New Zealand CEOs remain optimistic when it comes to their own companies, with 88% either somewhat or very confident of their organisation’s revenue growth prospects in the coming 12 months.
However, they are less positive about the outlook for the global economy, with 47% believing it will improve in the next 12 months, compared to last year’s far more confident 63%.
The findings are from
PwC’s New Zealand insights publication, released on Friday, which follows the 18
th Annual Global CEO Survey which featured 1,322 interviews conducted in 77 countries during the last quarter of 2014.
PwC New Zealand CEO Bruce Hassall said the outlook for New Zealand may prove to be more resilient that many currently believe.
“The GDP data out for the September quarter surprised economists and was much stronger than expected.
“The New Zealand economy may surprise us further with its strength.”
It was noted that the number of New Zealand CEOs that were specifically ‘very confident’ in their company’s revenue growth had dropped from 60% last year to 35% whereas the global figure remained stable at 39%, the same as last year.
Looking country by country, New Zealand was high on the list with 47% of our CEOs very confident in their short term prospects, with last year’s most confident country – Russia – now at the bottom of the list with 16% of CEOs very confident of revenue growth for 2015.
The business strategies that New Zealand CEOs say they will undertake to strengthen their companies in the coming 12 months include cutting costs (66%), form strategic alliances or joint ventures (50%) and outsource a business process or function (35%).
Australia was ranked as New Zealand CEOs’ most important market for growth at 69% followed by China (56%), the US (52%) and the UK (18%).
The biggest worry for New Zealand CEOs was the availability of key skills with 84% naming it at the top of their list of concerns compared to the global level of 73% and up from last year’s figure of 80%.
The speed of technological change was the biggest mover increasing to 68% from 37% last year and concern about cyber threats and the lack of data security had also radically increased for 66% of New Zealand CEOs compared to 40% last year.
Another area examined in the report was the emergence of digital technology with 68% of New Zealand CEOs concerned about the speed of technological change compared with 37% last year.
Mobile technologies were seen by 84% of New Zealand CEOs as most important to their company (81% globally), followed by cyber security (81% v 78% globally), data mining and analysis (77% v 80% globally), cloud computing (74% v 60% globally) and the internet of things (73% v 65%).
The report found New Zealand companies get the most benefit from digital technologies in the areas of operating efficiency (87%), customer experience (85%) and data and data analytics (82%).
“There is a big opportunity for all businesses in data analytics with new digital technologies enabling people to capture vast amounts of information about customers, supply chains and all organisations that interact with them.
“How you then make use of that information to drive your business will be a critical success factor,” Hassall concluded.
The full global and New Zealand findings can be found
here.
