Decisions That Define Your Company’s Next Five Years
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Five priorities for South African executives navigating growth, AI, risk, people and execution.
Executive perspective
South African executives face a demanding leadership equation: protect current earnings, invest in future competitiveness and maintain the organisation’s capacity to deliver both. Decisions about technology, growth, risk and people increasingly overlap. An investment intended to improve productivity can create new operational dependencies. A cost reduction can weaken the capability needed for expansion. A promising strategy can fail when the organisation cannot translate it into coordinated decisions.
Recent executive surveys from McKinsey & Company, Boston Consulting Group, Deloitte, PwC and EY provide useful evidence for this discussion. Across the research reviewed, five priorities emerge:
- Converting AI and data into measurable business value.
- Renewing growth while strengthening productivity and capital discipline.
- Building resilience, cybersecurity and stakeholder trust.
- Developing workforce capability and the capacity to change.
- Improving leadership alignment, governance and strategy execution.
These priorities are Emergent Africa’s synthesis of recurring themes and their relevance to South African businesses, rather than a statistical league table published by the five firms.
The central proposition of this paper is that these priorities should be managed as one business agenda. Their commercial value depends on the connections between them. Better data supports decisions. Capable people translate decisions into action. Resilience protects delivery. Leadership alignment directs investment towards outcomes that matter. Growth becomes more credible when all four work together.
For a JSE-listed company, this means connecting strategic ambition with defensible investment choices, operational evidence and a coherent account of performance. For a privately held company, the same disciplines can support succession, expansion and greater resilience without creating unnecessary bureaucracy. In both cases, the leadership task is to make the organisation more effective at turning choices into value.
The evidence behind the priorities
The core evidence includes PwC’s January 2026 Global CEO Survey of 4,454 CEOs; EY-Parthenon’s October 2026 survey of 1,200 CEOs; BCG’s January 2026 AI Radar, covering 2,360 executives including 640 CEOs; and BCG’s May 2026 survey of 625 CEOs and board members. Deloitte’s Q3 2026 North American CFO findings and its Fall 2025 CEO survey add finance and leadership perspectives. [1–5, 8]
Supporting research includes McKinsey’s February 2026 technology survey of 632 C-level executives or IT professionals, its September economic survey of 992 participants, and Deloitte’s 2026 Human Capital Trends research. These broader samples are not exclusively C-suite populations. PwC’s Africa findings provide regional context, but should not be read as a representative survey of South Africa alone. [6–10]
The five firms were selected as leading international strategy and professional services organisations with relevant published research. There is no single universally accepted “top five” ranking covering their different businesses. Survey dates, questions and geographies differ, so percentages should not be pooled.
The practical recommendations and illustrative examples below represent Emergent Africa’s interpretation of the evidence. The research was reviewed on 20 October 2026.
- Convert AI and data into measurable business value
The executive conversation about artificial intelligence needs to move beyond adoption. The relevant question is whether it changes the economics or quality of the business.
In PwC’s 2026 survey, 56% of CEOs reported neither revenue increases nor cost reductions from AI during the preceding year; 12% reported both. BCG’s AI Radar found that nearly three-quarters of CEOs identified themselves as their organisation’s principal AI decision maker. Together, these findings suggest substantial leadership attention alongside uneven realised benefits. [1, 3]
For a South African executive team, the starting point should be a business constraint with an identifiable owner. Examples might include slow quotation turnaround, recurring inventory errors, avoidable customer attrition or lengthy service resolution. The appropriate solution could involve AI, conventional automation, better information or a simpler process. The investment case should remain open to all four.
Consider an illustrative distributor seeking faster sales growth. An AI forecasting tool may improve demand estimates, yet value will remain limited if product codes are duplicated, stock availability is unreliable and purchasing teams ignore the forecasts. The commercial problem spans master data, procurement, sales and fulfilment. Buying software addresses only part of that system.
