How Payments Innovation Underpins All-Weather Businesses and Resilient Supply Chains

In times of uncertainty, cash flow isn’t just king; it can be the entire royal court.

For decades, payments have been the underappreciated plumbing of commerce, something viewed as essential but rarely strategic. Today, that paradigm has shifted dramatically. Against a backdrop where economic volatility has become the norm rather than the exception, “all-weather” businesses are increasingly seen as the gold standard.

These companies are not just surviving in the face of macroeconomic shocks, geopolitical unrest and fluctuating consumer sentiment. They are thriving.

The secret sauce behind their resilience? A quiet but powerful revolution in payments innovation that is providing businesses with the ability to manage their cash flow with precision and flexibility.

The shift is subtle but profound. Finance, once reactive by design, is becoming anticipatory.

Read more: Trump’s Global Tariffs Position CFOs as New Supply Chain Architects

Working Capital is the Lifeblood of Resilience

Working capital innovations are helping businesses plan for the future while simultaneously navigating today’s complexities. In sectors like manufacturing and retail, where delays can cascade into million-dollar losses, the speed and reliability of payments can mean the difference between resilience and ruin.

Visa and PYMNTS Intelligence created a dynamic benchmarking report that can help users take a deeper look into how their DPO (days payable outstanding) and other metrics stack up against peers and outperformers within their chosen industries.

”We need high-growth businesses to survive and thrive [in this uncertain economy],”Lucy Demery, senior vice president, head of Visa Commercial Solutions, Europe, said to PYMNTS, noting that embedded options are proving to be a “huge unlock for supply chain payments.”

Faster, smarter payments can also enable new business models. Subscription services, gig economy platforms and decentralized finance ecosystems all rely on innovative payment infrastructure to operate efficiently and scale rapidly. By turning to embedded finance offerings such buy now, pay later (BNPL) and other flexible B2B offerings like virtual cards, businesses can use payments as a tool for differentiation.

“The really progressive companies are getting in front of [the transition to virtual card],” WEX President of Corporate Payments Eric Frankovic told PYMNTS this month. “… They have to cut costs, they have to control costs, they have to keep a healthy supply chain. And in order to do that, they have to start those conversations.”

As globalization meets fragmentation, businesses face mounting challenges in managing cross-border payments. Tariffs, currency fluctuations and shifting trade alliances complicate traditional payment flows. Modern payment platforms equipped with multi-currency capabilities, localized compliance features and API-based integrations can help to streamline these frictions.

“Treasury software, for example, now allows us to reconcile cash across dozens — if not close to 100 — bank accounts in hours instead of days,” Hometap CFO Tom Egan told PYMNTS in an earlier conversation. “This functionality is massive.”

Beyond internal efficiency, payments innovation is reshaping the customer experience by enabling faster onboarding of new partners and more resilient procurement strategies. The latest PYMNTS Intelligence in the March 2025 “Business Payments Tracker®” series reveals that in a push to modernize business payments and mirror the seamless experience consumers enjoy, companies are merging virtual cards with mobile wallets.

See also: For CFOs, the Tech Stack Is the Business Strategy

The Strategic Imperative of Transformation

Perhaps the most underestimated benefit of payments innovation is the treasure trove of data it unlocks. Transaction data, when analyzed effectively, can yield insights into customer behavior, supplier reliability, cash flow trends and macroeconomic indicators.

Advanced analytics and dashboards embedded within payment platforms allow finance and operations teams to identify patterns, flag anomalies and forecast trends with greater confidence. In an environment where agility often trumps scale, this intelligence can give companies a competitive edge.

Despite the clear benefits, many companies still treat payments as a back-office function. That mindset is increasingly outdated. Payments should be viewed as a strategic lever — a key enabler of resilience, agility and growth, particularly for all-weather businesses.

As we navigate a complex and interconnected world, the role of payments will only grow more central. With technologies like blockchain, programmable money and central bank digital currencies on the horizon, the next wave of innovation promises even greater resilience and adaptability.

Those benefits could be crucial, particularly for smaller businesses. In the PYMNTS Intelligence report “Brewing Storm: Why 1 in 5 Smaller Businesses Without Financing Fear They May Not Survive Tariffs, the 560 small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) surveyed gave a glimpse into the state of affairs:

Amid macro turbulence not seen in years, and tariffs that have not been at this (threatened) level in more than a century, the data shows that just 36% had access to readily available cash, including another 8% that also had cash in the bank.