Genpact’s global supply chain lead says tariff instability and geopolitical disruption are pushing companies deeper into supplier diversification and regional realignment in 2026 — trends that began during COVID but are now hardening into long-term structural change.
In an interview with FreightWaves, Tanguy Caillet said most multinational shippers were better prepared for the current tariff environment than many observers expected, largely because pandemic-era investments in visibility and decision-making tools laid the groundwork.
“I was very surprised,” Caillet said. “We actually sold not one advisory project on tariffs with clients, though we tried.”
That lack of panic buying, he said, reflects how far supply chains have evolved since 2020. After COVID disruptions, companies poured money into control towers, supplier-risk monitoring and scenario planning capabilities — investments that allowed them to respond quickly to tariff swings without scrambling for outside help.
Genpact Limited (NYSE: G), an agentic and advanced technology solutions company with 125,000 employees serving 800 clients. Headquartered in New York, Genpact has a significant presence in India and operates in over 35 countries.
From cost optimization to risk diversification
Caillet said tariff volatility is accelerating a broader shift away from single-country sourcing and hyper-concentrated supplier portfolios.
“Can you also have resiliency into your supplier network by having dual, triple supply options?” he said. “So eliminate your single source suppliers, which you had for a long time.”
For decades, procurement strategies centered on supplier rationalization — consolidating spend with fewer vendors to negotiate lower per-unit costs. But that model, Caillet said, created fragile supply chains overly dependent on specific factories or countries.
“What we are seeing is a kind of … deglobalization of supply chains and a real regionalization where supply chains need to become kind of like a bit less interdependent,” he said.
That doesn’t always mean uprooting factories. Manufacturing footprints are costly and slow to relocate. Instead, many companies are redesigning logistics routes, increasing multi-sourcing strategies, or leveraging bonded warehouses and tariff-friendly trade corridors to reduce exposure.
In some cases, firms are willing to pay higher transportation costs if it reduces duty burdens. In others, they are building optionality — treating supplier portfolios more like financial portfolios, with built-in hedges and alternative pathways.
Technology as the orchestration layer
Caillet emphasized that technology — particularly AI layered on top of foundational systems — will be critical in managing the next phase of trade volatility.
“It’s all about this orchestration layer at the top,” he said.
Rather than simply plugging in AI as a standalone solution, companies must first modernize their core data infrastructure: clean data, integrated planning systems, procurement systems and supplier relationship management tools.
From there, AI can connect external geopolitical signals — such as tariff changes or supplier risk alerts — with internal data to model impact scenarios in near real time. The goal is to quickly determine which production plans, customers or contracts could be affected and adjust accordingly.
Caillet believes many companies still underestimate how rapidly AI-driven use cases are proliferating.
“There is no artificial intelligence without process intelligence,” he said.
Digital transformation requires not just tools, Caillet said, but rethinking operating models and decision processes. Organizations that fail to align technology with process redesign risk falling into the large percentage of AI initiatives that fail to deliver measurable value.
2026 outlook: volatility becomes the norm
Looking ahead, Caillet expects continued geopolitical disruptions, shifting trade alliances and reconfiguration of global trade routes throughout 2026.
“The power is moving, the center of gravity, manufacturing, consumers is moving around, is changing in the world,” he said.
Instead of a return to pre-tariff globalization, he sees the emergence of more regionally anchored supply networks linking Africa, Latin America, Europe and Asia in new configurations. The U.S. market, he suggested, faces a credibility challenge among some global firms due to persistent policy instability.
Even if certain tariffs are rolled back, Caillet said many companies may hesitate to revert to old sourcing models because the underlying volatility remains.
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