By Nick Hill, Senior Director, Global Intelligence and Operations, Crisis24
The disruptions that once felt exceptional, be they a pandemic, a canal blockage or a semiconductor shortage, have become recurring features of the electronics manufacturing landscape. For OEMs, EMS providers and their supplier networks, the question is no longer whether the next shock will arrive, but whether they will see it coming in time to act.
In 2026, we face a convergence of risks and disruptions. It no longer makes sense to think about trade policy shifts, cyber threats, geopolitical friction and climate-related disruption as separate risk categories. In reality, they interact, overlap, compound and cascade, oftentimes at a speed that overwhelms traditional planning and mitigation. A tariff announcement can reshape sourcing economics overnight, and a ransomware attack on a single logistics provider can halt production across multiple continents. For an industry built on precision and just-in-time efficiency, this represents a fundamental challenge.
Trade policy is rewriting the sourcing playbook
Electronics manufacturing is exposed to geopolitical tension and competition. Export controls on advanced semiconductors continue to tighten, while tariff regimes are becoming more aggressive and less predictable, with duties now sometimes applied based on a component’s country of design rather than its country of origin. All of this adds complexity for importers managing bills of materials that span dozens of jurisdictions. Critical mineral supply chains are equally exposed, with the concentration of rare earth processing in a relatively small number of countries creating structural vulnerability that threatens production continuity.
Nearshoring and friendshoring are popular responses, but qualifying new suppliers takes time, while capacity in alternative regions is often constrained and policy incentives can shift with political cycles.
Cyber risk has become operational risk
Smart factories, connected production lines and cloud-based MES and ERP platforms have created huge benefits, but the digitisation of manufacturing has expanded the surface that cyber attackers can target dramatically. A cyber breach in electronics manufacturing now extends far beyond data loss to include halted production, corrupted firmware, compromised intellectual property and cascading delays across delivery schedules. Supply chain attacks are growing in frequency, with threat actors compromising a software vendor or logistics platform to reach dozens of downstream targets. In our experience, many large enterprises now identify third-party and supplier vulnerabilities as their leading cybersecurity concern.
For EMS companies managing high-mix production for multiple clients, the stakes are particularly high. A breach that exposes one customer’s design files can erode trust across the entire client base.
From reactive to anticipatory
In 2026, a proactive approach to resilience needs to go further than maintaining safety stock and dual-sourcing critical components. The organisations that navigate today’s external environment most effectively invest in anticipatory intelligence: the ability to identify emerging threats before they materialise and to understand how developments in geopolitics, trade policy and technology may interact to affect operations.
This looks like the integration of diverse data streams such as geopolitical analysis, cyber threat intelligence, real-time logistics tracking and regulatory surveillance, into a unified operating picture. AI-powered platforms are increasingly making this possible at a scale and speed that was previously the preserve of national security agencies.
What supply chain leaders should do now
First, map your real dependencies, going beyond tier-one suppliers to include sub-tier relationships, logistics corridors and digital infrastructure that your operations rely on. Unfortunately, it’s too common for manufacturers to discover their concentration risk only after a disruption exposes it.
Second, stress-test your assumptions about sourcing and logistics. The trade and regulatory environment is shifting fast enough that decisions made even twelve months ago may no longer reflect current reality. Pre-authorise alternative routes, backup suppliers and fallback communication channels so that switching plans do not require time-consuming approval processes during a live crisis.
Third, ensure that cybersecurity is integrated into your supply chain risk framework rather than being treated as a separate discipline. Review the cyber resilience of key vendors and logistics partners and ensure incident response plans account for scenarios where a digital breach has physical operational consequences. In electronics manufacturing, it almost always does.
Finally, invest in the intelligence capabilities that make proactive decision-making possible. Whether through internal resources, external partnerships or technology platforms, the goal is the same: to move from reacting to disruptions after the fact to anticipating them and positioning your organisation to maintain operations while competitors are still assessing the situation.
The electronics manufacturing industry has spent the past few years learning hard lessons about supply chain fragility. The opportunity now is to apply those lessons, not by building higher walls around existing processes, but by developing the foresight and agility to operate effectively in a world where disruption is the norm, not the exception.
About the author
Nick Hill is Senior Director, Global Intelligence and Operations at Crisis24, a global, AI-enhanced provider in integrated risk management, intelligence-led security and medical operations, personal protection, medical concierge and crisis consulting. Nick drives the evolution of enterprise intelligence and operational solutions, shaping how organizations utilize AI and advanced analytics to inform strategic decisions in complex risk environments. Nick is a former security manager overseeing travel risk management, risk intelligence and global security operations, and previously served in the Marine Corps overseeing strategic intelligence analysis and production.
