How we help you
Finding and retaining talent is critical for manufacturing companies as the industry faces growing operational challenges and a shrinking labor pool. However, doing so effectively doesn’t start with hiring — it starts with leadership.
Create high-performing teams.
Improve retention and engagement at all levels.
Help new or existing leaders reach their full potential.
Take a data-driven approach to your people challenges.
Elevate people and performance
Our manufacturing leadership development goes beyond skill-building to help you foster a culture that prioritizes people, performance and long-term success.
Explore our leadership development services
Wipfli’s Leadership Essentials emphasizes the core of strong leadership in manufacturing environments: the ability to foster trust and guide team development. Our program equips leaders with practical tools they can apply on the shop floor and back office, helping them integrate new leadership techniques into their routines while tracking their growth over time.
Leadership Essentials is built for the realities of your business and:
- Offers support at every level: Our sessions are designed to connect with leaders across your business, promoting trust-based, authentic leadership.
- Fits into your workflow: Delivered in focused, four-hour sessions every other week over 16 weeks, our program minimizes operational disruption while delivering meaningful change.
- Drives hands-on application: Leaders are encouraged to immediately apply what they learn on the job, reinforcing skills through real-time practice in their daily operations.
Our essential topics
We take up to 24 leaders on a journey that covers:
- Defining leadership and being an authentic leader.
- Communicating effectively.
- Partnering for performance.
- Delivering feedback.
- Coaching for growth.
- Delegating with purpose.
- Building a high-performing team.
Your results
Participants walk away with tools that make an immediate impact, including:
- Clear strategies for performance and retention: They learn how to set measurable expectations, reduce employee turnover, manage operational change and align leadership actions with business goals.
- Trust-building skills: From navigating tough conversations to communicating effectively, leaders gain practical techniques to foster stronger relationships.
- A personalized growth roadmap: Each participant develops a customized action plan tailored to their role and challenges, helping them continue growing long after the program ends.
Wipfli’s team development solutions are built to strengthen collaboration and accountability across your manufacturing teams, leading to faster decisions and better results.
We follow a structured, three-phase approach that targets key drivers of team effectiveness:
- Recognizing workstyle differences: Team members gain insight into their operating styles and obstacles to achieving their personal and team goals.
- Building high-performance habits: We guide teams in developing mutual trust, encouraging open dialogue, aligning around shared objectives and taking ownership of outcomes.
- Driving alignment and execution: Teams learn to focus on top business priorities and use their collective strengths and resources to execute precisely and consistently.
- Creating organizational clarity: We help teams align on your business’s most critical goals and harness team tools and resources to empower effective execution.
Wipfli offers industry-tailored coaching services and peer groups that can help your leadership transform.
Peer groups
Wipfli’s manufacturing peer groups are designed to foster professional growth, problem-solving and strategic collaboration. These sessions connect manufacturing leaders with like-minded peers to exchange insights, navigate challenges and accelerate leadership development in a high-value setting.
We host two groups to meet the needs of leadership across your business:
- The senior executive roundtable for presidents, manufacturing executives and C-suite level leaders.
- Leadership forums for young and upcoming leaders.
Leadership coaching
We help leaders excel with support that addresses their specific skill deficits and helps them grow in the aspects critical to leading others. Whether you need to develop high performers, new leaders or leaders who haven’t reached their full potential, we offer a three-step process that can help them transcend:
- Discover: Your leaders will gain a deeper understanding of how they operate and their core values, beliefs and strengths. We also help them identify the behaviors that are obstacles to their success.
- Conquer resistance: We help leaders challenge beliefs and assumptions about their leadership and recruit a team to support their development.
- Transcend: We help leaders find their edge and leverage it so that they can transcend their limitations. We also enable them to foster an ongoing, relentless curiosity through a growth mindset.
We offer two coaching options to match your business’s needs:
- Rise: This accessible, 90-day program helps leaders rapidly realize their capacity to own and drive change for businesses facing transformation or innovation.
- Transform: Over six to 12 months, we provide personalized, one-on-one coaching that helps leaders strengthen essential capabilities — such as executive presence and emotional intelligence — so they can lead with confidence and clarity.
