Today, the Wall Street Journal published an article titled “Top Executives Fear Stagnant Economies.”  The article discusses a recent PwC global CEO survey concerning global economic growth and the executives’ views on their companies’ prospects.

Notable excerpts from the article include:

Spurred by issues including ballooning government debt, poor economic growth and potential social unrest, the percentage of CEOs who are “very confident” about short-term economic growth slipped in nearly every region around the world compared with a year ago, PwC said. While fears that the global economy will shrink have eased considerably since last year, only 18% of the 1,330 CEOs interviewed by PwC expect the global economy to grow in 2013. Overall, 52% of executives think the economy will flat-line this year.

also:

Faced with these challenges, many CEOs are refocusing on their existing clients and geographies. Nearly half are eschewing global expansion and are banking on organic growth in their existing markets.

also:

To this end, executives say they will continue to focus on cutting costs. Last year, 77% of CEOs put in place cost-cutting plans and 70% plan to do so in 2013. This could result in reduced hiring, with 45% of CEOs saying they plan to recruit in 2013, compared with 51% last year.

Additional details can be seen in the above-mentioned article.

_____

StratX, LLC offers the above commentary for informational purposes only, and does not necessarily agree with the views expressed by these outside parties.

—–

StratX, LLC is a management consulting firm and strategic advisory that focuses on the analysis of current and future weak(ening) economic conditions, and offers businesses and other entities advice, strategies, and actionable methods on how to optimally adapt to such challenging, complex conditions.