Volatility is now a structural condition of the aftermarket. Tariffs, demand shifts, supply disruptions, and cost swings are no longer occasional shocks. They are part of the environment manufacturers are expected to operate in.
What increasingly separates stronger performers from weaker ones is not exposure to that pressure, but the ability to respond to it in a coordinated way.
Some OEMs absorb disruption and regain stability relatively quickly. Others experience a cascade of secondary effects: inventory imbalances, service delays, margin erosion, and reactive decision-making that spreads from one function to the next. In many cases, the difference comes down to planning maturity and how effectively the organization can translate new signals into aligned action across the aftermarket.
Our State of the Aftermarket 2025 research shows that planning maturity exists on a broad spectrum, from largely reactive environments to more advanced, highly integrated models. But most organizations don’t sit at either end. They cluster in the middle, operating in structured or partially proactive environments where systems support decision-making, yet cross-functional coordination still depends heavily on human effort.
As competitive intensity, cost volatility, and service expectations increase, that middle ground is becoming harder to defend.
Across the dataset, planning maturity follows a familiar bell-curve pattern, with relatively few organizations at the most reactive or most advanced ends of the spectrum.
But that distribution only tells part of the story. In practice, planning maturity is rarely consistent across the aftermarket. An organization may have relatively advanced demand forecasting or service scheduling capabilities, while parts pricing or service contract decisions still rely on spreadsheets, manual approvals, or disconnected workflows.
In other cases, the tools themselves are not the issue. Advanced systems may already exist across multiple functions, but they remain siloed — so while data is available, decisions are still fragmented.
This is why so many organizations remain in a transitional state. They have moved beyond purely reactive planning, but not yet far enough to respond with speed and alignment when conditions change.
Pressure exposes the difference between structured planning and coordinated planning.
In less mature environments, disruption is typically managed in sequence. Demand shifts trigger manual forecast revisions, inventory imbalances are addressed once service levels begin to deteriorate, and pricing is adjusted only after margin has already begun to erode.
Each team responds, but not always at the same time, and rarely with a shared view of the trade-offs involved.
At the other end of the spectrum, more advanced planning environments integrate data flows and decision processes across functions. Signals from demand, supply, cost, and service performance become visible earlier and are interpreted across functions rather than within them. That allows teams to weigh decisions in context, before disruption spreads.
If a tariff change or supplier cost increase affects a critical component, for example, the issue isn’t just a sourcing problem. It’s also a pricing question, an inventory question, and potentially a service-performance question. In a more integrated planning environment, those implications can be assessed together. Pricing adjustments, sourcing alternatives, and inventory decisions can be evaluated in parallel rather than one by one, reducing the latency between signal and response.
In volatile markets, reactive environments tend to experience sharper swings in service reliability, inventory health, and margin stability. While more integrated environments are not immune to disruption, they absorb it more predictably because decisions are coordinated across functions and time horizons.
As parts and service operations take on greater responsibility for growth, resilience, and financial performance, the speed and coordination of aftermarket decision-making assume greater importance.
Investment in systems and analytics can accelerate progress, however, maturity in the aftermarket ultimately reflects how quickly organizations can turn emerging information into aligned decisions.
In a tougher operating environment, aftermarket maturity does not eliminate volatility. It determines how effectively manufacturers can respond to it and how predictable the outcome will be.
In the next article in this series, we examine another factor that shapes that predictability: how fragmented data and system integration affect decision-making across the aftermarket.
Explore the full State of the Aftermarket 2025 research for deeper insight into the structural factors shaping aftermarket performance.