Wipfli helps you make data-driven workforce decisions with talent assessment tools that empower you to hire the right staff and place them where they can perform at their best. We help you leverage people data using assessments, including:
Predictive Index
As a certified partner of Predictive Index (PI), Wipfli helps you use this powerful talent optimization platform to make informed hiring decisions, reduce turnover and structure teams for peak performance. With PI’s behavioral and cognitive assessments, you gain actionable insights to align talent with the demands of your operations.
EQ-i 2.0
Wipfli supports manufacturing organizations in using the Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ-i 2.0) to identify and develop high-potential leaders. We help you interpret and leverage EQ-i 2.0 results to:
- Design targeted development plans for staff across your business.
- Identify individuals with the emotional intelligence needed to lead effectively in any environment.
360-degree assessments
Wipfli helps you implement 360-degree assessments that gather input from peers, direct reports and supervisors, so leaders better understand how they’re perceived. This insight helps identify strengths and growth areas, enabling the creation of tailored development plans and support that can ultimately help you:
- Improve leadership effectiveness.
- Boost team engagement.
- Enhance overall operational performance.
Insights and resources
ARTICLE
Manufacturing risk management: Key threats and action steps
The manufacturing industry is in the midst of a volatile period. Manufacturers must overcome risks like tariffs, supply chain disruptions, international macroeconomic pressures from the wars in Iran and Ukraine, AI growing pains and more — all while protecting profitability. Implementing an effective risk management strategy can help your manufacturing business navigate today’s risks. Keep reading to learn more, plus how to assess and mitigate your own top risks. Why risk management matters for manufacturers Manufacturing businesses are currently operating in a high-VUCA environment. The acronym, which stands for volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity, describes many of the key pressures manufacturing CFOs and COOs face as they try to maintain smooth operations and combat shrinking margins. Risk management is a way to bring a little stability to that high-VUCA environment. There’s so much you can’t control — tariffs, international trade, wars, government policies — but by focusing on what you can do within your own four walls, you can still manage your risks enough to protect your value and operating income. This often starts with a mindset shift. If you’re willing to let go of your old ways of doing business and embrace changes like new technology or revamped processes, you’ll have taken a big first step towards making your business stronger and more adaptable. What are the major risks facing manufacturers? Manufacturers today face risks like supply chain concentration, workforce shortages and cybersecurity threats. Those risks are compounded by big-picture, geopolitical issues like tariffs and international conflicts, as well as the ongoing rise of AI. Top risks for manufacturers include: Tariff risks: Most U.S. imports are now tariffed at between 10-50% , raising materials costs for many manufacturers while also putting additional cost pressures on consumers. Geopolitical risks: The wars in Iran and Ukraine have strained supply chains and caused price spikes for oil and other essential commodities. Workforce risks: Manufacturing’s perennial labor problem hasn’t gotten any easier, with both worker shortages and high labor costs continuing to pressure businesses. Supply chain risks: Many manufacturers still put too many eggs in one basket, relying on overly concentrated supply chains with respect to both vendors and customers. AI risks: While AI can deliver significant benefits to manufacturers , the technology comes with major risks too , especially in areas like data privacy and shadow AI . Cybersecurity risks: Cybersecurity has increasingly gone from just an IT concern to a significant financial risk , as ransomware attacks or data breaches can lead to financial, operational and reputational harm. Shrinking margins: Rising costs on many fronts are cutting into margins, making it harder for manufacturers to get or stay profitable. Production risks: Depending on industry or process type, manufacturers also face production-specific risks around issues like safety and wasted open capacity. How to assess manufacturing risk Your manufacturing business may deal with many of the industrywide risks covered in this article, but it could also face others more specific to your region or niche within the industry. Conducting a manufacturing risk assessment can help you understand your unique risk environment and develop a strategy to mitigate it. Here’s a practical risk assessment framework for manufacturers (a risk advisory firm can help you work through it): 1. Identify and document risks Identify the risk areas and individual risks that could affect your business. This will likely include industrywide risks like tariffs or cybersecurity. Also consider factors more specific to your business, like a mission-critical employee who’s due to retire or production risks like food or chemical safety. 