OVERVIEW
The BDO Global Ambition Survey is now into its second year. The 2010 survey results surprised us because we had anticipated a survey focused on the challenges faced by businesses expanding overseas, and in fact the survey Report revealed a great deal of optimism, with a focus on opportunities.
This year, BDO has set out once again to understand how CFOs from globally aspiring companies view their growth prospects overseas, as well as looked at what is changing and what, in the last year, has made a difference to their plans.
The CFOs’ optimism is reinforced in the 2011 results, despite the continuing challenges presented by the global economic environment. One of the more surprising elements of this optimism is the fact that so many of the respondents (95%) anticipate such a large percentage of their overall revenues – on average, 44%, and larger in some jurisdictions – to come from overseas in three year’s time.
Key points
- Mid-cap CFOs are nearly all (95%) confident that their three year plans to expand internationally will succeed
- China, USA and Germany are the top three countries that are both global investors and attractors of inward investment. For China, opportunity and risk go hand in hand
- Finding local people with the right skills and knowledge is more challenging than finding the money to expand abroad
Casting a very positive light over the subject of cross-border expansion as a whole is the fact that, for the large majority of the CFOs interviewed, the opportunities dominate the challenges. Casting a very positive light over the subject of cross-border expansion as a whole is the fact that, for the large majority of the CFOs interviewed, the opportunities dominate the challenges. These businesses base their growth decisions more on the opportunities they perceive than on the challenges and barriers they face.