Brussels has discovered a new buzzword. ‘Resilience 2.0’, splashed across the European Commission’s 2025 Strategic Foresight Report, supposedly marks the end of reactive firefighting and the dawn of proactive transformation.
Perpetual turbulence is the new normal, the Commission insists, so institutions had better adjust. Commissioner Glenn Micallef puts it grandly: “Resilience 2.0 means being proactive, transformative, and anticipatory. It is about preparing for the unfamiliar and even the unimaginable.”
Rather less grandly, most corporate boardrooms haven’t got the memo. Whilst Brussels sketches eight areas of action—from amplified security to intergenerational fairness—companies remain stuck treating resilience as an insurance premium. Something to minimise. A back-office nuisance. The reality they’re missing: shocks are now the business model, not the exception to it. Grasp this early and you eat everyone else’s lunch.
Strategic advantage
What would a Resilience 2.0 balance sheet look like? Traditional accounting logs supply chain diversification as an expense, skills training as overhead, scenario planning as a luxury. But 44 per cent of EU firms importing from China flag logistics disruptions as a major obstacle. Only 22 per cent of firms importing within the EU say the same. That 22-percentage-point gap isn’t a cost. It’s a moat. Firms that absorbed this early—particularly in Central and Eastern Europe—are now banking returns that look suspiciously like strategic advantage.
Poland’s manufacturing boom tells the story. FDI in CEE manufacturing jumped 28 per cent in 2024 alone. These aren’t defensive bets. When Chinese and Korean investors plant electric vehicle ecosystems in the region, they’re not merely nearshoring. They’re building parallel supply chains that work as both hedge and growth engine. The resilience isn’t a side benefit. It’s the whole point.
The strategic logic is straightforward. CEE sits at Europe’s heart with lower costs than Western markets. Skilled labour. Developed infrastructure. No capital controls. Standard EU regulations make cross-border treasury operations simple. Inbound FDI stock from EMEA stands at 700 billion euros as of 2023. Fresh Asian investment adds roughly 50 billion euros. These numbers reflect calculated bets on resilience as competitive advantage, not crisis response.
Famine and glut
But these operators remain vulnerable in ways they barely acknowledge. Companies have mastered supply chain resilience with impressive speed. They’ve boosted inventories, installed digital tracking, diversified suppliers. China-dependent firms led the charge. Talent resilience? Catastrophic underinvestment. More than half of business leaders worry about future talent shortages. Only one-third reckon their organisation has the skills needed long-term.
That’s Resilience 1.0 in purest form—treating people as fungible inputs rather than assets requiring their own supply chain. Brussels’ framework explicitly demands “a new perspective on education” and calls for reimagining skills for technological change. Governments move slowly. Boards could move faster. They don’t.
The talent crisis reveals a deeper problem. Companies stress-test physical supply chains religiously. Skills pipelines? Rarely. A global C-suite survey found 92 per cent reporting up to 20 per cent workforce overcapacity in legacy roles. At the same time, 94% face AI-critical skill shortages. One-third report gaps exceeding 40 per cent. By 2028, the contradictions sharpen: nearly half of leaders expect over 30 per cent excess capacity in some functions whilst still anticipating 20-40 per cent skills gaps in critical roles. That’s not transition. It’s simultaneous famine and glut.
Offensive resilience
Companies that understand this share a trait: they’ve stopped treating resilience defensively. BMW provides digital training and AI innovation spaces for employees at all levels. Workers acquire digital literacy and spread new skills throughout the organisation. The result isn’t risk mitigation. It’s capability competitors will struggle to copy.
The difference matters in hiring markets where demand outstrips supply. Social skills—communication, teamwork—now rank as the most impactful skill gaps organisations face, followed by digital fluency including AI proficiency. Technical skills remain critical, but the scarcity of human capabilities creates bottlenecks. Companies using AI-powered talent marketplaces to match employees with opportunities, or shifting to flexible arrangements like part-time roles, are building buffers their competitors lack.
Here’s the real distinction between old and new resilience. The old model asks: ‘How do we protect what we have?’ The new asks: ‘How do we profit from volatility?’ Stocks and redundancy are defensive. Skills marketplaces and modular supply chains go on offence. Companies implementing skills-based talent strategies—55 per cent now, another 23 per cent planning to start—aren’t filling gaps. They’re creating optionality that turns market shocks into relative gains.
Central European firms get this. They’ve never enjoyed stable planning horizons. PwC’s Global CEO survey shows 37 per cent of CEE chief executives view supply chain instability as their biggest strategic driver over three years. Volatility isn’t relegated to risk management. It’s embedded in strategy.
The talent blind spot persists. IT and data skills remain Britain’s hardest to find for five straight years. The problem’s intensifying across Europe. In the first quarter of 2025, 51 per cent of surveyed IT firms planned to hire. Yet 75 per cent struggled to find qualified candidates. That gap—between intention and execution—determines competitive position.
IT skills didn’t even crack the top ten most difficult to source a decade ago. Now they top the list. Without sufficient talent, tech companies risk falling behind in advancement whilst eating extra costs. These outcomes weaken national positions as global tech hubs. The International Data Corporation (IDC) estimates the skills shortage will cost up to 6.5 trillion US dollars by 2025. That’s not overhead. That’s strategic failure at scale.
Resilience can’t be delegated
The problem isn’t awareness. It’s capital allocation. Boards approve millions for supply chain diversification, then baulk at comparable workforce investments. Leaders expect agentic AI to deliver major cost improvements (55 per cent), new revenue streams (43 per cent), stronger adaptability (40 per cent). Yet only 46 per cent integrate workforce planning into AI roadmaps. That’s not strategic resilience. It’s incoherence.
Brussels’ framework at least treats these challenges as connected. Its report identifies four tensions: competitiveness versus strategic autonomy, innovation versus safeguards, well-being versus demographic change, democracy versus algorithmic media. These aren’t separate workstreams. They’re tensions requiring dynamic management. Corporate strategists could learn from this, even if government execution lags.
The real test is measurement. From 2026, Brussels promises annual reports testing how different scenarios would affect Europe. Boards should follow suit. What would a 30 per cent tariff shock do to your talent pipeline? A three-month shipping disruption to your skills mix? These aren’t hypotheticals. They’re probabilities. Companies that scenario-plan for supply chains but not human capital are optimising half the equation.
The implication: resilience can’t be delegated to chief risk officers anymore. It’s not a cost centre. It’s how competitive strategy works now, in an age of permanent instability. The firms that crack this—embedding scenario planning in capital allocation, treating skills as supply chains, viewing shocks as chances for relative gain—will define the next decade. The rest will write excellent risk reports whilst losing market share.
Brussels has handed CEOs new language. The question is whether they’ll use it to transform organisations or just polish ESG disclosures. Resilience 2.0 isn’t another compliance box. It’s a warning shot.
Photo: Dreamstime.
