The World Bank’s latest economic update for Europe and Central Asia, published in April 2025, makes for dreary reading. Growth slowed to 2.5 per cent from 3.6 per cent. Inflation stuck at five per cent. External demand weak. War, sanctions, supply-chain chaos, demographic decline: take your pick.
The standard narrative treats Eastern Europe and Central Asia as a risk story. Geopolitical tensions, weak institutions, volatile macroeconomics: clearly a troubled neighbourhood. This misreads what has happened over the past decade. The region has become the world’s most advanced laboratory for operating when nothing goes to plan.
Western boardrooms have one playbook for crisis. Supply chains broke during the pandemic, so firms scrambled for alternative suppliers. Energy prices spiked after Russia invaded Ukraine, so they lobbied for subsidies. Interest rates rose, so they postponed investments. These are responses designed for temporary disruptions, not permanent instability.
Compare that with how firms in the region operate. Research by Krzysztof Obłój and Roksolyana Voronovska, published in Business Horizons in 2024, tracked how large Ukrainian companies shifted from shock to adaptation within weeks of Russia’s invasion. The companies that moved fastest had crisis playbooks from Covid-19. They simply updated them for war. BetterMe, a wellness platform, pivoted from free subscriptions to rehabilitation programmes for over 50,000 amputees. Ugears, which makes wooden models, resumed full production weeks after Russian bombs damaged its factory. It had backup facilities ready.
Relax, it’s Tuesday
Eastern Europe and Central Asia has spent 35 years bouncing between currency crises, authoritarian backsliding, Russian aggression, pandemic lockdowns and the fracturing of globalisation. Companies survived by building business models that assume instability never ends.
Poland now has over 400,000 software developers, Eastern Europe’s largest IT talent pool. These developers have spent years managing projects under conditions that would paralyse Silicon Valley. Romanian outsourcing companies have built infrastructure, flexible staffing and crisis protocols that Western firms are only now realising they need. Design your operations to withstand Russian cyberattacks, sudden regulatory changes and energy blackouts, and a normal business disruption barely registers.
The gap shows up in how firms think about constraints. Western companies treat constraints as temporary problems. Find a workaround, wait for normalcy to return. Eastern European and Central Asian firms treat constraints as permanent. Redesign everything accordingly. Kaspi, a Kazakh unicorn, achieved 65 per cent daily engagement by building around Kazakhstan’s absent financial infrastructure, not waiting for it to appear. It created integrated payments, marketplace and fintech services that work despite the operating environment, not because of it.
The global economy is entering what might be called a permanently abnormal phase. Trade fragmentation continues. Supply chains reorganise in fits and starts. Energy transitions create unexpected winners. Demographic decline forces uncomfortable adjustments. Political volatility stays high. For companies that remember the Great Moderation, this feels like crisis. For companies in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, it’s Tuesday.
Crisis as training
There are three things in particular that the rest of the world can learn from the region.
First, stop waiting for stability. The World Bank’s research shows firms that invest in innovation and technology adoption during uncertain periods build lasting advantages. Polish, Czech and Hungarian companies became more productive by redesigning operations for the storm, not waiting for it to pass.
Second, redundancy is strategy. Ukrainian firms’ rapid recovery stems from backup facilities, flexible labour and decentralised decision-making. Western efficiency consultants would have stripped these ‘inefficiencies’ out years ago. When the next disruption hits, those buffers separate continuation from collapse.
Third, treat each crisis as training. Companies that adapted fastest to war had developed adaptive capacity during the pandemic. Managing one type of instability transfers to managing others. Firms should actively seek controlled exposure to volatility: test backup systems, rotate staff through uncertain environments, build organisational muscle memory for crisis response.
The World Bank forecasts modest growth through 2026. Aggregate GDP numbers miss what matters. Central and Eastern Europe stopped waiting for better conditions. It built capabilities to thrive regardless. For a world where “regardless” increasingly describes reality, that may be the region’s most valuable export.
The question for global business leaders is simple. Learn from the region that spent a decade turning instability into advantage, or keep waiting for normal to return. Ukrainian entrepreneurs know the answer. The firms still waiting are the ones that won’t survive.
Photo: Dreamstime.
