Greatest Challenge?

Rapid technological change is the greatest threat facing big business.

Fortune Magazine sent a survey to all the Fortune 500 CEOs and one question they asked was: What is your company’s greatest challenge? 

“The rapid pace of technological change” topped the list, besting “cybersecurity” (a close second), as well as other popular business bogeymen, such as “increased regulation,” “shareholder activism,” and a “shortage of skilled labor.” Moreover, a whopping 94% of those who responded said their companies would change more in the next five years than in the past five.

Today’s CEOs clearly recognize that new technologies are going to radically change the way they do business. And they know they need to figure it out before their competitors do.

Fortune 500 companies would prefer to be private.

The vast majority (84%) of CEOs who responded to the survey agreed with the statement: “It would be easier to manage my company if it were a private company.” Frustration with the pressures of public markets is clearly on the rise. Surviving the new technological revolution requires long-term thinking and smart investment. But public shareholders, searching for better investment returns in a zero-­interest-rate world, are demanding short-term results. Public-company CEOs are caught in the crosshairs.