05 Jul 2022
To assess the impact on businesses following the COVID pandemic, geo-political uncertainty and now the war in Ukraine, Oliver Wight conducted a survey of senior executives in major organisations across the Asia Pacific region.
Throughout May 2022, executives were invited to participate in the survey via email, social media posts and targeted social media advertising. The survey comprised six key questions relating to, business operations and planning and the results were collected via an online questionnaire.
One of the most common challenges facing organisations in the region today is ‘people’. 40% of respondents said they were having difficulties recruiting good people. At the same time many have a concern over (poor) employee job satisfaction. 37% said it was a problem in their organisation, throwing up the parallel challenge of retaining talent. Compounded by the current high cost of recruitment, there is clearly a significant concern for businesses.
Drilling down a little further, the survey puts the spotlight on the issue in terms of the consequences for business planning and execution. 63% of all respondents said their short-term planning and execution relies on ‘good people’ rather than a formal process and/or defined way of working. With the increased risk of staff migration, this poses a significant threat to performance.
It is apparent that the challenges caused by recent world events are also revealing shortcomings in planning processes for many businesses – short-term (Integrated Tactical Planning) , as well as medium-to long-term (Integrated Business Planning). Difficulties in the supply of materials and forecast accuracy are ultimately impacting customer service, with nearly two thirds reporting on time customer delivery performance of below 90 per cent. With executives saying they are constantly drawn into the ‘here-and-now’ to try to resolve short-term issues they are inevitably distracted from longer term management of the business and the people issues will remain unresolved.
An obvious solution is to ensure there is a continuous policy of training and retraining personnel in the organisation’s formal planning processes, to ensure these processes are always understood, managed effectively and are never dependent on a handful of individuals. Not only does this mean planning and performance are improved, the promise of personal development also improves job satisfaction and the potential for talent recruitment.
For education in Integrated Business Planning or Integrated Tactical Planning click here.
To see the full survey report click here.
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