Tariff strategy is a new headache for business leaders

Tariff uncertainty is disrupting small business innovation. Time is money - and strategizing around tariffs takes business leaders’ time as they optimize their operations to a new reality. 

-Some companies are spending more than a quarter of their time on tariff-related logistics, rather than product design.

-Others have paused rollouts of new items and laid off senior staff, since shipping costs and delays are up. 

-Some businesses are pausing product development, since some components are sourced from China. This means waiting to see if the costs of those components comes down, or waiting to invest in production technology. 

Small businesses lack the resources of larger ones. As leadership shifts their focus to compliance, they’re not thinking about product and marketing. Even domestic manufacturing is affected because so much of the sourcing infrastructure is overseas.