CEOs See ‘No End in Sight’ To Current Cybersecurity Challenges

A smaller proportion of directors said that their business was unaffected by the war in Ukraine, at 17 percent, compared to 22 percent of CEOs. Overall, a higher proportion of directors said that all aspects of their business are impacted by the war. There are only two aspects where more CEOs said they face challenges: pricing strategy and supply chain.

“Competition between authoritarian and democratic systems are intensifying. I believe that supply chains will become more regional, and security will become more important than the lowest possible price,” says the CEO of an upper-mid size medical product company.

And although a smaller percentage of CEOs have experienced heightened troubles with cybersecurity, more expect the challenges to be long-lasting. A whopping 85 percent of CEOs see ‘no end in sight’ to cybersecurity troubles, compared to 75 percent of directors who say the same.

Seven in 10 directors said they see ‘no end in sight’ to the race for talent. This proportion is far above the 42 percent of CEOs who said the same. Instead, a third of CEOs expect talent troubles to remain an issue for business for another 1-2 years—only 14 percent of directors agree.

Aside from cybersecurity and talent, two aspects of business that a plurality of CEOs believe will remain an issue with no end in sight are reputation/social perceptions of businesses (38%) and employee safety/wellbeing (34%). These two aspects of business are also where the highest proportions of CEOs expect resolutions within 3 months at 31 and 20 percent, respectively.