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Evaluating Current and Future Threats
Innovating toward a “New Better” starts with understanding the systemic challenges, coming threats and growing opportunities that companies will face in the future. To better understand how our clients have weathered the COVID-19 pandemic and view future risk, Aon commissioned a survey of C-Suite leaders and senior executives in the US, the EU and the UK. The 800 respondents are from companies with at least 500 employees.
As traumatic as the COVID-19 pandemic has been, the business leaders in our survey say it has not been the only disruption they’ve had to manage, naming competitive threats as having an impact on their business this year.
The experience leading their businesses through the pandemic has awakened business leaders to a wider range of threats they will face and the need to address them.
Two-thirds of business leaders in the US, EU and UK say that the pandemic has exposed new vulnerabilities that require significant changes in how they prepare for the future.
Leaders say that preparedness will require widening the range of threats considered as well as expanding the number of executives responsible for anticipating them.
Only a minority of leaders in the US, EU and UK say they were “very well prepared” for the pandemic.
Survey results show that preparedness is less a matter of predicting which threat will hit, but more an attentiveness to the process and discipline of preparing for threats in general.
Preparing for threats also makes leaders more confident in their company’s future.
C-Suite leaders and senior executives share the belief that the COVID-19 pandemic is not a one-time event, but there are significant gaps between C-Suite perspectives and those of senior executives.
Senior executives, who were more likely to be dealing with the day-to-day changes forced by the pandemic are both more focused on its impact and less confident in their companies’ ability to manage future threats than C-Suite leaders.
Companies who have best navigated challenges caused by the pandemic shared three qualities in ensuring their success.
How can organizations navigate the transition from crisis to recovery and prepare for success in a future that few of us can define? What risks are top priority for organizations and what mitigation steps are being made in the short, medium and long term to respond to them? This digital dialogue, organized by the Financial Times in partnership with Aon, looked at some of the risks impacting businesses and explored how leaders can curate and execute an effective strategy to better prepare for the uncertainty ahead.
Hear from the following Aon leaders:
In conversation with: