Indian CEOs more confident than global counterparts on key fronts: EY survey

Indian CEOs scored 82 compared to 73.5 for their global counterparts in the index, with 100 indicating full optimism, the survey findings showed. The optimism is seen across areas such as maintaining revenue, balancing business costs, and attracting talent, with 90% of CEOs surveyed holding an optimistic outlook on navigating them in 2025.

However, CEOs are least optimistic about passing rising costs to consumers, with only 86% of them having a positive outlook about it. Increasing capex and R&D-related investments, along with investing in emerging technologies to future-proof their firms are among the areas CEOs are less optimistic about.

Tackling issues around customer engagement and retention is among the top priorities this year, with a fifth of CEOs ranking it as the highest priority. This was followed by employee engagement and retention initiatives (18%) and slashing costs (16%).

When asked about the outlook for 2025, CEOs believed that navigating regulatory issues related to sustainability and upskilling the workforce amid the rising adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) are the emerging trends that companies will have to contend with, which will differentiate industry leaders from laggards. On the other hand, more CEOs disagree than agree to AI adoption leading to job losses, indicating their belief in upskilling initiatives bearing fruits.

CEOs also said an improvement in economic activity could prompt a higher employee turnover in 2025. The year could also see a comeback of big merger and acquisition deals, with 78% of them seeing an uptick in mega mergers and acquisitions (M&As) of over $10 billion.