Senior Finance executives in India are overwhelmingly optimistic about the prospects for economic expansion both within their country and at their company in the coming year.
Eighty seven per cent of the finance executives surveyed in India expect modest or substantial economic expansion for the country in the coming 12 months. Even higher proportions, 93 per cent, expect to see modest or substantial top-line growth at their companies during the same period.
Only three per cent of India-based Chief Finance Officers (CFOs) expect economic contraction, the lowest among all the countries surveyed.
Those figures are contained in the fourth annual American Express/CFO Research Global Business & Spending Monitor, a survey of 665 senior finance executives from Australia, the US, Asia, Europe, Canada, and Latin America. Nearly 40 CFOs of the 665 finance executives surveyed were based out of India.
Among its findings: a much higher proportion of finance executives based in India plan to focus on top-line growth (62 per cent) than on profitability (38 per cent). Among all respondents, about half expect to focus on top-line growth and half on profitability.
Towards that end, Indian companies expect to invest more than they did last year on developing new products and services as well as increasing their investments in mergers and acquisitions. A high percentage of India-based respondents also say they will focus on investing in revenue drivers such as operations and production (64 per cent), sales (62 per cent) and customer service (59 per cent).
From a risk perspective, Indian finance executives foresee access to well-qualified employees, followed by competition from emerging markets, as the biggest threats to achieving their corporate performance objectives.
Also, finance executives in India demonstrate an increased propensity towards ensuring that they maintain the discipline and improvements they achieved during the slowdown.