What do CEOs really think of HR?

Monday, March 13, 2006

What do CEOs really think of HR?

Asked to rate the performance of various areas of their business, respondents to the Economist Intelligence Unit's latest annual CEO Briefingsurvey gave HR an emphatic thumbs-down. Alone of the functions under review,more people rated the performance of HR bad (6%) than excellent (4%).

No other function - not even the notoriously unlovable IT department - came close to being this unappreciated.The 555 senior executives from 68 countries were asked to choose which three business functions will be most important to realizing corporate strategy over the next three years: HR received only 16% of the votes, with sales and marketing rated at 56%.

Senior executives worldwide predict that their organizations will prioritize international markets over domestic ones in the next three years. They identified the importance of globalization to their strategic growth plans,with respondents expecting the proportion of revenue coming from overseas markets to jump by an average of one-third over the next three years.

Acquiring new customers is seen as the most important strategy for achieving revenue growth (58% of respondents). Increasing market share (53%) andgrowing revenue (50%) outstrip lowering the cost base as strategic priorities for executives.

Almost nine out of ten respondents regard the prospects for business globally as either good or very good, a marked increase on previous years. One paradox of globalization is that it increases the value of localknowledge. Understanding the needs of local customers in the differentmarkets as customers' tastes change and competition intensifies is thebiggest challenge that managers of global companies face, according to thesurvey.

To download the CEO Briefing report free of charge, visithttp://www.eiu.com/CorporatePriorities2006

Blogged on 6:12 AM by Upay

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