Bahrain: Despite being relatively bullish on the economy at large as well as their overall outlook for their country, optimism from global CEOs is tempered by a healthy dose of realism, with half (55 percent) remain cautious topline revenue growth for their own business.
Half of CEOs (52 percent) say they will need to hit growth targets before hiring new skills. According to the KPMG Global CEO Outlook, they are driving growth against a backdrop of significant demographic shifts, geopolitical volatility and the seemingly inevitable future cyber-attack. CEOs are stepping up to the cyber challenge, in particular, with 59 percent saying they feel a personal responsibility for protecting customer data.
“We operate in a connected world whereby opportunities and risks are constantly evolving. Geopolitical uncertainty, disruption and cyber threats have become a norm. CEOs needs to keep up with these changes to steer their organizations to growth, and the best are turning them to valuable opportunities by changing their systems and in some cases their entire business model,” Jamal Fakhro, Managing Partner at KPMG in Bahrain, while commenting on the report findings, said.
According to the report, it is also clear that driving growth in 2018 and beyond will require CEOs to combine resourcefulness and realism in equal measure.”
KPMG Global CEO Outlook report features insights on key issues that over 1300 CEOs from many of the world’s largest organizations are facing. This includes Tim Murray, the CEO of Aluminium Bahrain B.S.C. (Alba).
According to Murray, cyber security should be a priority in the Boardroom. Greater connectivity can improve operations, but it can also increase cyber vulnerability. “New technologies are allowing us to find innovative ways to improve safety. For example, adding wireless connectivity to heavy machinery and vehicles helps to bring automation, additional checks and alerts that can reduce the risks of error or accidents. If these systems were hacked or locked-up, it could obviously have a major impact on us.” He added.
CEOs play an essential role in pivoting their organizations to the consumers of tomorrow in order to seize every opportunity to grow, with four in ten (38 percent) responding that their business requires repositioning to meet the needs of Millennials. There’s also a growing sense of inevitability of a cyber breach with nearly half (49 percent) of CEOs saying that becoming the victim of an attack is a case of ‘when’ and not ‘if’. Given the current geopolitical environment, it’s perhaps not surprising that a ‘return to territorialism’ was named the number one threat to growth this year.
CEOs are optimistic about the macroeconomic environment; they are confident about global and industry growth prospects (67 and 78 percent, respectively). They’re also feeling confident in their individual country growth (74 percent are confident, although this is down 3 percentage points from 2017). But there’s a more complex story emerging regarding company growth prospects:
The ever-present risk of a cyber security threat is rising on the radar, up from fifth to second place overall this year in terms of risks hampering future growth. Only half (51 percent) of respondents indicated they are well-prepared for a cyber-attack, even though over half (55 percent) say that a strong cyber strategy is critical to engender trust with key stakeholders.
Seventy percent say their biggest priority for geographical expansion is emerging markets, with Central/South America noted as the most important region.