2. Assess the likelihood and impact of each risk Once you have a list of risks, assess each risk based on likelihood and impact. You can rate each of these factors using a scale of low, medium or high. 3. Prioritize risk based on likelihood and impact Prioritize your risks based on likelihood and impact, as well as your essential business objectives. For example, if supply chain disruptions are both high-likelihood and high-impact, that’s a risk you’ll want to tackle right away, while a low-likelihood, medium-impact risk will likely be much lower on your priorities list. Your C-suite should also discuss risk tolerance. 4. Identify existing controls and gaps Assess the controls, policies and procedures you already have in place to mitigate your high-priority risks. This will also help you identify control gaps that need to be filled, like a lack of AI governance or an ineffective system for tracking tariff costs. 5. Develop risk mitigation strategies Develop a risk management roadmap to tackle your top priority risks. This will typically include establishing new controls or policies to manage risk, as well as training, scenario planning and strategic steps like technology upgrades or inventory management changes. 6. Assign risk owners and accountability To ensure your risk management roadmap actually gets implemented, assign owners to each action step. Creating a system of accountability, like regular reporting at the C-suite or board level, can also help drive follow-through. 7. Monitor and assess risk regularly As you implement your risk management roadmap, continue to regularly monitor your risk environment and periodically reassess. Risks are constantly evolving, so your risk management strategy needs to be, too. How can manufacturers mitigate business risks? Implementing a risk management strategy can help manufacturing CFOs and COOs mitigate their top business risks. Depending on the results of your risk assessment, you may wish to consider strategies like: Work with a risk management advisor An advisory firm that works with manufacturers to manage risk and improve performance can help your business navigate today’s high-VUCA environment. Look to an advisor to conduct your risk assessment and help you implement internal controls, operational changes and strategic shifts to manage your risks. Strengthen supply chain resilience Diversify your supply chain to mitigate tariff and disruption risks. Start by mapping your supply chain and identifying possible alternatives for both sourcing and customers. You may also want to do a reshoring or nearshoring evaluation to determine if either could make sense for your business. Improve operational processes and controls Running your business more efficiently can help protect your margins from surging costs . One idea: Implement production monitoring to get a clearer sense of how your production is performing on a day-to-day basis (you’ll get a dashboard showing red or green status for your machines) so you can establish a baseline to improve on. You can also use AI to make predictive maintenance recommendations to reduce your risk of machine downtime. Strengthen your analytics The more data you have, the better you understand how your business is performing. This applies to not just production line performance but also areas like costs, pricing, inventory and organizational performance — all of which can help you identify inefficiencies and understand how what happens in your plant impacts profitability. Implement strong cybersecurity and AI controls You need effective controls for cybersecurity , data protection and AI. This typically includes establishing technology governance , implementing ongoing cybersecurity training and taking steps to make your business more cyber resilient . Improve financial forecasting and scenario planning CFOs should take advantage of AI’s analytical capabilities to do extensive financial forecasting and evaluate the impact of various scenarios. Forecasting and scenario planning can help you to both understand potential risk areas and decide which to prioritize in your risk roadmap. Regularly reassess risks and update controls and strategies Don’t assume today’s risks are the same as tomorrows. Make risk management an ongoing, living practice that includes periodic reassessments and updates to your controls and strategies. Stop putting off succession planning Succession planning isn’t just about who will own the company 10 years from now. Engaging in a thoughtful succession planning process makes your whole business more stable by ensuring continuity of knowledge after a long-time employee retires, passing sales relationships from one generation to the next and giving employees a path to move up in the business. Don’t ignore valuable tax opportunities Manufacturers can often offset margin pressures using tax incentives. Depending on the circumstances, these may include R&D tax credits , bonus depreciation or qualified production property , state-level incentives and even sunsetting energy efficiency deductions like 179D that could still apply to plant upgrades you’ve already made. Read More Can the qualified production property rule help your manufacturing firm reduce tax payments? Cybersecurity in manufacturing: Strategies to mitigate risk Manufacturing trends: What 456 leaders say about the industry today.
