According to the jubilee 20th CEO Survey conducted by PwC, CEOs have strong confidence in the growth of their companies in 2017 (38% of CEOs in 2017 compared to 35% in 2016).
The survey was conducted from September to December 2016 and involved 1,379 CEOs from 79 countries, including the Czech Republic.
Where can we expect growth?
The CEOs' confidence in the growth of their companies is the highest in India (71%). Year on year, it more than doubled in Brazil (57%) and Switzerland (34%). It is also growing significantly in Austria (43%), the United Kingdom (41%), China (35%), the USA (39%) and Germany (31%).
On the other hand, a decline of CEOs' confidence in the growth of their companies in 2017 was marked in Mexico (from 46% in 2016 to 38% in 2017) and Japan (from 28% in 2016 to 14% in 2017).
In 1997, when PwC published the first annual CEO Survey, CEOs had the most faith in emerging markets (mostly BRIC). Their interest in investing in Brazil, India, Russia or Argentina, however, has been declining for three consecutive years now.
Today, companies see the greatest opportunities for growth in the USA, China, Germany, the United Kingdom and Japan. Shanghai, New York, London and Beijing are the cities in which CEOs expect the best conditions for the growth of their companies in 2017.
More interest in technology as well as soft skills
Twenty-three percent of CEOs believe that competition in their sector will completely change over the next five years due to technologies that have already started playing a vital role in companies' reputations, their employees' skills and possible growth.
In the past twenty years, the CEO's concerns associated with the lack of necessary skills in the labor market more than doubled. While 31% of companies worried about a skills shortage in 1998, it is 77% do today.
Human capital along with diversity and labor mobility represent the highest priorities for companies in their strategies aimed at addressing their need for skills in the future.
Seventy percent of CEOs consider creativity and innovation, leadership and emotional intelligence the most important skills that are the most difficult to find. More than half see a fundamental problem in the recruitment of specialists in the STEM field.
More than half of CEOs plan to increase the number of employees in 2017. The most ambitious countries in recruitment include India (67%), Canada (64%), the United Kingdom (63%) and China (60%). The most jobs will be created in the field of asset management (64%), health (64%) and technology (59%).
Only 16% of CEOs expect to reduce the number of employees. Eighty percent of job losses will be in some way related to the use of modern technologies and automation.
More details about the way global CEOs have changed their thinking in the last 20 years are available on the PwC 20th CEO Survey website. Apart from global findings, you can also find the survey results for each country or the CEE region here.