2025: Looking Ahead with the Benefit of Hindsight
September, 2025
Whether your business thrived or barely survived the past few years, there is — believe it or not — reason to celebrate. The early 2020s were turbulent: a global pandemic, climate disasters, rising costs of living, and technological disruption. Yet here you are — still operating, still adapting. That alone is an achievement.
As 2025 merges in to 2026, it’s worth pausing to reflect on your resilience, the challenges you’ve faced, and the opportunities that lie ahead. Hindsight gives us lessons, but only if we’re willing to apply them.
Lessons From the Last Five Years
Looking back since 2020, businesses in Australia have weathered:
A once-in-a-century pandemic that reshaped supply chains, workforce structures, and customer expectations.
Inflationary pressures and interest rate hikes and drops that tested cashflow and consumer confidence.
The growing climate emergency: Cyclone Alfred (2025), repeated east-coast flooding, and hotter, drier seasons driven by unusual Antarctic stratospheric warming events.
Geopolitical tensions that ripple into trade, cybersecurity, and global supply lines
Domestic social pressures, including wage theft reforms (criminalised in 2025), workforce fatigue, and shifting expectations around flexibility and wellbeing.
The rapid rise of artificial intelligence, bringing both productivity gains and new risks such as AI-driven scams and cybercrime.
Any one of these could have been enough to derail a business. But none of these occurred in isolation — they compounded. The question remains: can your business withstand multiple, concurrent disruptions?
Beware the “Illusion of Control”
It’s tempting to say: “We got through COVID; we can get through anything.” That optimism is valuable — but potentially short-sighted. Did you get through the last five years by sheer luck, unsustainable effort, strong leadership, or careful planning? Probably a combination.
The illusion of control — overestimating our influence on external events — remains a risk. Changing the year from 2024 to 2025 doesn’t reduce global instability, climate extremes, or market volatility. What you can control is your preparedness, your response, and your ability to adapt.
What a 2025 Review Should Consider
A clear-headed, independent review of your organisation’s response is no longer optional — it’s essential. Consider assessing:
Organisational response to concurrent disruptions since 2020.
Management structures under sustained stress.
Policy effectiveness: business continuity, crisis management, cyber resilience, emissions targets.
Workforce wellbeing, including fatigue, retention, and hybrid working models.
Supply chain resilience, especially with geopolitical risk factored in.
Customer satisfaction: how have expectations shifted post-pandemic and amid cost-of-living pressures?
Financial resilience: revenue stability, inflation impacts, cost management.
Recovery and transformation: do you have capacity to clear backlogs and pursue innovation?
Readiness for emerging risks: cyberattacks, AI misuse, new climate extremes, regulatory shifts.
The Opportunity of 2025 / 2026
The businesses that will thrive this year are those that:
Build adaptable systems, not just fixed plans.
Embed sustainability and resilience into strategy.
Treat staff wellbeing as a core business risk, not a side issue.
Invest in digital resilience and cyber awareness.
Remain alert to geopolitical and regulatory shifts that could reshape markets overnight.
Tigertail can help you undertake an independent review, validate recovery strategies, supplement capacity, and train your team to maintain capability and preparedness.
The hindsight of the last five years is a powerful tool — but only if used to guide the road ahead.