Leadership should therefore require a clear baseline before approving expansion. What is the present cycle time, error rate, conversion rate or cost per transaction? What improvement is expected? Who changes the working process? Which dependencies must be resolved? How will the finance team distinguish an actual saving from theoretical hours released?
Time saved becomes financial value only through an explicit mechanism. Employees might handle more demand, improve service, reduce overtime or avoid additional recruitment. If none of those changes occurs, the business may gain convenience without the return assumed in its investment case. Measures should capture both operational improvement and the subsequent commercial effect.
Data ownership belongs within this discussion. Customer, supplier, product and asset records need agreed definitions and accountable custodians. Executives do not need a perfect enterprise data estate before acting. They do need information sufficiently reliable for the decisions being automated. The required standard should reflect the consequences of an error and the availability of human review.
McKinsey’s technology survey reinforces the importance of these foundations: approximately one-quarter of its top-performing organisations reported insufficient data foundations for securely and reliably scaling agentic AI. The research also identifies business–technology collaboration as a feature of stronger performers, although such associations do not establish causation. [6]
Emergent Africa recommends selecting a small portfolio of commercially meaningful applications, with explicit criteria for stopping, adapting or scaling each one. Assess full costs, including integration, controls, training and ongoing support. Establish human accountability for consequential decisions. The objective is repeatable value that survives scrutiny from operations, finance and risk.
The executive test: Can the business demonstrate what changed, why it changed and where the benefit appears in customer outcomes, capacity, cash flow or earnings?
- Renew growth while strengthening productivity and capital discipline
Growth and productivity should be considered together.
PwC found that only 30% of CEOs were very or extremely confident about revenue growth over the following twelve months. Meanwhile, 42% said their businesses had entered new sectors during the previous five years. These findings point to a combination of caution about the near term and a willingness to explore different sources of revenue. [1]
EY-Parthenon’s October 2026 CEO research adds a useful distinction: productivity improvements do not automatically become stronger enterprise performance. Nearly a quarter of respondents said gains were offset by complexity, regulatory obligations, risk requirements and increasing work demands. The leadership challenge is deciding how released capacity will support growth and profitability. [2]
For South African businesses, this calls for a more precise growth conversation. “Grow market share” is an ambition, not a complete investment thesis. Which customers offer attractive economics? What unmet need can the business address? Why should customers choose its offer? What capabilities and working capital are required? Which assumptions would invalidate the opportunity?
A practical portfolio separates three types of investment. The first protects and improves the existing business. The second expands proven strengths into adjacent customers, channels or markets. The third tests genuinely new opportunities. Each requires different evidence, timelines and tolerances for uncertainty. Applying identical approval criteria to all three can either suppress innovation or encourage undisciplined spending.
An illustrative manufacturer might fund maintenance that protects output, improve distribution in an underserved province and test a new service around its installed products. The maintenance investment should be judged on reliability and economic exposure. Distribution requires evidence of demand and service economics. The new service needs staged customer validation. Combining them under a generic transformation budget conceals their differences.
Capital discipline also requires a willingness to stop. Legacy initiatives often survive because expenditure has already occurred or because a senior sponsor remains attached to the original concept. A stronger review asks whether the next rand and the next management hour would produce more value elsewhere. Past expenditure explains the history; it does not justify future allocation.
For listed groups, this discipline should extend across subsidiaries and divisions. A project that appears attractive locally may compete with a better opportunity elsewhere in the group. For private businesses, it may expose whether diversification is strengthening the enterprise or spreading scarce leadership capability too thinly.
Productivity programmes should support these choices. Removing avoidable rework, simplifying product ranges or improving working capital can create room for investment. Broad cost reductions, however, should be tested for their effects on service, reliability and future capability. An immediate expense reduction that damages customer retention may weaken the economics it was intended to improve.
