Businesses are beginning to plan over shorter terms to manage growth in an environment of political instability and economic uncertainty.

Speaking on Board Agenda’s Macro Memo podcast, Mark Kennedy, member of the group executive committee at Forvis Mazars, said managing over shorter terms is a key method for businesses to find stability.

“The typical business is probably starting to think in shorter term development rather than longer term development because it’s so volatile at the moment.”

He adds that despite political leaders repositioning into a multi-polar world, he does not believe we are witnessing the end of globalised trade. The Forvis Mazars C-Suite survey recently revealed 93% of CEOs have a “positive growth outlook”.

“We’ve lived in a globalised world for 250-300 years and it has been a multi-polar world many times. But it’s changed and the politics has changed, business has continued.

“What we’re going through now is a period where people are figuring out how to operate over the next decade or so and planning in very short-term leaps over that period.”

Longer-term investment

However, that does not mean businesses won’t invest for the long-term. Ben Seager-Scott, chief investment officer for Forvis Mazars, says companies will choose supply chains focused on many territories, rather than being over-focused on a single jurisdiction.

“What we’ve been used to over the last few decades is having very fragile but very efficient supply chains, a ‘just in time’ supply chain.

“Increasingly what we’re seeing, given the shifts that are going on, is there’ll be much greater need to have resilience.

“That means diversification: that’s being nimble, not over investing in a very narrow and fragile supply chain, but being able to adjust through time.”

Tune in to the latest episode of The Macro Memo Podcast, the global trends briefing for boards and directors, produced in partnership with Forvis Mazars. You can locate The Macro Memo on all podcast platforms, including Spotify and Apple Podcasts. The latest episode can be accessed below.