The recent announcement of new tariffs from United States President Donald Trump has everyone around the world talking—so much so that it’s causing unrest in the global economy.
And while the long-term results and impact of tariffs on finance teams and the businesses they support are still unknown, many organizations inside and outside the United States are becoming concerned. With new information coming out daily, they don’t know how the tariffs and resulting market changes will impact their growth goals.
To determine how to move forward amidst this uncertainty, many businesses are turning to their FP&A teams for guidance.
But if you’re an FP&A leader, what kind of advice can you give your broader team? And where do you turn for the insights your business needs?
Keep reading to learn what insights Vena’s own FP&A team offers on how to ride out the storm.
What Do Tariffs Mean For Businesses?
By taxing imports from around the world, the ultimate goal of tariffs is to protect domestic manufacturers and help them stay competitive. But tariffs can also disrupt supply chains, raising expenses for local manufacturers importing parts and supplies from across the globe. In cases where counter-tariffs are applied, they can also lead to trade wars.
But those aren’t the only possible negative effects. By potentially raising prices for consumers and affecting relations between cross-border business partners, tariffs can lead to sales lags and job cuts too.
What results is a recipe for market volatility. In fact, J.P. Morgan gives 60% odds of a US and global recession happening by the end of 2025—raising their prediction from 40% after the US tariffs were announced.
To keep up with that kind of volatility, businesses need to be agile, pulling on real-time insights to continue on course despite the market changes. That’s where their FP&A teams come in.
FP&A teams have the potential to play a strong leadership role as they guide their businesses through the market changes tariffs bring.
5 FP&A Strategies For Leading Businesses Through Uncertainty
As we’ve already seen, the impact of tariffs on finance teams and businesses as a whole can be pretty vast. But well-equipped FP&A teams are able to lead businesses through that turmoil.
According to Vena’s own Director of FP&A, Thomas Krolak, the trick is to always look ahead.
“We always stay proactive,” he says. “That means looking forward not just over the next couple months, but to always know where we’re going to be in a year’s time, and how that might impact our organization from a resource perspective.”
There are multiple ways FP&A teams can do that—as well as other strategies you can employ to stay ahead of turbulent times. Here are five tips Vena’s FP&A team offers:
1. Forecast Frequently
Forecasting is a way to look ahead and build that proactive view Thomas talks about—using historical data and trends to predict where your business is going. That’s why, during market turmoil, Thomas recommends forecasting even more frequently than normal, to make sure your business is on course to continue thriving even in times of change.
Take Vena’s own forecasting cadence, as an example. “Once we set our annual plan up, the FP&A team does regular forecasts,” says Thomas. “We do monthly forecasts to true up any of the financials and make sure there are no major risks.”
By forecasting more regularly, you can ensure your key performance metrics are fully up to date, so you know exactly how your business is performing at any given time. Thomas also likes to meet with business stakeholders during these times, so that they’re all up to date on any risks or opportunities on the horizon. This way, everyone is ready to make changes as needed and stay agile in the face of market unrest.
2. Consider Multiple Scenarios
Forecasting isn’t the only way to look ahead. Scenario modeling and financial modeling in general can also help you build agility for whatever the future holds. By constantly testing your assumptions and modeling any number of potential future scenarios, this lets you prepare for what’s coming—whatever that might be.
“[We might look at] what can we expect if our net annual recurring revenue (ARR) is going to be coming in at 80% of expectations, as an example,” Thomas says. “We do a lot of triangulation around ‘hey, what’s happening with our pipeline? Is it tracking where we would expect it?’”
By exploring these types of scenarios before they become a reality, Vena’s FP&A team is able to have solutions ready.
According to Thomas, it also lets them partner with the operations team even further. By having teams aligned, you can be confident you’re all moving in the same direction, ready to adapt—whether that means finding new suppliers, identifying areas to cut costs or something else entirely.
3. Put AI To Work
Artificial intelligence (AI) can be a powerful tool during times of change, able to digest your data faster than humanly possible. Generative AI in general, and AI agents specifically, can help teams stress test models and answer questions from across the business faster—without any need to pull up or create a report. This lets you come to solutions faster and better understand what impacts they’ll have in the long run.
AI-enabled predictive analytics is another way to stay ahead of the business’s future needs. Through machine learning and AI algorithms, it predicts future outcomes using past data. This can help you look closer at things like future inventory needs, customers most likely to churn or market and revenue trends.
These kinds of AI-driven insights put you in the driver’s seat, giving you a better understanding of the road ahead.
4. Reevaluate Your Spending
Once you have a clearer idea of future needs thanks to processes like forecasting, scenario modeling and predictive analytics, you can use those insights to take a closer look at spending across the business. This way you can more clearly see where you may have to make changes.
