Survey: Central, Eastern European CEOs Estimate Major Decline in Business in 2023

Central and Eastern European CEOs estimate a decline in business in 2023 due to the Ukrainian-Russian conflict and the upcoming financial and economic crisis.

According to PWC’s Global Risk Survey 2022 study, more than a third of CEE executives, including those in Romania, predict a drop in business next year due to geopolitical, cybersecurity, or business model risks.

CEOs in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), including Romania, are more concerned than their global counterparts about the risks companies face today, such as competition, the business model, cybersecurity or the geopolitical context, but, At the same time, they act and spend less to reduce them.

PWC report

According to the source cited, one of the survey’s key findings shows that people are concerned about how risks would affect them: compared to only 15% globally, 36% of respondents in the region think that risks will cause a decline in their revenue in the upcoming year.

The study also reveals that business executives worldwide plan to spend more money on risk management technology than those from Central and Eastern Europe. This trend may be explained by a combination of factors, including executives’ lack of authority due to the corporate structures in which they work and their incomplete understanding of the risks to which their companies are exposed. Comparatively, 18% of CEE executives, as opposed to 31% internationally, plan to boost investment in automating risk detection activities. In addition, compared to 29 percent internationally, 21 percent of companies wish to invest more money in risk detection and monitoring systems.

However, a similar percentage of leaders in CEE and throughout the world (57%) wish to increase the number of workers in the risk analysis departments, and a higher rate of them (74%) anticipate higher spending on outsourced or co-sourced services.

Although the Romanian authorities aren’t yet concerned about a possible crisis, the specialists constantly warn about the risk factors in Romania. Following this survey, it can be seen that employers also expect a severe decline in business. The question is whether the investment in risk management technology would be enough to counter a possible financial and global economic crisis.