In a year that saw the highest U.S. tariffs since the 1930s, plenty of publicly traded companies still saw a healthy increase in revenue, even as scores of other businesses closed up shop or filed for bankruptcy.
The Hackett Group’s latest working capital survey, shared with CFO.com, showed that the largest 1,000 nonfinancial public companies collectively saw total revenue bump up 6% in 2025. That came after two consecutive years of “moderate growth,” the company said in the report.
But it’s worth noting, of course, that last year’s gains weren’t spread evenly.
“In 2025, working capital performance was mixed across industries. Service and media sectors drove significant cash conversion cycle improvements through aggressive payables optimization, while product-centric sectors experienced CCC deterioration, largely due to inventory build-ups and shifting supply chain pressures.”
Hackett’s report also revealed that the total working capital opportunity across observed businesses hit a record $1.94 trillion in 2025, up from $1.73 trillion in 2024. That figure highlights “just how much cash remains tied up in receivables, inventory, and day-to-day process inefficiencies,” the report stated.
Meanwhile, the time it took for companies to convert investments into cash shortened to 38.4 days, marking a 1% improvement over last year. Researchers attributed that to an increase in companies’ days payable outstanding, which grew 5% to 2.9 days in 2025.
Tariffs, unsurprisingly, played a role in companies’ cash conversion cycle last year. The average length of time that companies held onto their goods grew to 56 days, up 1.1%. Hackett researchers attributed that to companies stockpiling inventory to mitigate supply chain bottlenecks and the Trump administration’s aggressive tariff regime.
In an interview with CFO.com, Hackett associate principal Gerhard Urbasch said the findings point to a paradigm shift for global business, with many companies moving from “just in time to just in case.”
Bubble or boost?
Urbasch said 2025 saw another shift: a move toward the “AI-driven economy,” as he put it.
That’s made some businesses, such as semiconductor makers, into revenue engines, for now. Hackett’s research showed that companies working in the semiconductor and related equipment category saw their revenue grow by 32% last year, while the computer hardware and peripherals industry experienced a 21% revenue boost. Internet software and services, meanwhile, posted a year-over-year revenue gain of 16%.
Yet, as last week’s tech-related stock crash in South Korea showed, it’s an open question if those profits are durable in the long run. Several critics have long pointed out the circular nature of many AI-related deals.
The AI gold rush, evidently, won’t benefit all businesses. As Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon put it last year, “there will be winners and losers, and it’s hard to pick the winners and losers now.”
Urbasch conceded that the markets appear to be showing an “irrational exuberance” for AI, but he maintained that the technology still holds promise for the business world. He pointed to an example of an agentic product automating the invoice-to-pay process for a client of his.
“We see these as very rational, very reasonable investments,” he said of such use cases. “There is return in terms of improved DPO.”
Damon Rottermond, director of business transformation at Hackett, added that companies are now moving beyond the mindset of simply needing to “do AI almost for the sake of AI.”
In his view, some businesses are now seeing such tech “as a lever they can pull in pursuit of some goal.”
The view outside tech
For all the market mania around artificial intelligence, there were still a handful of other industries that saw revenue boosts last year. That included pulp, paper and forest products, a category that recorded an average 15% jump in revenue. Urbasch attributed that to continued packaging needs for e-commerce. The aerospace and defense industry, meanwhile, also saw a revenue gain of 13%.
The airline industry was another notable highlight, having improved its cash conversion cycle by -5 days. Hackett researchers said that industry “demonstrated a continued focus on cash conversion.”
Industries that saw revenue dip last year included homebuilding, which was down 4%, and telecommunications, also down 4%.
