Excellence of Execution is Top Concern for CEOs Worldwide
Chief business priorities shift, while regional challenges reveal pain points.
Posted by: Robyn Greenspan
The Conference Board’s survey of 769 global chief executive officers revealed that “excellence of execution” was now their top business priority, replacing “sustained and steady top-line growth,” which had the highest ranking last year. These chief two challenges — chosen from a list of 121 — also held high prominence in the regional results.
- Excellence in execution
- Sustained and steady top-line growth
- Consistent execution of strategy by top management
- Profit growth
- Finding qualified managerial talent
- Customer loyalty/retention
- Speed, flexibility, adaptability to change
- Corporate reputation
- Stimulating innovation/creativity/enabling entrepreneurship
- Speed to market
Source: The Conference Board, 2007
The regional differences revealed the individual pain points in Asia, Europe and the United States. “Finding qualified managerial talent” was of the top concern to Asian CEOs, a challenge that was ranked 6th for Europe and the U.S. “Seizing opportunities for expansion/growth in China” was also of great concern, suggesting that Asia was not fully capitalizing on its location and the growing importance of China to the world economy.
The two top challenges for European CEOs mirrored the overall concerns, with “speed, flexibility, adaptability to change” rounding out the top three. Asia and the U.S. ranked this challenge 8th and 10th, respectively. Immediacy maintained its importance to the European CEOs, as they were the only group listing “speed to market” on their top 10.
Ranked at number seven by American CEOs, “top management succession,” reflects the concern about the impending leadership shortage as Baby Boomers retire. The smaller replenishment pool is expected to leave a gap in knowledge, management and productivity, which could hold grave implications for business leadership.
In ExecuNet’s analysis of the business priorities most affecting CEO performance, workforce planning took high priority, grabbing 40 percent of the top 10 concerns.
Top CEO-identified Business Priorities Most Affecting Performance
- Growing revenue
- Establishing vision and strategy
- Managing plans and objectives
- Managing and developing the people on my team
- Creating more efficiency in my company’s operations
- Recruitment of talent
- Raising capital
- Investing in new technology
- Retaining key talent who report to me
- Mergers and acquisitions
Source: ExecuNet, 2007
