The most recent CEO poll conducted by The Australian Industry Group revealed that Australian company leaders are cautiously hopeful for 2023 and are making investments to solve supply chain and skill gaps.
Titled “Australian CEO Expectations for 2023,” the report showed that even while there are still labour and skill shortages, geopolitical tensions, and inflation, 49% of businesses anticipate better conditions this year than last.
Ai Group Chief Executive Innes Willox, at a webinar last week, said the strength of the Australian economy and its companies “shines through, loud and clear.”
“Having come through Covid and all that that entailed and now facing domestic and international uncertainties, business remains strongly focused on growth and on taking up opportunities, new markets, new products and new ways of working,” the chief executive explained.
Meanwhile, Jeffrey Wilson, Ai Group’s director of Research and Economics, told webinar guests that while they anticipate robust market conditions and supply side issues to continue, this time, they have developed substantial investment plans to address those supply chain, staff, and inflation problems head-on.
“Eighty per cent think energy prices will keep rising, 73 per cent think other input prices — labour or materials — will keep going up and unfortunately, only 61 per cent think they can raise their sales prices to make those costs back.” Dr Wilson explained.
“Business conditions, turnover, employment and investment are expected to be robust — either matching last year’s strong performance or, in a few cases, doing slightly better,” he added.
In the survey, other inhibitors to business growth include high wage costs, supply chain disruptions, lack of demand and regulatory burden.
Ai Group’s Senior Research Analyst, Colleen Dowling, said that business leaders are taking charge despite these inhibitors.
“We track four investment indicators in our CEO survey: training, R&D, CAPEX and technology, and all four are strongly positive for 2023 — at even higher levels than what we saw in 2022,” Dowling said.
In terms of investment priorities, Ai Group revealed that for the first time in the history of its annual CEO survey, staff training was identified as the top investment priority.
Meanwhile, in the supply chain area, the top strategies include concentrating on internal improvements such as increasing inventory, factoring in longer order lead times and reorganizing operational processes.
Ai Group said the CEO survey includes feedback from 280 businesses that, together, employ more than 102,000 people and have a combined revenue of about $50 billion.
