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By Nicholas Lord
The latest KPMG Global Business Outlook Survey confirms some of the key trends we have been tracking at CFOZone over the past few months. The survey showed a marked overall increase in business confidence among the 11,000 global respondents but also the lack of corporate investment being undertaken.
Of particular note was the increase in confidence within the manufacturing sector, where 50.9 percent of respondents expected business activity to increase in the coming year, a marked increase of the figure of 42.9 percent in October 2009. Companies operating in emerging markets were the most confident, and companies operating in Brazil were the most confident of those. The only country that recorded a decrease in confidence is Greece.
However the survey also revealed that these same companies do not expect to be adding staff over the same period. Only 14.6 percent of the respondents said they would be adding jobs in the coming year, while 53 percent of those in manufacturing and 60 percent of those in the service industries said they would be maintaining current staffing levels.
Figures also released today showed that consumer spending in the US rose for a fifth straight month. The department of Commerce numbers showed a 0.3 percent increase in purchases. However this increase came at the expense of personal savings as incomes were unchanged. Again, this is more evidence of the money accruing to businesses and not to their employees.
This jobless recovery in both sentiment and activity will have repercussions for CFOs. Primarily, as activity increases, so revenues mount up and the emphasis will remain on generating returns within the treasury department (as noted before). But it also places a strain on CFOs as employees. As CFOZone noted last week, a study by headhunters Spencer Stuart showed the marked increase in competencies needed to perform the duties of a CFO as a result of the crisis. Now that we are coming out of the crisis, many CFOs will be looking to hire some help for themselves.
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