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How to improve manufacturing profitability and margins
Manufacturers are getting squeezed from multiple angles right now. Input costs are on the rise, supply chains are unpredictable and labor keeps getting more expensive. But in this environment, margin and profit improvements are achievable. They require discipline, an honest assessment of your operations and a willingness to act on what your data is telling you. Keep reading for strategies to improve your business’s profitability. What’s squeezing manufacturer margins right now? It’s no secret that margins are currently tight in manufacturing. The top two causes of that are supply chain challenges and rising labor costs. Supply chain instability Supply chain disruptions drive up costs and make planning more challenging. Manufacturers are dealing with significant supply chain volatility right now, due to the following factors: Tariffs continue to be unpredictable. The Canadian tariffs are the latest example. Resin availability is unpredictable and prices are going up. Steel and aluminum availability and pricing continue to be a challenge. Geopolitical uncertainty in places like the Middle East, Russia, China and Taiwan continues to create trade relationships volatility, making it nearly impossible for manufacturers to lock in stable demand and supply plans. Labor costs Starting wages in manufacturing have climbed to $17-$20 per hour in many markets. That’s compressing margins across the board. Even high-performing manufacturers are seeing margin compression right now as labor, benefits, utilities, supplies and indirect costs all trend upward simultaneously. The challenge isn’t just cost. It’s that many organizations haven’t raised prices fast enough to keep up. At Wipfli, we’re seeing a significant number of manufacturers’ balance sheets showing signs of financial distress, including covenant violations, forbearance situations or unsustainable debt-to-earnings ratios. If you don’t have a strong balance sheet when things get hard, survival becomes less likely. How to improve manufacturing profitability Consistently turning a profit is tough for manufacturers in today’s landscape. Here are some items to focus on that could improve overall profitability: Rethink your pricing strategy Most manufacturers do a reasonable job of incorporating the costs of raw materials into their pricing. Where they fall short is in recouping all the other inflationary costs, including direct labor, indirect labor, benefits, utilities and supplies. These line items are all going up, and the value-added portion of a manufacturer’s cost structure is taking the most compression. You must separate the raw material price conversation from the broader inflationary cost increase conversation. And it’s a conversation you must have with customers, even if it means breaking a contract or pushing back on a “no.” Pricing strategy also means evaluating your existing capacity. If you have open press time or machine availability, you can price more aggressively to fill that capacity and cover overhead. If you don’t have capacity and would need capital investment to take on new work, that changes the math entirely. Pricing a project that requires a large investment, the same as one that uses equipment you already have, can create real cash flow challenges. Maximize your technology ROI Automation investments are spendy. Manufacturers with tight balance sheets can’t afford to spend millions automating medium- or low-volume parts just because the technology exists. The right question isn’t “should we automate?” It’s “what level of automation do we actually need to run this profitably?” That spectrum runs from solid process flow and hand automation on the low end to fully autonomous cells on the high end. And many organizations that think they’ve fully automated are still putting an operator at the end of the line waiting for parts. That’s not automation. It’s a gap in execution. When evaluating a capital investment in automation, consider: Value-add vs. volume: Higher-volume parts justify more automation. Low-value-add parts may actually need automation most, because the economics don’t justify manual labor. Flexibility: Can this asset be redeployed if the project doesn’t meet volume expectations? Prioritize equipment that can be used across multiple projects over single-purpose pieces of equipment. Phased approach: Start with entry-level automation that has a lower payback threshold. Evolve the automation plan as volumes increase and the product matures. Think of capital investment like a ladder; you don’t have to start at the top rung. A phased approach that builds in flexibility de-risks the investment and keeps you from overextending on a project that hasn’t proven its value. Manage labor more efficiently As wages rise, it becomes more important to maximize throughput and value added per hour of labor. Here are a couple of practical strategies: Reduce reliance on temporary labor: Temp markups can run as high as 60-65%, while the cost of hiring someone full-time with benefits is closer to 20-30%. In this labor market, you’re not saving money on temps anymore. You’re paying a premium for flexibility you may not need. Temporary workers have their place, but should not be viewed as the easy button. Eliminate low-value work: Manufacturers frequently throw labor at small problems because they don’t want to spend the time or money to solve the root cause. This practice compounds labor challenges. You end up with a disproportionate number of people doing inspections, moving product unnecessarily or absorbing transactional waste that proper