Filipino business leaders are becoming more optimistic since the pandemic, according to the Philippine CEO Survey of PwC Philippines and the Management Association of the Philippines (MAP)

At the press launch of the result of the survey in Makati City Monday, PwC deals and corporate finance partner Trissy Rogacion said 86 percent of the chief executive officer (CEO) respondents are confident about their industry’s prospects for the next 12 months.

“Even during the pandemic our CEOs are optimistic… But this year is the highest since the pandemic,” Rogacion said.

The survey also showed that 85 percent of CEOs are confident that their company will experience revenue growth in the next 12 months.

She clarified that large companies, representing the majority of the respondents, are more optimistic than the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) as the former have a larger war chest than the latter.

Rogacion said CEOs are also expecting that the Philippine economy will continue to grow over the next 12 months driven by infrastructure development, domestic consumption, and foreign direct investments.

“The CEOs say that our government is doing a good job in pushing for infrastructure development, forging stronger relationships with other nations, and also managing inflation,” she added.

Despite this optimism, the CEO survey revealed that the current geopolitical uncertainties are keeping them awake at night.

PwC Philippine chairman and senior partner Roderick Danao said market and supply chain diversification is the key to mitigate the impacts of geopolitical uncertainties.

“All of these have to be backed up by long term risk management, plans for the company to adopt and proactively manage the impact of the geopolitical conflicts,” he said.

Meanwhile, nearly half or 46 percent of the CEO respondents said their businesses are no longer viable in 10 years if they will not adopt current technologies, especially generative artificial intelligence (GenAI).

“We are seeing that the gap between optimism and actual adoption may be because of the investments needed and also the upskilling initiatives that they need to conduct within their employees,” Rogacion said.

The survey was done from July 8 to Aug. 9, with 168 respondents —68 percent of which are large enterprises, 21 percent are medium enterprises, 7 percent are small, and 5 percent are micro. (PNA)