Tell us about yourself and your role with Datasite.

My role is simple: I help deal teams move with speed and control. I lead sales for Datasite across the Midwest, so I spend my time with corporate development, private equity, investment banks, and legal teams who run high-stakes processes every day.
Datasite facilitates more than 55,000 financial transactions annually. We help deal teams manage sensitive information, run diligence, and keep every step defensible. Because we see activity across industries and regions before they are announced, we also see how manufacturers are changing where they place capital, and why.

How are manufacturers using acquisitions and strategic investments to secure production capacity, strengthen supplier networks, and access critical components?

Manufacturers are buying certainty. When demand is hard to forecast and supply is hard to guarantee, they use acquisitions and minority investments to lock in capacity, critical inputs, and know-how, especially in sectors tied to defense, transport, and advanced electronics.
We see it in the mix of deal activity. Industrials, transport and defense are leading activity on Datasite early in 2026. The logic is consistent, which is shorten the distance between design and production, bring key processes closer to the customer, and reduce single points of failure in the supply base.
In practice, that means three moves. First, acquire capacity in constrained steps of the value chain, such as specialty machining, tooling, coatings, testing, or niche assembly. Second, invest in suppliers and logistics partners to stabilize throughput and lead times. Third, buy access to components and talent, including semiconductor-related capabilities, power electronics, industrial software, and automation, so there is no waiting in line when the market tightens.

In what ways is AI accelerating decision-making in areas like diligence and planning and why are broader investment decisions still driven by supply chain risk and operational complexity?

AI is speeding up the parts of dealmaking that used to slow everyone down. In diligence, deal teams need to organize, search, and review huge volumes of documents. AI now auto-categorizes files, improves search, and supports faster redaction and quality checks. That reduces manual work and helps teams surface issues earlier, while also keeping an audit trail.
AI also supports better planning. Deal teams can model more scenarios faster, refresh assumptions as new inputs arrive, and track integration milestones against the thesis after close. And, this is already happening. For example, some investors are actively funding strategies to acquire manufacturing companies and use AI to accelerate automation.

Still, many investment decisions still come down to the physical reality around materials, lead times, regulations, labor, and uptime. AI can sharpen the view. It cannot remove supplier concentration risk, port constraints, qualification timelines, or the complexity of running a multi-site, multi-tier supply chain. So, executives still anchor decisions in operational risk and resilience, and then use AI to move faster and make choices more defensible.

Why is it increasingly important for manufacturers to balance efficiency with resilience when rethinking global versus regional production strategies?

Many playbooks assumed stability, which meant chasing the lower unit costs across long networks. Now the cost of disruption, including missed shipments, idle lines, and customer penalties, shows up fast.
To align with this new reality, manufacturers are now redesigning for efficient resilience. They want to keep scale where it matters, but build options, like dual-sourcing critical parts and qualifying alternates earlier.

What do these shifts signal about the future of manufacturing, particularly as companies place greater emphasis on visibility, control, and adaptability in their operations?

The future is more connected, more measured, and more decisive. Manufacturers will keep investing in capacity, but they will also invest in systems that make capacity predictable, such as data, traceability, and faster decision loops.
From a deal perspective, this is why industrial and technology, media and telecommunications (TMT) investment is strong. Physical assets and digital capabilities are converging. AI is a catalyst in both directions, in that it’s raising the value of companies with strong data and automation foundations, and it also makes deals run faster when teams use it to reduce friction in diligence and execution.

How are evolving geopolitical dynamics and trade uncertainties influencing where and how manufacturers invest in capacity, partnerships, and supply chain infrastructure?

Geopolitics are an input in every major capital decision. Tariffs, export controls, sanctions risk, and shifting industrial policy can change the economics of a plant or a supplier relationship in a single quarter. UNCTAD has flagged trade policy uncertainty as a major source of global instability.

That uncertainty pushes manufacturers to place bets that keep options open.
It also changes how deals get done. In 2025, and now into 2026, dealmaking is less about waiting for a perfect macro cycle and more about acting on strategic conviction. In 2025 global new deals on Datasite rose 9% and are up again early in 2026, so investing in resilience is how organizations today are competing.