process design would eliminate. Control material costs Buying on contract or locking in a price through futures markets is a good option when available, but most manufacturers can’t rely on it. Distributors pass through market pricing, and a six-month PO doesn’t guarantee a six-month price. So the strategy shifts to speed and transparency. Identify when prices change quickly and be ready to pass those costs on. To show your customers you’re operating in good faith, pass along price drops the same as you do for increases. For manufacturers, those hard pricing conversations get easier when you have built trust with customers. Two other tactics that matter: Multiple suppliers and approved materials: If you’re single-sourced on a critical material, your leverage disappears. Qualifying a second vendor or second approved material takes upfront work but offers supply continuity and potential leg up in price negotiations. Lessons from COVID still aren’t being applied consistently. Don’t wait for the next disruption to learn this again. Pay suppliers on time (or early): Manufacturers with stretched balance sheets stretch their suppliers. That’s one of the fastest ways to lose material availability. Organizations that pay on time, or even early, for potential discounts, can expect more consistent supply and maybe preferential terms/price. Know your market Cost-plus pricing is a starting point, not a strategy. The best manufacturers actively build market intelligence into how they quote and how they assess their business. Track your own hit rates. Review your margin reports by customer and market. When you miss a quote, do some digging to understand where your pricing was off and whether it was material, labor or both. That feedback shapes how you quote the next job and how you structure your business to be more competitive overall. Build real cost visibility Cost visibility plays a key role in margin improvement. But many manufacturers struggle to understand all the costs that need to be factored into pricing. Start with your bill of materials: Audit your highest-volume and lowest-margin parts regularly. Are you running them the way you said you would when you priced them? If your actual cost differs from the standard cost by more than 5%, you need to understand exactly what’s driving the gap. It’s often a performance erosion problem, not a pricing problem, that is entirely within your control to fix. Price by part, not by blended rate: When it’s time to pass on a price increase, don’t tell a customer you’re raising everything by a certain percentage. Show them by part where costs are increasing and where they’re coming down. Not every part carries the same labor or material cost. The manufacturers who can walk into that conversation with part-level data look sophisticated. The ones who can’t look like they’re guessing. Be honest about your low-volume, high-mix parts: They can look like big profit drivers on paper. In reality, they create supply chain complexity, scheduling headaches and labor inefficiency. Do a tail analysis on your lowest-volume parts and customers. For the ones that don’t make sense, either reprice them, restructure how you run them or have a direct conversation with the customer about the arrangement. Know your money makers Finally, be honest with yourself about where you’re actually making money. If someone asks you what your 10 most profitable parts are, you should be able to answer without hesitation. Find ways to produce as many of those products as possible. Read more Cybersecurity in manufacturing: Risks and best practices The impact of Canada retaliatory tariffs on U.S. manufacturing Tax treatment for tariffs: How U.S. manufacturing companies should treat tariff costs and IEEPA refund uncertainty under U.S. tax rules
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9 top tariff mitigation strategies for manufacturing CFOs
For many manufacturers, the Trump administration’s tariff policies have created new costs and supply chain complications. Active tariffs under Section 232, Section 301 and Section 338 are raising the cost of many imports by 10-50% . How should your business adapt to succeed in this environment? Keep reading to learn key tariff mitigation strategies that CFOs and COOs can use to protect profitability even in the face of tariff pressures. 9 top tariff mitigation strategies manufacturers should know While there is no silver bullet, manufacturing CFOs and COOs do have options to offset tariff costs. If you understand your tariff exposure and supply chain, you can consider mitigation strategies like alternative sourcing, pricing pass-throughs, optimized inventory management, operational efficiency improvements and tax incentives. Deploying a combination of these strategies will help protect your overall profitability even after accounting for tariff expenses: 1. Map your supply chain Start by mapping out your current supply chain. Identify the sources of your raw materials, components and finished goods, while also reviewing HTS codes for all imports. Understanding where your products originate will help you evaluate potential tariff impacts. 2. Diversify your supplier base Based on your supply chain mapping, consider if you could reduce tariff exposure by diversifying your materials suppliers. Nearly all U.S. trading partners remain covered by tariffs, but not all countries are subject to the same tariff rate. Section 301 tariffs, for example, range from 10% to 12.5% depending on the country. In this example, switching from a supplier tariffed at 12.5% to one tariffed at 10% would reduce your tariff payments by 20%. 