Commercial resilience is built before the negotiation table

There is a particular moment that arrives just before a downturn properly announces itself. Not the headline moment, those come later, once the graphs are already sloping downwards, but the quiet, commercial one. A supplier calls and asks to “revisit” terms. A customer starts pushing payments out by a fortnight “while things settle”. Your logistics partner changes the route, then changes the price, then quietly changes the service level, and no one can quite agree which bit is temporary and which bit is now baked in.

Inside the business, teams do what teams always do under pressure. Sales leans into volume. Procurement leans into cost. Finance leans into cash. Legal leans into the contract. Supply chain leans into continuity. Every move makes sense on its own. The problem appears when those moves are made in isolation from each other, rather than together.

That is why we argue that commercial resilience is built inside the business before it is tested at the negotiation table. In volatile markets, many organisations leak value long before the external negotiation begins. Not because they lack good data or capable people, but because they arrive fragmented. When that happens, the counterparty does not need to be especially aggressive or even especially clever. They simply need to pay attention.

The macroeconomic backdrop makes this painfully relevant. In its April 2026 World Economic Outlook, the International Monetary Fund warned that the war in the Middle East has interrupted global growth momentum and darkened the outlook materially. The IMF now projects global growth of 3.1 percent in 2026, with clear downside scenarios that edge uncomfortably close to recession should energy disruption persist or deepen. You can read the IMF’s assessment in full here.

But macro forecasts are only useful if leaders understand how fast they translate into real-world commercial pressure. Nowhere illustrates this better than the Strait of Hormuz. Not because it is geopolitically interesting, but because it is commercially unforgiving. According to the International Energy Agency, around 20 million barrels per day of crude oil and oil products passed through the Strait in 2025, representing roughly a quarter of global seaborne oil trade, with very limited practical alternatives. The IEA’s current factsheet lays this out starkly.

When disruption hits a chokepoint like that, it does not stay neatly contained within energy markets. It ripples outward, into shipping insurance, freight rates, lead times, allocation decisions, service commitments, working capital and inflation expectations. Eventually, it lands where it always does, in negotiation.

The shipping sector offers a live case study. In early March, Reuters reported that Maersk, Hapag Lloyd and CMA CGM rerouted vessels around Africa and suspended crossings through the Strait of Hormuz as the security situation deteriorated. These were not marginal adjustments. They reshaped trade routes, introduced war risk surcharges and extended transit times by weeks. This CNN article captures the scale of this shift clearly.

For commercial teams, the negotiation lesson here is simple and uncomfortable. In moments like this, the conversation is no longer, “Can we get a cheaper rate?”. It becomes, “Can we secure capacity, priority access and credible delivery windows, and on what terms?”. Companies that arrive late with only a price challenge tend to lose out to those who understand that value has moved, and who arrive early with a broader, more serious commercial proposition.

Aviation provides a second illustration of how quickly assumptions break. In April, Alaska Air withdrew its full-year profit forecast, citing extreme volatility in jet fuel prices linked to Middle East disruptions. The airline estimated that fuel costs alone would rise by around $600 million in the second quarter, forcing it to rethink capacity, pricing and guidance almost overnight. The full report from CNBC is detailed here.

Whether you run an airline or a consumer goods business, the mechanism is the same. When revenue has been committed on fixed assumptions and inputs become fluid, margin stops being a finance issue and becomes a negotiation one. Leaders who leave those conversations too late tend to negotiate badly, because urgency collapses choice, and collapsed choice is expensive.

Mining shows the same pattern from a different angle. Rio Tinto warned investors that it had limited visibility over second half supply chain impacts from the Middle East conflict, citing jet fuel and diesel shortages as key operational risks despite its global scale and buying power. Reuters’ reporting on this is worth reading closely: different sector, same principle. Volatility redistributes negotiating power towards organisations that prepared alternatives, protected options and can trade certainty for value.

This is where negotiation, done properly, becomes a strategic capability rather than a transactional one. In periods like this, resilient organisations stop treating negotiation as a set of isolated events owned by individual functions and start treating it as a portfolio. They look across their most exposed relationships and ask hard questions early. Where has power shifted? Which assumptions no longer hold? Which negotiation will test us first?

Crucially, they do the internal work before they engage externally. They align on priorities, trade-offs, walk away positions and decision rights. They distinguish between pressure and power. They test the ask before responding to it. They widen the deal instead of arguing about the headline number. They negotiate the terms that decide who carries risk when volatility moves again.

This is also why negotiation culture matters more than ever. Not as a slogan, but as a shared way of thinking under pressure. Does your organisation instinctively test evidence, timing and precedent, or does it default to reactive concession because everything feels urgent? When a counterparty arrives with a hard position, do your teams fight the demand, or do they calmly explore the interests beneath it?

Take a familiar scenario. A supplier demands a sudden double-digit increase, justified by energy costs. A defensive response is either blind acceptance or rigid refusal. Neither builds resilience. A better response starts with disciplined testing. Which cost elements have moved? Which have not? Why now? Then the conversation widens. If price must move, can it move in phases? Can it be indexed? Traded for allocation, volume corridors, service stability or notice periods? The same logic applies when customers resist cost recovery. The most effective negotiators are rarely the most aggressive. They are usually the most precise.

Leadership has a decisive role here. Not by taking over negotiations, but by creating clarity and permission. Permission to trade intelligently rather than defend reflexively. Permission to go early. Permission to avoid panic concessions.

If recession does come, or if we simply continue this long stretch of volatility and constrained growth, the organisations that perform best will not be the ones that react fastest or cut hardest. They will be the ones that negotiate best. Calmly, early, and with a clear sense of what they are protecting and what they are prepared to trade.

So, the question worth asking now, while there is still room to choose your timing, is a simple one.

How commercially resilient is your business, and which negotiation will test it first? Now’s the time to get in touch with The Gap Partnership.

About the author

Freddy Burgess is Head of Commercial and Growth Sectors at The Gap Partnership, working across retail, professional and financial services, pharmaceuticals, energy and procurement. He helps organisations strengthen commercial capability through more effective negotiation and has played a key role in shaping The Gap Partnership’s approach to AI in negotiation, focusing on how AI can support stronger decision-making and outcomes.

How The Gap Partnership can help you 

The Gap Partnership turns negotiation into a strategic advantage. With the scientific depth of Negotiation Academy Potsdam and the AI expertise of Passion Labs, we operate at the intersection of behavioural mastery, science and AI. We equip your teams with the skills and mindset to negotiate brilliantly, help you standardise negotiation for consistent results, and work with your leaders to build a culture where collaboration and alignment drive performance. Let us help you embed negotiation into your organisational DNA and unlock sustainable growth in every deal.