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Ashridge Executive Education's CEO Global Trends Report highlights five core issues raising concerns in the C-suite, with lack of innovation leading the pack
United Arab Emirates: As part of its Global Business Outlook series, Ashridge Executive Education's research with C-suite executives highlighted key issues that are 'keeping CEOs awake at night'. Items identified as very significant included creativity and innovation at 63%, while cyber security came in second at 57%.
Managing knowledge workers, sustainable business: ethics and responsibility requirements, and sustainable business: consumer demand changes were also high on the 'sleepless scale'.
Respondents were also asked to state five strategic priorities for their organisations, with the top three being identified as speeding up innovation, creating a service culture and organisational integration. However, when it comes to skills that businesses need, the C-suite identified communication and team work to be the highest priority, with 58% rating it as very important, while having team members with financial skills and those that can operate with big data and analysis at 51% respectively, as being key to driving future business success.
When looking inwardly to the skills available across their workforce, executives identified that similar skills were available, however to a lesser extent, and measured lower in comparison to the importance they place on these attributes.
Speaking on the Ashridge CEO Global Trends Report, Rory Hendrikz, Director of Ashridge Middle East, said: "The evolving nature of business, and the proliferation of new technologies are steering organisations like never before. The ability to innovate from within, then quickly deliver results to customers directly or to the wider market, make the difference between success or failure. It is clear that there is a greater need for development of core skills within companies, and harnessing the natural talent of employees, who already understand the nature of the business is key."
The executives questioned as part of the Ashridge CEO Survey came from a range of industries, including healthcare, finance, education, social care, construction, engineering and retail, from public, private and third sector organisations, covering C-suite positions such as Chairman, President, CEO, CFO or Managing Director roles. Approximately one third of the respondents were female, whilst almost two thirds were aged between 30 to 49 years of age.
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About Ashridge Executive Education:
Established in 1959, Ashridge is a leading business school for working professionals with an international reputation for leadership development. It is in the 1% of business schools globally accredited by AMBA, EQUIS and AACSB; these are the highly-regarded benchmarks of quality and standards in business education worldwide.
Each year it works with over 6,000 managers from 850 organisations in 60 countries by helping them to develop their leadership capabilities.
Regionally, Ashridge has over 20 years' experience in the Middle East, designing and delivering senior leadership assessment and development projects.
www.ashridge.ae
For further information and interviews please contact:
Marion Cordiner at House of Comms
marion@houseofcomms.com
050 2727 068
Charlotte Smith at House of Comms
charlotte@houseofcomms.com
052 8126 748
© Press Release 2016
