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We hate to admit it, but it’s officially starting to feel like 2024. Those New Year’s resolutions already seem stale (sorry, daily yoga and kale smoothies), but at least writing “2024” on checks feels a little more natural now.
It’s all to be expected. Another thing we can anticipate at this point in January: CFO predictions for the year ahead.
And, look at that, now we have them: Yesterday, Deloitte released its Q4 2023 CFO Signals survey, which polled 124 American, Canadian, and Mexican CFOs on their plans and expectations for 2024.
The topline finding was a little sour: CFOs in most regions lowered their full-year economic forecasts, and their confidence about their own companies’ financial strength also dipped from the previous quarter.
“It’s an interesting data set, as it relates to the economy,” Steve Gallucci, global and US leader of Deloitte’s CFO Program, told CFO Brew. “When you take a step back and try to look at the forest through the trees, what you’re seeing is a continued stubbornness of the major forces that are driving the economy.”
And those stubborn forces are largely the usual suspects, per the survey: CFOs cited inflation, macroeconomics, and geopolitics as the three biggest hurdles to their companies’ financial success.
“When you factor all those in, there continues to be, in the eyes of CFOs, a little more measured view in terms of what’s happening on the overall economic front from an outlook perspective,” Gallucci added.
Many CFOs are feeling decidedly cautious going into 2024: 62% said now is not a good time for taking risks, up from 59% in last quarter’s survey.
And their 2024 plans reflect that sense of risk aversion: 53% of respondents cited financial performance as one of their top three priorities, followed by 43% citing growth and 36% naming cost management.
So, how does a clever CFO get set for the new year? Many are already on the right track with those answers, in Gallucci’s eyes.
“The savvy CFO clearly will be focused on cost management, particularly in an environment where inflation continues to be a factor. You’ll continue to see CFOs focused on growth,” he said, adding that plenty of the growth could come from M&A.
“CFOs are surely going to be focused on continuing to monitor the capital markets and understand what lies in the future there in terms of opportunities,” Gallucci continued. And there's ongoing geopolitical uncertainty due to wars and international tensions.
“Taken together, [geopolitical events] continue to present a little more of an unstable global environment,” he said. “CFOs will continue to focus on geopolitics and how that will impact the markets in which they operate and the areas where they want to make investments.”
New year, similar concerns.