“High levels of uncertainty globally, including talk of trade wars between the United States and China, have not helped assuage the fears of business leaders, and our research shows that global trade agreements and tariffs are undermining confidence,” said Roger Hurni, chairman of Worldcom. “Since our last Confidence Index in 2018, leaders have also encountered Brexit, protests in Hong Kong, the proliferation of global warming, famine, and the re-emergence of diseases such as measles. This combination of factors may help explain why confidence levels have fallen so dramatically over the past year.”
This year, Worldcom engaged Advanced Symbolics Inc, a market research firm that uses artificial intelligence to track and interpret publicly available social media content. This year’s report examined data from nearly 60,000 business leaders from 15 countries - a big increase from previous years - showing how their opinions and intentions have changed over time.
Along with global confidence, the report measures the importance of reaching specific audiences and the confidence levels that C-suite executives have in reaching those audiences. In 2018, CEOs were most concerned with reaching customers, but respondents in the 2019 research report are most concerned with influencers, which grew 160% from 2018 to 2019, followed by customers and employees. However, CEO confidence in reaching influencers remains quite low. Leaders are more confident in their abilities to reach shareholders, customers, suppliers, and even government officials.
“Influencers were an audience in decline in 2018 but leaped to the front of the pack in this year’s report,” said Hurni. “The growth of this audience could suggest that leaders feel they need the support of influencers to help them navigate their way through turbulent times.”
Another issue CEOs and CMOs are managing is the retention of current employees. Leaders have low confidence in their abilities to retain talent. Firms in the United Kingdom and the United States rank last and second-to-last respectively, in their confidence to retain employees. This is just one of five employee-related issues that feature in the top six topics discussed globally.
Economic migration is a cause for concern globally – most notably in the US, which had the lowest Confidence Index score. The number one topic aired by leaders is upskilling and reskilling employees. The UK had the lowest score for this topic, and Japan the highest. Improving skills is just one of many areas leaders are exploring to keep employees loyal and engaged.
“Just like last year, what is keeping CEOs up at night is retaining top talent. This year they also want to ensure employees have the right skills in an evolving and dynamic workplace,” said Hurni. “What’s also clear from the report is that employment benefits need to be a part of a retention and attraction strategy.”
The Worldcom Confidence Index highlights concerns/confidence across 23 topics and six audiences. Outlined are the top 10 findings in what they call The Worldcom Confidence 10.
Stephen Forbes, Chair of Worldcom Africa and cirector of Meropa Communications, the only Southern Africa member of Worldcom, highlighted top six findings for Africa:
The full report and other media assets can be downloaded here.