Across the globe, the last 12 months have seen increased instability, driven by myriad factors, including deepening geopolitical rivalries and conflicts, diverging economic fortunes, and the growing impacts of climate change and artificial intelligence (AI). All of this follows a period when the pandemic accelerated the importance of digitalization, driving wide-scale transformation, which still needs to be completed in many cases. Year-over-year, the range and depth of risks are accelerating, meaning that CEOs truly find themselves and their companies having to navigate in a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world.
At Arthur D. Little (ADL), we have been working with CEOs of the world’s leading businesses for more than 137 years, listening to their needs and helping them innovate and transform to thrive in a fast-changing world and successive industrial revolutions.
But changing times called for a new approach in exploring how business leaders of the world’s US $1 billion-plus companies across different industries were reacting to a turbulent present and uncertain future.
Thus, last year, we launched the first in our ongoing series of flagship “CEO Insights” research studies. Through hundreds of conversations and months of research, we looked to answer key questions, such as:
For this 2024 edition of “CEO Insights,” we found strong, positive grounds for optimism. Hearteningly, CEOs of leading businesses are not merely focusing on survival but are increasingly confident about the prospects for their organizations and the wider economy. We found 66% to be highly positive about the global outlook over the next three to five years, a result that has tripled since 2023.
Behind this optimism, CEOs are significantly increasing their growth investments and navigating short-term uncertainty through resilient strategies and organizations built to handle a VUCA world. Moving forward, they are enthusiastically embracing new opportunities like AI, seeing it as a catalyst for growth, and are looking to develop their people to unlock its potential. ESG is becoming a holistic part of strategies as CEOs embed it across their organizations.
At times of disruption, the natural but ultimately flawed approach can be to concentrate only on the short-term volatility and uncertainty of VUCA. Our study shows that today’s global CEOs are truly ambidextrous and are adopting the opposite strategy, looking to deliver on the short term, by transforming short-term uncertainties into opportunities while working on the long term — building a better future for us all.
Ignacio García Alves
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
Arthur D. Little
Looking beyond current turbulence, CEOs of the world’s largest companies are increasingly positive about the prospects for growth and are positioning themselves — and their workforces — to seize the opportunities that AI brings, according to the results of our 2024 “CEO Insights” study.
While CEOs are navigating today’s choppy business waters with caution, they are investing for a brighter future, based on the resilient organizational structures they now have in place. As AI impacts their businesses, they are reskilling their workforces and looking internally to develop the talent they need to exploit opportunities moving forward.
Rather than being cowed by uncertainty, CEOs are thriving in a time of turmoil, understanding that volatility is now the new normal in the world of business. They are focusing on ambidexterity,[1] marrying innovation and productivity to enable success in a VUCA world. Combining longer-term vision and innovation with short-term caution, CEOs are committed to driving business growth, centered around a combination of their people and AI working in harmony.
In-depth analysis of ADL’s latest “CEO Insights” study enables us to draw four clear conclusions, which apply generally across both geographies and different vertical sectors.
The last 12 months have seen CEOs face an expanding range of challenges, from conflict and geopolitical rivalry to rising costs. Despite this, the headline finding is that CEOs are positive and confident about the medium-term (three to five years) economic outlook (see Figure 1).
Two-thirds (66%) expect a positive global outlook — compared to just 22% in 2022 — implying that they believe the bottom of the market ha
cloud technology axon
Established in 2015, the Valencia-based HR software company, Sesame, h...
