According to the KPMG study, CEOs are grappling with escalating competitive pressures. In order of importance: 86 percent are concerned about the loyalty of their customers; 74 percent are worried about new market entrants; 72 percent are worried about keeping pace with new technologies; 68 percent are concerned about their competitors' ability to take business away from them; and 66 percent are concerned about the relevance of their product or service in the next three years.
Commenting on the study, Richard Rekhy, CEO of KPMG in India, said, "In the wake of national development programs towards consolidating growth and mobilizing our assets, Indian CEOs have emerged positive towards spurring innovation.
"The country is on a growth trajectory and although faced with challenges of changing customer expectations and change management, CEOs are focused on strengthening operational efficiencies to ensure the well-being of their businesses. The Global CEO Outlook Study 2015 reveals that Indian CEOs are motivated about aligning organization growth to that of the nation with an emphasis on hiring and the development of human capital."
Status Quo: Perhaps the Riskiest Position for any Organization
Importantly, 44 percent of the CEOs indicated that they are only ‘somewhat comfortable' with their current business model, with five percent expressing that they are ‘uncomfortable.' In the study, 29 percent of leaders said their organizations are likely to be transformed into significantly different entities in the next three years.
While the results indicate that CEOs are acutely aware of the need to transform their businesses in order to survive and prosper, almost one-third of CEOs say their business is not taking enough risk with their global growth strategy and more than half (56 percent) said they have not fully implemented a company-wide process for innovation.
Half of respondents noted additional challenges with how their business needs to improve the way it manages data and analytics and how they need to do more to prepare for a cyber-security event.
"CEOs continue to confront business challenges of unprecedented complexity," said KPMG's Veihmeyer. "Many CEOs in our study have repeated what I am hearing when I meet with business leaders—that they need to take more calculated risks with their growth strategies. They know that they are going to have to have to do things differently, and they are looking hard at their organizations to determine how they can transform to stay relevant and strengthen their competitive positions."
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