KPMG 2016 CEO Outlook Forum

KPMG Taiwan held the “KPMG 2016 CEO Outlook Forum” yesterday (August 22) where Mr Sai Choy Tham, Chairman of KPMG ASPAC region pointed out that over 90% of Taiwanese CEOs are confidence with the potential growth of the global and domestic economy and such percentage is the highest amongst the world.

 

However, with regards to future developments, cyber security has been ranked as the third largest risk with more than 92% of the Taiwanese CEOs not being fully prepared on such issue, such percentage is only slightly better than some of the East African countries with less developed internet position.

 

The report indicates that more than 90% of Taiwanese CEOs are confident with the potential growth of the global and Taiwan economies for the next 3 years. The Chairman and CEO of KPMG Taiwan, Mr Winston Yu, said that the despite the uncertainty and slowdown of the global economies, the Taiwanese CEOs are gradually grasping future developments and are investing in R&D with a view to transform, together with the expected benefits from our physical location between China and Southeast Asia, as such enabled Taiwanese CEOs to have such confidence for the future.

 

Further, from innovation and transformation perspectives, Sai Choy said that majority of the CEOs believe that customers will have new expectations and hence are reconsidering product positioning and connectivity with consumers. By using big data and cross-industry alliances to improve products, that is, large companies provide the markets, new start-up companies provide innovative ideas with a view to reach the goals of innovation and business transformation.

 

Taking KPMG Singapore as an example, it is currently focusing on3 major industries, i.e., financial services, logistics and healthcare. First, the cooperation between the insurance and GPS companies enables the understanding of drivers’ behavior and results in the adjustment of related insurance fees. From logistics perspective, businesses can monitor the delivery process via GPS companies and improve quality. As from healthcare side, businesses can use big data to increase the matching ratio between organ donors and patients.

 

In addition, for the 18 countries in the survey, cyber security and risk have been classified as the top 3 areas of concern. However, only 26% of Taiwanese CEOs considered cyber security as one of the operational risk, much lower than the global average. Further, up to 92% of the Taiwanese CEOs believe that the Taiwanese enterprises are not prepared for a cyber security event, and such percentage is only slightly better than the less internet developed East African countries (98%).

 

To assist with business transformation, KPMG engaged “Forbes” magazine to survey global CEO’s outlook, covering 18 countries and nearly 1,300 CEOs. This is the first year that Taiwan was included in the comparison and interviewed approximately 50 Taiwanese CEOs who provided insight into their viewpoints regarding impacts and opportunities for business in the future.

 

The Chairman of the National Development Council (NDC), Mr Chen Tian-Jy said that there are criticisms to the new government for not proposing key investment programs to stimulate the economy, in fact, there is a higher government debt ratio and the focus should be aimed at industry structural adjustment as opposed economic sentiment issue. He is of the view that the economy is improving and the key is to strengthen fundamentally from industrial structural transformation. Although the effects cannot be observed in the short term, however, this is a must for Taiwan.

 

Mr Chen Tian-Jy attended “KPMG 2016 CEO Outlook Forum” yesterday and analyzed the international and Taiwan economic outlook and industrial development. Mr Chen said, the volume of international trade and the economic growth rate largely remained at around 6%-3%. Since 2008, the trading growth had slowed down, and although the GDP remained around 3% but the volume of international trade had decreased to about 3%.

 

He analyzed that in the face of trade slowdown, one should search for new growth initiative. Coupled with the uncertainties of Brexit, the U.S. presidential election, high debt in the emerging markets, Italian politics crisis, etc., for Taiwan who is highly dependent on trade development, the economic development is particularly tough.

 

For the domestic economic development, Mr Chen said that the new era is still lead by ICT industry, but the question is not about whether there is excessive focus on ICT, nor export processing or mass production, but whether the one has captured and seized on the new ICT trend.

 

He pointed out that the industrial development strategy should be changed, i.e., from large volume to small volume, from a pure hardware manufacturing into integration of hardware and software, through the development of global digital economy, relaxation of regulations and the development of digital innovation, to attract skilled labor and to create more job opportunities in Taiwan. Our strategy should fundamentally improve the Taiwanese industrial structure to “strengthen” and to lead the Taiwan’s economy on an “upward trend”.