Nearly 60% of Bangladesh CEOs admit that there is a gap between their initial financial forecast and project outcomes.
Not only do most Bangladesh CEOs believe that it is critical for them to reinvent their businesses in order to become future-ready, whereas according to a report, 59% of CEOs worldwide believe that their businesses will last more than ten years.
According to the latest PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) poll, nearly 69% of Bangladeshi CEOs anticipate declining growth in the coming year.
As per the report analysis, the majority of Bangladesh CEOs (75%) believe that their second line of leaders make few independent decisions that are congruent with their roles or take ownership of execution and that inflation, macroeconomic volatility and geopolitical conflicts will be prominent threats in the short and mid-terms.
Business threat
In terms of challenges to their enterprises, CEOs believe that inflation, macroeconomic volatility and geopolitical conflict will be the most significant in the next 12 months.
All three problems are potent enough to compound and reinforce one another. For example, recent geopolitical uncertainties have raised fuel costs in Bangladesh, which has increased the cost of electricity, while rising inflation has increased raw material prices.
Yasir Azman, CEO of Grameenphone said: “Macroeconomic uncertainties are going to impact supply chains, including the import of equipment to build and sustain modern infrastructure for the digital progress of the economy and society. If managed proactively, the telecom sector will play a pivotal role in boosting the economy.”
Company's reinvention
In their conversations with many Bangladeshi CEOs, PwC found that some of them have built a robust second line of leaders to whom they can delegate a good number of strategic and tactical decision-making responsibilities. However, as the survey indicates, many of these CEOs are still the sole or ultimate decision makers in their organizations.
How important are you to the reinvention of your company? In response to this question, Grameenphone CEO said: “We have invested in developing our leaders at multiple levels. As a result, I can focus more on the key strategic questions and regulatory topics that matter most for the company and its customers.”
Focus and engagement
Bangladesh CEOs say that they spend most of their time in strategizing for the future, followed by driving business performance and capacity building of human resources.
However, in contrast to the global survey where CEOs ideally wanted to spend more time on evolving their businesses for the future, Bangladesh CEOs instead want to focus more on engaging with customers.
This preference for increasing customer engagement is corroborated by a previous insight – namely that almost 60% of CEOs believe that changing customer preferences or demand will impact the profitability of the industry in the next ten years.
Syed Mahbubur Rahman, CEO of Mutual Trust Bank said that the Bangladesh economy is growing at a fast pace.
However, it is important to be mindful about short-term risks such as currency risks, as the current account deficit has gone to an alarming level and several efforts have been taken to improve the situation and the position seems to have improved.
If not addressed, these issues would have derailed the country's growth momentum, he added.
Regarding climate change, he said that Bangladesh is extremely vulnerable to climate change despite being the one of the lowest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions.
“We need to increase our focus on green tech project financing and appropriate financial assistance from all stakeholders.”
Rajesh Surana, former CEO and country representative of LafargeHolcim Bangladesh said: “Bangladesh is one of the most resilient economies today and can perform well even in difficult times. As leaders of business organizations, we need to be watchful of the short-term cost escalation of input materials to sustain our growth momentum.”
But, according to a PwC report, Bangladesh has had excellent economic development over the last five years, including the year of pandemic-induced lockdowns. Whereas most of the world's economic jurisdictions, including many emerging countries, reported negative growth in 2020, Bangladesh reported positive growth of 3.4%.
PwCs Survey
This startling data point highlights a dual imperative faced by 4,410 CEOs from 105 countries and territories who responded confidentially to PwC's 26th Annual Global CEO Survey in October and November 2022.
Bangladeshi CEOs that took part in this poll were younger than their global counterparts.
Whereas 71% of global participants' CEOs were over 50, approximately 63% of Bangladesh CEOs were over 50, and 37% were under this category.