Tension between short-term survival and long-term viability is defining the corporate landscape in Bangladesh, as business leaders grapple with a critical "readiness gap" in artificial intelligence (AI) and innovation.
According to a recent PwC 29th CEO Survey – Bangladesh Edition, titled “Shaping tomorrow’s enterprises: Value creation in the age of AI,” local executives are exhibiting an unprecedented appetite for cross-sector diversification.
However, their ambitions are severely constrained by a lack of structured corporate governance, minimal risk tolerance, and inadequate data infrastructure.
The report, which surveyed 45 CEOs across major domestic industries including manufacturing, telecommunications, and chemicals, reveals a striking paradox: while 46.7% of Bangladeshi CEOs identify long-term enterprise viability as their single most pressing concern, their daily schedules remain intensely shortsighted.
On average, local leaders dedicate over half of their schedules (51.2%) to issues with a time horizon of less than one year, leaving only 14.8% for strategic planning extending beyond five years.
The survey highlights that early experimentation with AI is under way, with 20.5% of CEOs reporting revenue growth and 25.6% seeing cost reductions due to AI integration over the last 12 months.
Yet, enterprise-wide deployment remains highly uneven. Only one in five CEOs report utilizing AI to a large or very large extent across core business functions like demand generation and strategic direction setting.
The primary barrier to scaling these technologies is structural.
While 64.1% of respondents believe their corporate culture supports AI adoption, a mere 20% feel their current AI investment levels are sufficient.
Crucially, less than 20% of CEOs report that their primary AI tools have access to all relevant organizational data, placing Bangladesh well behind global and regional benchmarks in data plumbing and strategic clarity.
Driven by macroeconomic volatility and a desire to mitigate concentration risks, Bangladeshi companies are aggressively crossing traditional industry boundaries.
Nearly three-quarters (73.3%) of local CEOs state that their companies have entered entirely new sectors over the past five years—almost double the global average of 42%.
However, translating this agility into profitability is proving difficult.
Only 15% of Bangladeshi firms have successfully derived more than 20% of their revenue from these new cross-sector ventures, underscoring a gap between experimental market entry and commercial scalability.
The structural obstacles facing local enterprises become highly visible when evaluating innovation frameworks and threat perceptions against regional and global peers.
The report also warns of potential blind spots in executive risk assessment.
Despite accelerating global digitalization, only 9% of Bangladeshi CEOs view cyber threats as an immediate danger, compared to 31% globally. Similarly, only 8.9% express high concern regarding near-term technological disruption.
On climate change, the intent to adapt is outpacing operational reality.
While 31.1% of enterprises have successfully factored climate opportunities and risks into product design and development, integration drops sharply to 17.8% in both supply chain sourcing and capital allocation.
PwC Bangladesh indicates that for local enterprises to navigate the upcoming decade successfully, CEOs must pivot from tactical, short-term firefighting.
The path forward requires establishing repeatable, systematic innovation frameworks, formalizing responsible AI governance, and executing disciplined choices regarding capital allocation.
