The Black Swan.
What European companies can learn from Ukraine. A scenario-based look at risks, at real crisis experience and at the limits of business continuity systems when situations change faster than the plans.
The Black Swan. Resilience in Uncertainty.
The Lebanese scholar of mathematical finance Nassim Nicholas Taleb established the term in the business world in 2007. Since then the black swan has stood for surprising, rare events of enormous consequence. The full-scale invasion by Russian forces in Ukraine can serve as an example of such an event.
This dossier works through four levels: the current situation, concrete risk scenarios for European companies, documented experience of Ukrainian companies from four years of war, and the offering derived from it.
Conventional BCPs meet a multipolar situation
Conventional BCPs consider individual risks that are mostly infrastructural or economic in nature, e.g. regionally limited and short-term blackouts, natural disasters, supplier failures and so on.
Despite the experience of the coronavirus pandemic and the complexity of the challenges encountered, BCPs are not sufficiently geared to highly complex and dynamic situations.
We find ourselves in an environment of multipolar crises and threats. Scenarios with extreme consequences that were previously rated as improbable can no longer be ruled out. In the planning of organisations and in the minds of decision-makers, however, this awareness is not yet sufficiently established.
Valuable conclusions can be drawn from the experience and the best practices of Ukraine in order to position European companies as well as possible for an uncertain future.
Four possible scenarios with direct impact on companies
Expansion of the war
The expansion of the Ukraine war to other European states, with a direct influence on economic and political developments in the EU.
Hybrid attacks
Hybrid attacks from abroad such as cyberattacks, information campaigns or blackouts, with disruption to transport, communications and energy infrastructure.
Emergency provision acts
If tensions between NATO and Russia escalate, the German emergency provision acts can be activated. Declaring a state of tension, of alliance defence or of national defence will bring further drastic legal and economic consequences for companies and organisations, including state intervention across the entire value chain.
OpPlan Deutschland
The activation of Germany’s OpPlan, with massive effects on the social, political and economic situation, is also a scenario worth considering.
Situation assessment
In the current situation many further scenarios can be considered realistic. Regardless of which one occurs, a further escalation of tensions between NATO and Russia is likely.
Should individual NATO member states feel threatened or even come under attack, the cohesion of NATO as a whole is in question. If NATO fails to respond as a united front, it loses credibility on a massive scale. No member state could then still be certain of the alliance’s support. This could ultimately lead to the end of the alliance, which would have dramatic consequences for the security architecture in Europe and in the world.
In any case, a marked tightening of security protocols within European nations must be assumed. Massive intervention in the economic activity of companies under the emergency provision acts, conscription of workers into security-relevant areas, call-up of reservists and restrictions in transport, telecommunications and energy infrastructure, already as tensions build, are realistic scenarios.
The legal framework many are unaware of.
Germany has emergency provision and supply acts that can have a considerable effect on the entire population and on companies, even if the Federal Republic is not itself attacked directly. These acts are in place but dormant. They have to be “activated”. Although it defines different scenarios, the Basic Law leaves the federal government a great deal of latitude.
The Basic Law provides for finely graded escalation levels that move along a continuum of how urgent the threat is, and from the state of tension onwards they activate all emergency provision and supply acts, including general conscription .
Governs the provision of labour for defence purposes. Allows workers to be assigned to areas essential to life and to defence, and restricts the free choice of workplace in doing so.
Authorises intervention in the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services. The basis for rationing, quotas and reporting obligations for business.
Permits the requisition of assets in kind: vehicles, machinery, land and buildings can be called upon for defence purposes.
Applies when the energy supply is at risk. Allows rules on the allocation, purchase, supply and pricing of energy sources.
Secures the supply of food and other essential goods to the population. The basis for rationing, stockholding and reporting obligations along the supply chain.
Governs procurement for defence purposes, including the use of land and rights and the associated compensation.
Secures postal services in a state of tension or defence and allows priority rules for defence-related items.
Permits protected zones to be established around installations important to defence. Within these zones the use of and access to land can be restricted.
Contains provisions on securing telecommunications, on emergency preparedness and on priority access for privileged bodies.
Allows transport companies to be called upon to provide carriage when demand cannot be met otherwise.
Secures transport services and transport infrastructure. The basis for intervention in the operation and use of transport routes and vehicles.
Governs the protection of the population in a state of defence: self-protection, warning, shelters, movement controls and federal disaster response.
The psychological impact is part of the equation
Crises such as war or war-like scenarios confront societies with extreme challenges. Social cohesion, economic capacity to act and the social fabric can come under severe strain.
A resilient society is the basic prerequisite for coming through crises of this kind.
Companies and organisations also depend on people being willing to keep performing their duties despite every adversity. Displaced staff, restricted mobility and family constraints can disrupt work processes enormously.
