Bulgarian CEO Survey 2019

Reality Check: Economic Growth Slowdown

• The percentage of Bulgarian CEOs with optimistic expectations for global economic growth during 2019 has decreased by half vs previous year, while the level of confidence in their own organizations’ growth prospects has remained high.
• After last year’s surge in optimism worldwide, this year we see a more sobering view on the expectations of economic growth. It is all about a reality check.  

People: Looking Within for Opportunities to Grow

• What are the skills of the workforce pool that impact mostly the growth potential of the organizations?
• Globally, CEOs are mostly concerned about attracting and retaining people with skills that will allow the businesses to innovate, while Bulgarian CEOs’ attention is drawn more towards operational issues and “hygiene” factors such as the ability to provide appropriate customer experience and quality standards.

AI: Disruption As a Path to Growth

• CEOs across the globe are aware of the growing impact of AI, but only a few have started implementing it in their business models.
• More than half of the interviewed Bulgarian business leaders also seem to realize the opportunity offered by AI and 37% of them plan to introduce this disruptive technology in their operations within next 3 years. The players that lead the way in terms of wide-scale AI implementation come from Financial Services and Technology, Media and Telecommunications sectors.

Data vs Information: Is the data sufficient?

• CEOs find data about their brand and reputation, customers’ needs and expectations and financial forecasts and projections critical/important for taking strategic decisions.
• The "information gap“ between the data CEOs need and what they actually get has not closed in the 10 years since PwC last asked this question. Bulgarian CEOs most urgently need to bridge the information gap between the criticality / importance and the comprehensiveness of the data about the risks to which the business is exposed.

Participants Snapshot

• 68 Bulgarian CEOs took part in the fourth Bulgarian CEO Survey
• 19% of them are women