Gartner survey reveals that CEO priorities are slowly shifting to meet rising growth challenges

Growth continues to top the list of CEO business priorities in 2019 and 2020, according to a recent survey of CEOs and senior executives by Gartner. The most notable change in comparison to last year’s results is that a growing number of CEOs also deem financial priorities important, especially profitability improvement.

The annual Gartner 2019 CEO and Senior Business Executive Survey of 473 CEO and senior business executives in the fourth quarter of 2018 examined their business issues, as well as some areas of technology agenda impact. In total, 473 business leaders of companies with USD 50 million or more and 60 percent with USD 1 billion or more in annual revenue were qualified and surveyed.

“After a significant fall last year, mentions of growth increased this year to 53 percent, up from 40 percent in 2018,” said Mark Raskino, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. “This suggests that CEOs have switched their focus back to tactical performance as clouds gather on the horizon.”

At the same time, mentions of financial priorities, cost and risk management also increased (see Figure 1). “However, we did not see CEOs intending to significantly cut costs in various business areas. They are aware of the rising economic challenges and proceeding with more caution — they are not preparing for recession,” said Raskino.