Above all, however, the psychological impact on people can affect the capacity to act and the resilience of companies and organisations.
The Ukrainian Black Swan
Right up to a day before Russian troops marched into Ukraine in February 2022, the vast majority of decision-makers in politics and business did not believe a full invasion would come. On 24 February 2022 people were taken by surprise to a degree that amounted to a shock, and it initially paralysed many organisations and companies.
Business continuity plans were absent or inadequate. From one day to the next, organisations and companies found themselves in a completely changed situation.
Even so, once the initial shock had been overcome, many actors were able to develop measures through flexibility and through pragmatic as well as creative approaches in order to cope under these changed conditions.
Companies in Ukraine are producing, delivering services and innovating. Start-ups are seizing opportunities and contributing to a resilient society.
Four years of war
The current picture from the survey by Deloitte Ukraine and the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine, February 2026. The figures show what the capacity to act depends on today.
Greatest pressures on business activity
Share of surveyed companies, February 2026
Table view
| Pressure | Share |
|---|---|
| Power outages | 57% |
| Security risks | 55% |
| Staff shortages | 49% |
Source: Deloitte Ukraine & American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine, “Ensuring Business Resilience in Ukraine”, survey February 2026.
Where the resilience budgets go
Share of companies investing in each area, 2026
Table view
| Investment area | Share |
|---|---|
| Power supply | 75% |
| Employee support | 38% |
| Security | 25% |
Source: Deloitte Ukraine & American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine, 2026. The ranking of pressures and the ranking of budgets diverge.
What the drop in productivity comes down to
Causes named by the 41% reporting a decline, 2026
Table view
| Cause | Share |
|---|---|
| Uneven distribution of work | 23% |
| Reduced motivation | 23% |
| Slower pace of work | 21% |
| Lower quality | 15% |
Source: Deloitte Ukraine & AmCham Ukraine 2026; causes of exhaustion additionally per Gradus Research. All four causes lie in the behaviour and the condition of the workforce.
How companies support their workforce
Share of companies with each measure, 2026
The national programme “Ти як?” has trained more than 400.000 participants in psychological first aid.
Source: Deloitte Ukraine & AmCham Ukraine 2026; national programme “Ти як?” (“How are you?”).
“Resilience at Development’s Expense”: resources that go into keeping operations running are missing for innovation and growth. Organisations that invest in capabilities beforehand pay considerably less when a crisis comes. Deloitte Ukraine & American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine, 2026
The shock of 2022 in figures
For comparison, the first assessment after the invasion. It shows how broad the effect on revenue was and how differently operations were hit.
Impact on Sales
Distribution of the fall in revenue across all surveyed companies
Table view
| Fall in revenue | Share |
|---|---|
| over 50% | 19% |
| 30 to 50% | 28% |
| 10 to 30% | 31% |
| under 10% | 20% |
| no decrease or an increase | 2% |
Source: McKinsey & Company 2023, “Survival through Purpose: How Ukrainian businesses endured amid extreme uncertainty”.
Impact on Operations
Effect on ongoing operations
Table view
| Effect on operations | Share |
|---|---|
| high impact, operations suspended | 2% |
| high impact, operations continued | 63% |
| low impact | 20% |
| no impact or a positive effect | 15% |
Source: McKinsey & Company 2023. Only a small share had to suspend operations; some sectors such as finance and logistics even recorded positive effects.
Greatest challenges 2022/23
Mentions by the surveyed companies
Source: McKinsey & Company 2023. The five most frequently named challenges are highlighted. Striking in comparison with 2026: lack of labour stood at 4 mentions in 2023 and today ranks among the three greatest pressures at 49%.
What actually helped in the crisis
Rated effectiveness, scale 1 (low) to 5 (high)
Table view
| Technique | Rating |
|---|---|
| Agile decision making | 2,4 |
| Values and culture | 2,4 |
| Resilience planning | 2,2 |
| Leadership commitment | 1,8 |
| Business diversification | 1,1 |
Source: American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine, 2023. Shorter planning cycles and more frequent coordination across hierarchical levels enabled flexible responses; corporate culture kept up the morale and motivation of the workforce.
What has proved itself in practice
Decide here and now
Speed before durability. Daily planning takes the place of long-range planning, with flexibility at every level.
Keep communication going
With employees, customers and suppliers. In a crisis the thread of conversation is the first resource to break.
Organise redundancy
Generator, electricity, diesel and further supply paths. The 2026 figures bear this out: 75% of resilience budgets go into the power supply.
The springboard narrative
A vision for the time after the crisis and a contribution to the bigger picture. Purpose holds the organisation together when the structure comes under pressure.
Operations centre, SOC
One fixed place where situation, decision and communication come together.