And while those solutions can be found in your direct costs, don’t forget to look at your indirect costs as well when you’re searching out possible places to make cuts. “It’s pretty easy to say we’re not going to be selling as much ARR so we’re not going to be paying out as much to partners or to reps, or whatever the case is,” Thomas says. “But outside of that there’s obviously a lot more implications if we’re not hitting our top line.”
Once you have an idea of how much you need to slow down on spending, you can put a plan in place. For instance, in the case of tariffs, you may need to negotiate new terms with suppliers, or even fully replace certain suppliers—maybe choosing a more local alternative if one exists.
As the team with the closest eye on your budgets, FP&A departments can also identify other inefficiencies in spending and start to identify where changes can be made, negotiating better procurement terms when necessary.
5. Recognize the Opportunities
Just as it’s important to analyze potential risks, it’s key to remember that not every market change or time of turbulence means risk for every business. Depending on the product or service you offer, challenging times may even come with opportunities for some.
Staying proactive, then, is “not just for risks, it’s also almost more importantly for opportunities when they arise,” says Vena Senior Vice President of Revenue Operations and Strategy, Burzin Contractor.
For instance, a locally sourced business may find themselves selling more, as buyers look for alternatives to highly tariffed products coming from abroad. Or a company that provides tools designed to help customers through tough times could have opportunities for growth.
Whatever the case, the FP&A team is in a good position to recognize these opportunities and work with other teams throughout the business to pursue them, converting them into business growth.
It’s also important to remember the value in being decisive rather than stagnant during times of change if you want to take advantage of the existing opportunities. That’s where real-time data becomes essential.
How Vena Can Help
FP&A teams, it’s clear, play a key role in helping their business navigate times of market turbulence. But to react nimbly and with agility during these times, you need data you can trust and tools that enable you to flexibly update plans.
“I think the good companies are the ones that have a good foundation and have a single source of truth,” Burzin says. “But I think the great ones have that but also react well and react in a really smart way—and don’t overreact.”
He adds: “Having that foundation is really important to allow you to even do something. Because companies that have an annual plan and just let it ride aren’t going to be great.”
That’s where Vena can help.
Vena centralizes your financial and operational data to create that single source of truth—then provides the tools you need to dig through the data for the insights you need to thrive, including:
“Vena brings together financial data and operational data into a very structured database and a structured application, such that you're able to self-serve and analyze your data, and report on your data,” says Vena Co-founder and Chief Solutions Architect Rishi Grover.
Vena plays multiple roles in times of crisis and uncertainty, which is especially valuable as finance teams work to stay ahead of the impact of tariffs:
Real-Time Insights
By putting data and powerful insights into the hands of both FP&A and business users, Vena empowers stronger decision-making moment to moment. And AI tools like Vena Copilot help make those insights easily available in real time.
“There are a lot of meetings that executive teams are having, collaborating with their different directors in their organization to figure out how do we manage these uncertainties? What kind of assumptions does this mean for me? How would our business evolve potentially?” Rishi says.
“If you don't have access to your data and have that data integrity, that is not possible, or you might be making the wrong decision.”
Forward-Looking Solutions
Through tools like scenario modeling and forecasting, FP&A teams can dig deeper into the organization’s data for insights into possible future outcomes. This lets you plan better and understand what levers you can pull to stay agile along the way. What’s more, with Vena’s easy-to-use Excel-based interface, finance teams can model these changes with confidence.
“With Vena, we leverage native Excel as our modeling engine, and that, I would say, is very, very critical, because things are changing every single day,” Rishi says.
He adds: “For you to be able to manage your forecast models, whether that be for revenue, for your cost of goods sold or what have you, you need a very flexible modeling canvas for you to make those assumptions, but also for you to be able to change those models in a very agile and very nimble way.”
Through what-if analysis, Vena also lets you “stress test different assumptions and different drivers,” Rishi adds, and share those insights with the rest of your organization. Vena’s AI solutions can help with this too, letting both FP&A and business-wide users ask questions and get valuable insights in response.
Don’t Just Survive—Thrive
Potential tariffs and other market changes may understandably have you worried for your business’s future. But market turbulence doesn’t have to be the harbinger of doom you think it is.
Rather, thriving in today’s market means turning uncertainty into your competitive edge. While competitors may be frozen in their decision-making, by having the right data at your fingertips you can lead with confidence and clarity instead.
But tools and data only go so far without the right people putting them into action. And it’s your FP&A team’s strategic decision-making and deep insights that will ultimately keep your business ahead of market change—turning crisis into opportunity.