Emergent Africa recommends an explicit link between productivity benefits and their destination. Decide how much will strengthen margins, improve resilience or fund growth. Track the realised benefit and its redeployment separately, preventing the same saving from financing several initiatives on paper.
The executive test: Can the organisation explain where future growth will come from, what it will cost and what it is choosing to stop to make that growth possible?
- Build resilience, cybersecurity and stakeholder trust into strategy
Resilience is a commercial capability: the ability to continue serving customers and making sound decisions when conditions change.
McKinsey’s September 2026 economic survey identified geopolitical instability and energy prices as the most frequently perceived economic risks. Deloitte’s Q3 2026 CFO findings placed cybersecurity first among external risks, cited by 50% of respondents. These are distinct research populations, but both highlight exposures that reach beyond departmental boundaries. [7, 8]
South African leadership teams should translate broad risks into their own operating realities. Depending on the business, this may involve electricity and water dependencies, transport routes, imported inputs, exchange rates, customer concentration or access to specialist suppliers. The purpose is to establish how a disruption would affect service, margin and cash, rather than produce an exhaustive list of possible events.
An illustrative exporter might examine a combination of delayed shipment, a weaker customer order book and an adverse currency movement. Each factor alone could be manageable. Together, they might increase inventory, delay receipts and weaken liquidity. Scenario planning becomes useful when it reveals these interactions and changes decisions before the pressure arrives.
Executives should agree response triggers alongside the scenarios. What movement in order intake prompts a production review? Which delivery failures activate an alternative supplier? What level of system unavailability initiates manual procedures? Who has authority to act, and which decisions require escalation? Preparedness improves when these questions are answered before a crisis.
Cybersecurity should be assessed through business services as well as technical controls. The board needs to understand what happens if the organisation cannot process orders, access customer information or pay suppliers. Recovery exercises should include operational leaders, finance, communications and key service providers. The result should be evidence of recoverability and clear decision rights.
Trust connects these issues. Customers need confidence that commitments can be honoured. Employees need credible communication during change. Investors and lenders need reliable explanations of performance. Suppliers need clarity about continuity and payment. Management should examine whether its reporting systems reveal emerging problems early enough to preserve that confidence.
Environmental and social considerations belong within the same commercial assessment. Water availability can affect production; workplace safety can affect continuity; supplier practices can affect customer relationships. Sustainability reporting becomes more valuable when it helps management understand material exposures and operational choices.
For this reason, sustainability runs through several priorities in this paper. It should be considered wherever it materially influences investment, operations, workforce decisions or stakeholder relationships. Its significance will differ between industries and organisations.
Emergent Africa recommends linking the most material risks directly to strategic initiatives and investment decisions. An expansion plan should show its critical dependencies, contingency costs and warning indicators. A technology programme should explain its recovery arrangements. A procurement saving should disclose any concentration risk it creates.
The executive test: Can the organisation sustain its most important commitments under plausible adverse conditions, with clear visibility of the costs and trade-offs involved?
- Develop workforce capability and the capacity to change
Strategies depend on people who understand the work, possess the required skills and have the capacity to perform it.
Deloitte’s Fall 2025 CEO survey identified skills gaps and employees’ ability to cope with change among leadership concerns. Its broader 2026 Human Capital Trends research, covering more than 9,000 business and HR leaders, found that seven in ten prioritised speed and adaptability as their competitive strategy for the next three years. [5, 9]
The South African implication is practical: every strategic priority should carry a workforce plan. A digital channel needs more than a launch team. It needs people who can manage customer behaviour, service exceptions, information quality and ongoing improvement. An acquisition needs integration capability. A regional expansion needs managers able to translate group objectives into local execution.
Skills assessments should start with the work required rather than broad job categories. Which decisions must improve? Which activities will be automated? What new judgement will remain necessary? Where is experience concentrated in a few individuals? These questions produce more actionable answers than a generic statement that the business needs additional digital skills.
