Globalisation rewritten: the CFO’s new expansion playbook

At the beginning of the year, our 2026 C-suite study revealed more than four in five CFOs (83%) plan to expand to at least one new country in the next five years. To achieve this, access to new markets and customers or clients, of course, remains essential – not a particularly easy guarantee as geopolitical volatility sparks further economic instability and trade uncertainty.

Ultimately, what has changed is that there is no longer the neutrality there once was with the geographical backdrop to expansion. It has become an active variable shaping traditional cost structures, operational complexity and exposure to risk. Globalisation, in other words, is being rewritten.

It’s reassuring in the current climate that globalisation shows no signs of retreating. In fact, half of those financial leaders planning expansion have already added extra target countries as part of their expansion plans and another 45% have adjusted the markets they were originally targeting. So, the ambition has not faded. It’s the reasons behind these decisions – geopolitical instability (64%) and trade and tariff disruption (51%) –  that are rewriting a new playbook. 

Expansion continues, but with more selectivity

As the appetite for international growth remains strong, in this new era of uncertainty leaders need to be ready for increased levels of scrutiny to be applied to each decision.

Where expansion was once led primarily by market size or growth potential, CFOs are now weighing a broader set of considerations: tariff exposure, regulatory divergence, supply chain resilience and the cost of local compliance. Entering a new market has evolved from a simple commercial decision to a financing, risk and operating decision.

This shift is visible in the top destinations planned for expansion: France (26%), Canada (23%) and Germany (22%) now rank ahead of China (20%), the United States (19%) and UK (9%) among CFOs. The pattern suggests a tilt towards jurisdictions seen as more stable or easier to absorb into existing operating models.

The implication may appear subtle in the grand scheme of current events or wider business plans, but it’s important as each of these markets still have some complexity among their long-term resilience and predictability.

From efficiency to optionality

For much of the past two decades, globalisation rewarded concentration. That bargain is now under strain. Tariff volatility, geopolitical tension and supply chain disruption have exposed the risks of over-concentration. In response, CFOs are rethinking the shape of their international footprint with the diversification of markets (38%), raising prices (37%) and building cost efficiencies (37%) among the most common reactions to managing tariff and trade disruption.

The emerging model doesn’t focus, as you may expect from financial leaders, on shaving costs to the bone. Instead, businesses are boosting investment, doubling down on expansion plans and spreading risk across regions. In some cases, not only are leaders reassessing dependencies, they’re accepting higher operating costs in exchange for greater adaptability.

What once looked inefficient on paper (eg multiple suppliers, regional hubs, additional inventory buffers) is increasingly seen as strategically necessary. In isolation, the 56% of CFOs confirming the consolidation of their services in specific countries in the last year and the 88% stating that they’ve already offshored operations or plan to in the next year may appear to be deglobalisation. Yet the breadth of our research shows this clear shift from a single, efficiency-led model to one that is more distributed and adaptive.

Investment is being staged more carefully

This recalibration is also visible in investment priorities. CFOs place greater emphasis on expanding operations within existing markets (41%) than on integrating new technologies (38%).

Before investing in more sophisticated systems or infrastructure, organisations are strengthening the footprint they already have. That aligns with the consolidating of operations, deepening local presence and improving execution in markets they already know. This reflects a more disciplined approach: staging investment more carefully and making sure the operational foundations are secure before the inevitable complexity is added.

The cost of expansion, and adaptability, is rising

Rewriting globalisation, however, comes with a bill. Make no mistake, with more adaptability in operating models, comes even more investment needed to set up localised capabilities, compliance infrastructure, diversified supply chains and greater working capital buffers.

This raises a more fundamental question. If resilience carries a cost, how should it be valued?

Increasingly, CFOs are being asked to justify these investments not as defensive costs, but as enablers of sustainable growth. The objective is no longer to fund expansion at the lowest possible cost, but to fund it in a way that does not introduce new vulnerabilities elsewhere. Capital allocation itself is also being reshaped by geopolitical reality.

A broader mandate for the CFO and a new expansion playbook

Decisions about where to operate, how to structure supply chains and how quickly to deploy capital now sit squarely at the intersection of finance, risk and strategy. CFOs are no longer simply validating expansion plans; they are defining the conditions under which global growth remains viable at all.

This modern expansion playbook places less emphasis on speed and reach, and more on balance — between growth and control, efficiency and resilience, ambition and discipline.

Yes, companies are still expanding across borders, but with a clearer view of the trade-offs involved. In an uncertain environment, advantage will belong not to those that hold back or to the next extreme, move fastest, but to those with the management resilience and institutional learning embedded in plans that can foster adaptability along the way.