Partnership Critical To Business Survival, Growth – PwC Survey

For companies to grow and survive the ever changing business dynamics, they must explore collaboration with entities that can enhance their values, PwC’s 26th Annual Global CEO Survey revealed.

The survey noted that the diversity and complexity of today’s business challenges are placing a premium on the ability to collaborate across the boundaries of the corporation.

To get a window on these dynamics, PwC said, it asked CEOs how they forge partnerships—with whom and to what objective and that the results show that companies work with a wide network of collaborators,saying, those relationships are most often struck to create new sources of value.

Addressing societal issues such as climate change was more often a goal of collaboration with non-business entities such as NGOs and government agencies, the survey disclosed.

Noting that larger companies are more likely than smaller ones to address societal challenges through collaboration with institutions of all types, PwC, in the survey, added that, business–government collaboration towards societal ends is especially prevalent in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, and in the energy and power and utilities sectors.

PwC’s work in ESG strategy development suggested that organisations are best able to create business and societal value in tandem when they tackle partnering and ecosystem building with rigour and sophistication.

“CEOs need to commit their organisations to an ESG identity and focus area, and make the commitment real. This often involves mapping the interests of critical ecosystem partners; identifying the combinations of talent, technology, processes and insight that those partners can provide; building trust through reciprocity; and nurturing a corporate culture that embraces collaboration across traditional institutional lines,” the survey advised.

On trust, it said, trust helps institutions and individuals ‘go far together’ —and win today’s race while running tomorrow’s.

“Advanced analysis of data from last year’s CEO Survey uncovered a statistically signi cant relationship between customer trust and nancial performance. Survey data also suggested that trusted companies had a long-term orientation; they were more likely  to have made net-zero commitments and to have their compensation tied to non- nancial outcomes, such as employee engagement and gender, race, and ethnicity representation,” it pointed out.

The growing importance of trust, PwC stressed. is deeply intertwined with the changing nature of leadership, due to the increased complexity of stakeholder dynamics, the growing need for the private sector to help solve important societal problems, the fracturing of the post–Cold War consensus, and the intensi cation of geopolitical and social tensions.

CEOs have had front- row seats for, and often been participants in, these shifts, to a greater degree than many  of their direct reports, it noted.

Explicit dialogue with top management teams about the leadership implications of these forces, it stated, may help CEOs strengthen and unleash the power of the C-suite, allowing CEOs time to focus on the future, which the survey data indicates CEOs want.

PwC surveyed 4,410 CEOs in 105 countries and territories in October and November of 2022 and their responses formed the report of the survey.