When companies focus on cost cutting and hoarding cash, they can alienate customers, employees, suppliers, shareholders, and communities—just when they’re needed most. by Sandra J. Sucher and David M. Bersoff
November 14, 2025
Illustration by Barbara Gibson
These are trying times for corporations. The marketplace is rife with unpredictability, especially when it comes to economic and trade policy. The 2025 World Economic Forum’s Chief Economists Outlook report concluded that “uncertainty has become a defining feature of the global economic landscape,” with 82% of chief economists gauging uncertainty as “very high.” This year, the Economic Policy Uncertainty Index, which tracks data from around the world, spiked to its highest level in three decades.