KPMG has released its second edition of its Saudi Arabia CEO Outlook report, available as a .PDF from the company’s website here.
The report is based on interviews with 50 CEOs of organizations in Saudi Arabia for their thoughts and insights on the potential opportunities that they have while preparing for the challenges that lie ahead, Chairman Abdullah Al Fozan said.
Abdullah Al Fozan, Chairman, KPMG.
“This year’s report aims to explore a wide range of viewpoints, including digital disruption and transformation, a key priority area for CEOs. In the 2017 report, CEOs identified technological disruption as an opportunity. This has continued this year, with both private sector and the government, focusing on emerging and disruptive technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Cloud technologies.”
The report found that seventy-two percent of Saudi Arabian CEO’s are confident about the future growth prospects for the Saudi economy, and 92 percent are confident about the growth of both their companies and industries. They are also more confident about the global economy (94 percent) as compared to CEOs in other countries1 (67 percent), the report said.
The report also called strategic alliances between companies “the need of the hour.” Seventy-two percent of CEOs in Saudi Arabia agree that the only way for their organization to achieve the agility it needs is to increase the use of third-party partnerships, the report found. Eighty percent ranked ‘strategic alliances with third parties’ (inorganic growth) as either the first or the second most important strategy for achieving growth.
Dr. Hussain Abusaaq,Chief Economist and Head of Research, KPMG in Saudi Arabia added that, “Deeper implementation of economic and social reforms under Vision 2030 is crucial to achieve sustainable growth over the medium term.”
Netherlands-based KPMG is a professional service company and one of the Big Four auditors.
[Click here to read and download the full report]