3. Evaluate domestic or near-shore sourcing In certain cases, tariff costs may mean that domestic sourcing is now a more viable option. Materials or goods sourced domestically aren’t tariffed, so you may be able to find more competitive pricing than in years past. Companies that have moved production overseas may also want to explore whether reshoring could make sense, although this approach typically only works when combined with heavy automation to offset high domestic labor costs. 4. Reassess your costing and quoting strategies For much of 2025, manufacturers simply ate tariff costs rather than risk angering consumers by passing those costs along. But that’s not a viable long-term solution. If you haven’t yet, explore changing your prices to reflect your higher costs, as well as how to implement those increases over time to soften the impact on consumers. 5. Optimize inventory and purchasing strategies Adopting a more agile, flexible approach to inventory management can help you avoid unnecessary costs. Taking this approach involves understanding exactly what your customers want, focusing on jobs that boost profitability (typically those that are either high volume or high value) and exploring more flexible contracts with suppliers to avoid over-purchasing materials you don’t need. 6. Review your supplier and customer agreements Tariffs are affecting both your suppliers and businesses that buy your products. You may be stuck with your existing contracts, but when negotiating a new one, explore how you can share the burden of tariff costs rather than leaving your business to eat most of them on its own. 7. Improve operational efficiency Improving operational efficiency can lower operating costs or increase production to offset tariff expenses. Manufacturers are increasingly leaning on technology like AI to deliver operational gains, with packaging automation, machine monitoring systems and process control technologies all delivering notable ROI in this area. This does involve making a meaningful upfront investment. However, certain tax incentives can notably lower that burden. 8. Use tax incentives to offset tariff costs A smart tax strategy can help significantly offset your overall tariff burden. CFOs should dig into the details on how to handle accounting for tariffs from a tax perspective , as well as consider how specific manufacturing tax incentives could reduce your non-tariff tax exposure or help cover the cost of investments in efficiency, molds, dies and automation. Key tax incentives to explore include: Bonus depreciation and qualified production property to immediately deduct the full cost of certain qualified real property investments. Section 179D expensing to deduct the cost of certain energy efficiency facility upgrades. R&D tax benefits to deduct or receive tax credits for research, experimentation and development costs. Tariffs can also increase your credit eligibility here. 9. Pursue tariff refunds when applicable In early 2026, the Supreme Court overturned the administration’s IEEPA tariffs and ordered that roughly $166 billion in tariff collections be refunded. If your business paid IEEPA tariffs, you may be eligible to have that money returned . The process can be complex, but if you were burdened by significant IEEPA tariff costs, you stand to gain a significant reimbursement. Why tariff management matters for manufacturers today Manufacturers face a host of pressures on profitability, including high costs for raw materials and labor, competition from emerging markets, economic uncertainty and a technological revolution that is shaking up traditional business models. Tariffs only add to that pressure, which makes managing them essential to surviving (and thriving) in today’s business environment. This is doubly the case because tariff policy continues to be volatile, which means you’ll get burned if you don’t have a process in place to help you adapt to those policy shifts. Also consider that successful tariff management means learning to run your business more efficiently and effectively. By acting now, you’re investing in long-term performance gains that will stick around even if the current tariffs are eventually phased out. In other words, implementing an effective tariff management strategy will bolster your profit margins both now and in the future. How tariff mitigation helps CFOs improve profit margins No single tariff mitigation strategy will likely offset all your tariff costs. However, by employing a combination of supply chain adjustments, efficiencies, tax incentives and pricing pass-throughs, you can significantly reduce the hit to your profit margins. Consider that tariff mitigation strategies help you to: Counterbalance tariff costs by finding new cost savings or opportunities to do more profitable jobs. Operate more efficiently, with tariffs serving as the necessary push to adopt automation or more efficient processes. Better understand your supply chain and customers so you can adapt to meet today’s business demands. Avoid wasting valuable tax opportunities by claiming deductions or credits you may already be entitled to, or that apply to necessary expenses. Protect your margins by helping negate rising costs in areas like healthcare, labor and materials to set you up for a strong balance sheet five years from now. Tariffs are frustrating. But they are also an opportunity to rethink your business and make structural changes to put it on more solid, sustainable ground. Read more Tariff update: New Section 301 tariffs, Section 232 and more Tariff refunds for manufacturers: What to do next How do tariffs affect taxes for manufacturing businesses?
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