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2024 KPMG CEO Outlook: Insights from UK Business Leaders

KPMG’s 2024 CEO Outlook reveals UK business leaders’ focus on growth, digitization, generative AI, talent retention, ESG, and the complexities of achieving net zero. CEOs remain optimistic despite economic uncertainty and highlight the need for resilient strategies, skilled employees, and technology-driven innovation for long-term success.

This article was written and published by KPMG.

Ten years of insights on CEO thinking

It’s ten years since we first launched the KPMG CEO Outlook. And we’re back this year with more insights into what’s keeping CEOs up at night and what they’re prioritising.

In 2024, we’ve surveyed 1,325 global business leaders – including 150 from the UK – overseeing companies with revenues of at least US$500 million from some of the world’s biggest economies and key industries.

The responses from UK CEOs show they’re feeling positive about growth prospects. But they also feel under more pressure as they continue to face an array of interrelated challenges.

To tackle them, they’re pursuing strategies to build more resilient, agile and innovative businesses. And they’re looking to invest in the right tech and talent to deliver sustainable growth.

We’ve pulled out the key findings from the responses of our UK sample. Look out for further opinion and practical insights on the key themes from our KPMG experts.

CEOs confident but under pressure

While their confidence levels have fallen slightly over the past year, UK CEOs remain upbeat about the prospects for growth. But they’re feeling the pressure to ensure the long-term prosperity of their businesses.

That’s not surprising given the host of interrelated challenges they face. Just look at the challenges they say are top of mind today: the race to embed generative AI and other technologies, economic uncertainty, and geopolitical complexities.

In response, the majority of UK CEOs say they’ve already adapted their growth strategies – and the rest have plans to do so.

Growth prospects: 75% confident in company; 76% in industry; 79% in UK economy; and 70% in global economy
63% feel under more pressure to ensure the long-term prosperity of their business
60% have already adapted their growth strategy as a result of interrelated challenges.

Cyber is back as the biggest threat to growth

Cyber security has leapt back to the top of the list of threats to growth over the next three years – no doubt, that’s at least partly due to growing threats presented by AI.

There’s also been a resurgence for supply chain risks. As political turmoil continues to disrupt the supply of goods, organisations are having to find new, often longer, routes and incur higher costs.

CEOs focus on foundations for success: digitisation and talent

The response from CEOs is to focus on advancing the digitisation of their businesses. That’s essential to increasing resilience. And it provides the platform for integrating emerging tech – to improve productivity and enable innovation.

CEOs also have a keen understanding of the importance of their people. They need people with the right skills to drive innovation. And they’re not (yet) envisaging a future where tech takes the roles of their people – more on that later.

Top operational priority to drive growth: #1 advancing digitisation and connectivity across the business, #2 Employee value proposition to attract and retain the top talent.

Continue reading the article in full here: KPMG 2024 CEO Outlook – UK