growth, suggesting that these companies feel they need to focus on surviving the immediate challenges posed by high operational uncertainty.

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• How Middle-Market Business Uncertainty Rewrote 2025
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• When Tariffs Meet Strategy: The New CFO Calculus

Methodology

“How Business Uncertainty Is Forcing a New CFO Playbook” is based on a series of nine surveys of CFOs at U.S.-based middle-market firms with annual revenues between $100 million and $1 billion conducted between Feb. 12, 2024, and Nov. 26, 2025. The report examines how firms are adjusting their product and operational strategies in response to tariffs.