Leadership soft skills
Employees first, flexible handling of the strategy, rules for decisions, trust in employees, flexible decision-making authority at every level. Mission command.
People are a continuity risk
The resilience of the workforce marks the real limit of organisational resilience. So far it barely appears in German emergency planning. In Ukraine it is measurably on the table, with 49% reporting staff shortages and 41% a drop in productivity.
Leadership becomes decentralised
Ukrainian companies replaced long-range planning with fast operational decisions, carried by a clear organisational intent. Anyone who delegates decision-making authority only once a crisis hits loses exactly the time they then need.
Exercise capabilities
Detailed scenario plans create an expectation that rarely materialises that way. The pandemic proved valuable because it trained adaptability. What transferred in the end was the capability.
“It is better to decide quickly with some error than think for a long time.” Guiding principle of Ukrainian company leaderships, quoted from “Lessons Learned?”, 2026
The question against which any planning can be measured: when was your emergency plan last tested under conditions it does not anticipate?
Experience from real crises, applied to your situation
Through joint projects with our Ukrainian partners we have contacts in the business world there, and can therefore share in valuable experience at first hand.
Best practices that have proved themselves in real crisis situations can be brought into our consulting and extrapolated for future scenarios, taking your individual conditions into account.
We can also draw valuable conclusions from the mistakes, in order to identify and minimise our own sources of error.
We analyse your internal and external business processes, assess your current business continuity plans, systems and resources, and support you in developing a scenario-based business continuity system. The following areas are included:
Business Readiness
Which measures and investments have to be made in order to prepare an organisation or a company as well as possible for a crisis?
Business Continuity
Which plans and structural back-ups have to be drawn up so that, scenario by scenario, they can be “pulled out of the drawer” when the moment comes? We distinguish three phases:
Three perspectives on the same question
Click a card for the full profile.
Thomas Brandacher
Thomas lives and works in Munich. He mainly runs a mid-sized operational security company. Act Aware came about through a longer joint HEAT (Hostile Environment Awareness Training) project for employees of large corporations in crisis regions. Here Thomas is mainly responsible for operational matters.
Together with Andreas he has been running a joint project for Ukraine since 2023. That is what prompted the idea for the topic of resilience and for this project.
Thomas began his career in the Bundeswehr. As an officer, latterly in a special forces unit, he went through a wide range of training. Deployments and postings abroad later formed the foundation for his knowledge and experience. In his university studies in education, Thomas focused on leading people.
For Thomas, sport is both a counterbalance and the basis of performance.
“On my many deployments and stays in crisis regions, mostly left to my own devices, resilience was always a central theme in the preparation. You are your own fallback option, and you have to plan and husband your resources accordingly.”
Andreas Tismar
Andreas has been a lecturer and trainer for many years and lives in Leipzig. His teaching focuses on security, prevention and resilience for organisations and companies, as well as on military technical subjects.
After his service as a fixed-term soldier in the armoured combat troops, Andreas completed a business management qualification. Among other roles he worked in corporate security for large American companies. Later he was responsible for the company-wide security awareness training of a car manufacturer for the Europe-Middle East-Africa region.
“Through my insights into a variety of globally operating companies and my experience from crisis regions, prevention and resilience have emerged for me as particularly important. Being prepared and able to act proactively in a crisis, rather than having to react in surprise, should be the premise in today’s volatile times.”
Christine Stöhr
Christine headed a consulting firm, which she first took regional and later international, before founding her own company. Her clients include mid-sized companies, national and international corporations across numerous sectors, and state, regional and federal ministries.
She knows the particularities of corporations according to size, market and shareholder structure. She advises top management in start-up, growth and consolidation phases, and also in crises or as part of turnarounds. Alongside tailored project work she coaches top executives, and since 2015 senior figures in the military sphere as well. She combines psychological expertise with wide-ranging experience. Christine is a psychologist by training and lives in Munich.
“I know how organisations and people tick. That is also why I know how organisations have to be set up and what leadership has to deliver so that employees are, and remain, able and willing to perform through long periods of crisis and danger. Given the changed security situation, I see entirely new challenges for organisations, for their leaders and for their employees. The Black Swan opens up unexpected perspectives and shows that particular coping strategies are required.”
Four partners with clearly separated roles
Business continuity under wartime conditions calls for different competencies: assessment, implementation, enablement, organisational development. For this we work in an alliance of independent partners.
The roles stay separate. Assessment and implementation do not necessarily rest in the same hands, and verifying effectiveness remains distinguishable from carrying the work out. You can obtain each service individually, with us, with one of the partners or with a provider of your choice.
Let’s talk about your business continuity system
An executive briefing takes around 60 minutes and places your existing planning within the scenarios shown here.