What keeps many CFOs up at night? Inflation, according to our latest CFO pulse survey. Partner Ankur Agrawal and colleagues find that inflation displaced rising interest rates at the top of the list of the biggest potential risks to companies’ growth, up 25 percentage points from our Q3 2022 survey. Concerns over economic volatility and weak demand have also spiked.
Image description:
A line graph compares the perceived risks to company growth, as identified by chief financial officers (CFOs) for the next 12 months, in the third quarter of 2022 against the second quarter of 2023. The most significant concerns are inflation, which increased by 25 percentage points; economic volatility, climbing by 33 percentage points; and weak demand, rising by 18 percentage points. Meanwhile, concerns around political leadership and rising interest rates both dropped by 16 percentage points.
Footnote 1: CFOs ranked these risks from among 19 options. The graph highlights the risks with the most significant percentage-point changes between Q3 2022 and Q2 2023 surveys.
Footnote 2: The Q3 2022 survey ran from July 21–Sept 9, 2022, receiving responses from 215 financial leaders, including 155 company and unit CFOs, in 34 countries.
Source: McKinsey Global Survey of CFOs (n = 137) in 36 countries, Apr 1–May 4, 2023.
End of image description.
To read the survey, see “In the face of volatility, CFOs—and their organizations—adapt,” July 7, 2023.