Working capital readiness for an era of persistent disruption: the treasurer’s just-in-case playbook

Supply chains have been in near-constant flux for more than five years. Since the pandemic, companies have rethought sourcing strategies, supplier concentration, logistics routes, inventory buffers, and regional exposure. More recently, Middle East conflict, shipping route disruption, tariff uncertainty, sanctions complexity, energy volatility, and shifting customer behavior have added new layers of disruption.

For treasurers, the priority has shifted toward working capital readiness: the ability to see changing conditions early, understand the liquidity implications, and pivot quickly when assumptions change.

That need is becoming more urgent as CFO sentiment softens. Kyriba’s latest Risk Radar data, compared with prior CFO Survey data from roughly nine months earlier, shows a modest but meaningful decline in confidence. Global economic optimism declined from 76% to 71%, while global business outlook fell from 79% to 74%. Those figures do not suggest confidence has collapsed, but they do point to a more cautious operating environment.

The regional picture is even more instructive. When I reviewed the regional breakdown in this year's Risk Radar, the Singapore numbers stood out immediately. Economic outlook fell 29 percentage points, from 90% to 61%, while business outlook dropped 34 points, from 93% to 59%. That scale of movement deserves attention. Singapore plays a central role as a logistics, financing, and regional treasury hub, which means it also serves as an early indicator of how Middle East disruption, including pressure on the Strait of Hormuz, oil prices, and shipping routes, transmits into Asia's trade corridors. For treasurers managing APAC supply chains or trading into Southeast Asian markets, the practical response is to review open account limits, tighten DSO monitoring, reassess customer concentration, and consider where receivables purchase or credit risk mitigation may be warranted.

Japan and the UK show different forms of pressure. Japan’s business outlook fell from 63% to 50%, pointing to a more cautious environment for companies with exposure to advanced manufacturing, electronics, automotive, and industrial supply chains. The UK’s business outlook declined from 87% to 75%, a 12-point drop, raising questions around customer demand, payment discipline, and exposure to extended payment cycles.

Taken together, the Risk Radar data points to a practical reality: planning assumptions are becoming less durable. Companies still see growth opportunities, but they are becoming more protective of liquidity, more focused on optionality, and more dependent on real-time visibility to make confident decisions.

Just-in-case is a treasury issue

The shift from just-in-time to just-in-case thinking has been underway since Covid, but many companies still treat it mainly as a supply chain strategy. That misses the financial impact.

Supplier diversification can change payment flows. Longer lead times can extend the cash conversion cycle. Higher landed costs can alter margin forecasts. Customer caution can lengthen receivables timing. Tariff shifts can change pricing assumptions and FX exposures. Every operational decision made in the name of resilience eventually shows up in working capital.

The same recalibration challenge is now playing out in trade policy. The temporary Section 122 tariff surcharge expired last month, after months of elevated import costs across sectors. Many companies need to revisit financial models built around tariff-era assumptions

That matters because tariff changes do not flow neatly through the business. They affect supplier pricing, landed cost assumptions, margin forecasts, FX exposures, cash forecasts, and working capital buffers. A company that built reserves around higher import costs may suddenly have room to release cash. Another may need to reprice supplier contracts, revisit hedge ratios, or adjust payment strategies as cost assumptions move again.

Readiness cannot come only from holding more cash as a buffer. Idle cash has an opportunity cost, and reserves alone do not strengthen supplier access to liquidity or accelerate collections when conditions tighten. The more valuable capability is knowing where liquidity is needed, where risk is building, and which working capital lever to pull as conditions change.

From fragmented tools to insight-to-action

That is the case for integrating working capital with treasury. In a prior discussion on turning working capital into a strategic advantage, I argued that treasury and working capital should not sit in separate systems, workflows, or decision cycles. When cash visibility, liquidity planning, payments, receivables, and payables are connected, finance teams can move from insight to action faster.

When disruption is continuous, that integration is what makes readiness possible.

Many companies still manage working capital through fragmented processes. Supplier finance may sit with procurement or payables. Receivables finance may sit with collections or credit. FX exposures may sit with treasury. Forecasting may sit with FP&A. IT may own the systems and data flows that determine whether any of these teams can act quickly.

That fragmentation slows decision-making when speed matters most.

A better approach is to organize working capital around the decisions CFOs and treasurers need to make:

• Which suppliers would benefit from broader access to early payment options?

• Where can payment terms support supply chain stability without creating unnecessary liquidity pressure?

• Which customers or regions create enough collection uncertainty to justify bringing cash forward?

• How will tariff changes affect cost models, cash forecasts, and hedge ratios?

• Where can excess cash generate better returns through dynamic discounting rather than sitting idle?

Payables finance, dynamic discounting, and receivables finance become more powerful when they are connected. Payables finance can preserve buyer liquidity while giving suppliers access to earlier payment. Dynamic discounting can allow companies with surplus cash to capture attractive returns while strengthening supplier relationships. Receivables finance can bring cash forward when payment cycles lengthen, when growth creates short-term liquidity needs, or when companies want to reduce reliance on external borrowing.

The important point is access. Fintech-enabled working capital programs can reach a wider portion of the supply chain than traditional bank-led programs, creating more value for the buyer and more flexibility for suppliers. In a volatile environment, resilience depends on the health of the broader supply chain, not only the largest counterparties.

Building the working capital coalition

Working capital readiness cannot sit with treasury alone. It requires alignment across Finance, Treasury, Procurement, Credit, and IT.

Treasury brings cash visibility, liquidity planning, funding strategy, FX risk management, and the ability to evaluate trade-offs across cash, debt, yield, and risk. Procurement brings supplier relationships and insight into where early payment access could strengthen the supply base. Credit and collections bring visibility into customer behavior, DSO trends, disputes, and concentration risk. Finance connects these decisions to forecasts, margins, and performance metrics. IT makes the model scalable by connecting data, workflows, approvals, payments, and reporting.

With that coalition in place, working capital becomes part of a continuous liquidity loop. Treasury can identify excess cash and evaluate dynamic discounting opportunities. It can compare discount economics against money market yields, debt paydown, or funding costs. It can use receivables finance to close short-term liquidity gaps without unnecessarily drawing credit lines. It can align payables finance with supplier needs and cash availability, and it can do all of this with the forecast, accounting, and audit trail connected.

That is the difference between having working capital tools and having working capital readiness.

The real question

The playbook for this environment starts with visibility: where is cash available, where is liquidity trapped, which suppliers need more flexible payment access, which customers are stretching terms, and which regions are creating new exposure? From there, readiness depends on integration: connecting treasury, payments, liquidity planning, FX, receivables, and payables so decisions can move from insight to execution quickly.

Timing matters as much as access. Most companies caught by disruption in recent years did not lack working capital options. They lacked the structure, visibility, and decision framework to deploy those options quickly when conditions changed.

That is where technology has an important role to play. Treasury teams need real-time visibility into cash, exposures, forecasts, and working capital positions so they can connect decisions across liquidity, FX, payables, and receivables. For Kyriba, this is where working capital readiness becomes practical: helping CFOs and treasurers see risk earlier, model scenarios faster, and act with more confidence when assumptions shift.

In an environment where disruption is constant, readiness is the advantage. The treasurer’s task is to build the visibility, tools, and cross-functional alignment to pivot before the next shock makes the choice for them.