Adaptability at scale: KPMG Adaptability Pulse Survey

Disruption is the new baseline. Across virtually every industry, leaders are under pressure, with 81% of corporate boards raising expectations for decisive adaptability and execution.¹ The inaugural KPMG Adaptability Index, and the ongoing Adaptability Pulse Surveys, are designed to surface the characteristics that make organizations adaptive amid uncertainty and highlight specific actions that drive success.

Our Adaptability Pulse Survey reveals how, when it matters most, effective leaders focus on the following three interconnected strategies to turn disruption into advantage.

1 | Bolder moves have greater impact

A key risk in today's environment isn't moving too fast, it's not moving boldly enough. Our research reveals a critical flaw in how organizations are tackling disruption: Initiatives confined to a few teams or functions are failing to deliver, while holistic, enterprise-wide transformations are succeeding at a much higher rate. This points to a missed opportunity where companies are acting, but lack the scale needed to achieve the impact they intend.

Source: KPMG Adaptability Pulse Survey, 2026

Featured Insight

In a landscape of constant disruption, incremental changes are rarely enough to stay ahead. This article illuminates why bold, decisive action is safer and more effective, offering a data-driven framework for measuring your organization's ability to adapt to uncertainty.

Read The focus factor

When faced with disruption, many organizations are stuck in a reactive mode. This means that companies are less likely to act on their own strategic terms than to react to external pressure. Even in areas where leaders report the strongest proactive responses (such as innovation and customer experience), organizations average a net proactivity score of just +12.5 out of a possible +100 across eight critical disruption response areas, representing only 13 percent of the theoretical maximum.

Addressing this disparity can have measurable benefits. Data looking at company performance during the Covid-19 pandemic shows that returns from proactivity improved when coupled with coordinated, ambitious execution, yielded 4.4 times higher shareholder returns and three times higher revenue growth.

Only 13%

net proactivity across disruption response areas, and yet...

(Average score: +12.5 out of +100)

4.4x

higher shareholder returns can be realized with a proactive approach³

Featured Insight

Waiting for disruption to occur before reacting is a failing strategy. This article shows that while most organizations acknowledge disruption, they fail to act decisively, remaining stuck in a cycle of short-term fixes.

Read The proactivity advantage

3 | Tap into partner ecosystems

Organizations often use external partnerships as quick fixes during disruption, favoring low-commitment moves over ownership-based restructuring. While these alliances provide faster access to innovation and AI, they rarely drive fundamental transformation or build long-term resilience. Key drivers of this disconnect include a lack of proactivity, coordination deadlocks, insufficient communication of strategy from the top, and blind spots at scale, all of which block the velocity needed to respond to market shifts. To avoid having these partnerships function as tactical "band-aids,” organizations need to tackle internal execution barriers so they can unlock meaningful transformation.

Most leaders don’t lack for good ideas. The difference comes down to focusing on fewer, bigger bets and investing in the execution to make it happen.

Atif Zaim

US Deputy Chair and Managing Principal

Navigate disruption with confidence

Reach out to learn more about how KPMG can help your organization be more adaptive in the face of disruption.

New KPMG Adaptability research explores how organizations can move beyond reacting to disruption and build the capabilities needed to perform through ongoing uncertainty. At the center of the campaign is The KPMG Adaptability Index, a data-driven framework that points to balanced efforts across an organization's culture, strategy, and broader ecosystem of partnerships, alongside efforts to build structural readiness as the most effective approach to building adaptability. Complementing the Index, the KPMG quarterly Adaptability Pulse Surveys assess how organizations are responding to pressure, including the degree of proactivity behind those actions and the results they deliver.

FAQs

What is the KPMG Adaptability Pulse Survey?

The KPMG Adaptability Pulse Survey is a quarterly survey of 1,120 US executives across sectors and functional areas that surfaces actionable insights on how organizations can become more adaptable in the face of constant disruption. The survey focuses on insights to enhance effectiveness within business strategy, organizational structure and operating models, ecosystems and partnerships, people and culture, and redefining value.

What is the KPMG Adaptability Index?

The KPMG Adaptability Index is a data-driven framework that helps executives understand how to build their organization’s ability to anticipate change, respond under pressure, and pursue continued growth as business conditions evolve.

What is adaptability at scale?

Adaptability at scale refers to an organization’s ability to execute bold, enterprise-wide responses to disruption, moving beyond isolated initiatives to coordinated transformation across strategy, execution, and partnerships.

What is the execution gap?

The execution gap occurs when transformation efforts fail not because of lack of action, but because initiatives are not scaled across the enterprise.

What is the proactivity gap?

The proactivity gap reflects the difference between forced reactive responses to disruption and proactive strategies that organizations initiate on their own terms.