Training also needs a route into changed performance. Attendance demonstrates participation. It does not show whether employees can apply a capability safely and effectively. Managers should agree practical assignments, provide supervised opportunities and review the resulting work. This makes learning part of delivery rather than an additional obligation disconnected from operational demands.
The capacity for change deserves equal attention. The same finance specialists, operational managers and technology teams may be assigned to several programmes simultaneously. Every project can appear adequately resourced when assessed separately, while the combined portfolio is impossible. A consolidated view of scarce skills and management time makes these conflicts visible.
Employee wellbeing matters here as a management consideration. Persistent overload, unclear priorities and conflicting instructions can weaken attention and consistency. Leaders should investigate the conditions creating strain, including avoidable administration, poor escalation practices and unrealistic deadlines. Support services can help individuals, but they do not replace better work design.
For example, an illustrative customer service team may receive an AI assistant while also absorbing a product launch and a reporting redesign. Each change may have merit. Their simultaneous introduction could overwhelm supervisors and create inconsistent customer handling. Sequencing the changes, simplifying reporting and protecting learning time may produce a stronger outcome than demanding faster adoption.
Communication should distinguish between what is decided and what remains uncertain. Employees need to understand the business purpose, how responsibilities may change and how their input will shape implementation. Managers must be equipped to answer practical questions and surface problems without treating honest feedback as resistance.
Emergent Africa recommends tracking capability, adoption and capacity alongside delivery milestones. Monitor whether critical roles have credible successors, whether new practices are used and whether recurring workload problems are being resolved. Keep measures proportionate and protect employee confidentiality.
The executive test: Does the organisation have enough capable, supported people to deliver the strategy while sustaining the business that funds it?
- Improve leadership alignment, governance and strategy execution
The final priority connects the other four.
BCG’s May 2026 research found that around six in ten CEOs believed their boards were too impatient with the pace of AI transformation. Its findings also revealed differences in perceived accountability for AI results. Agreement on the importance of a topic therefore does not necessarily mean agreement on timing, evidence or responsibility. [4]
PwC’s Africa findings provide a complementary perspective: surveyed CEOs reported spending 51% of their time on activities with horizons shorter than one year, compared with 15% on horizons beyond five years. This regional evidence invites leadership teams to examine whether immediate demands consistently displace the decisions that shape future competitiveness. [10]
Execution begins with shared choices. An executive team should be able to describe its priorities in the same terms and explain their implications for resources. If one executive interprets growth as acquisition, another as product innovation and another as operational expansion, apparent alignment may conceal fundamentally different investment assumptions.
Each priority should have an accountable owner, a defined business outcome, a credible baseline and an agreed decision timetable. Dependencies must be visible. A sales initiative may rely on service capacity; a margin programme may depend on procurement data; a sustainability commitment may require operational investment. Assigning an owner without resolving these dependencies creates accountability without the means to deliver.
Management reviews should focus on decisions. A useful discussion asks what has changed, which assumption no longer holds, what is obstructing progress and what action is required. Status presentations have a role, but they should not consume the time needed to resolve the problem.
Measures should distinguish activity, outputs and outcomes. Completing a training programme is activity. Demonstrated proficiency is an output. Better service or fewer errors is an outcome. Similarly, implementing a platform is different from establishing reliable information, and reliable information is different from using it to improve decisions.
Boards and executive teams also need an agreed standard of evidence. What proves that an investment is working? When is an adverse result a temporary implementation issue, and when does it invalidate the original case? What information supports further funding? Clarity reduces the risk of either abandoning promising work too early or defending weak initiatives indefinitely.
A strategy execution platform can support this discipline by connecting priorities, owners, measures and review processes. Its usefulness depends on the underlying management practice. Leaders still need to make trade-offs, maintain information quality and act on what the system reveals. Technology cannot resolve an executive disagreement that remains unspoken.
The executive test: Do strategic reviews regularly produce clear decisions, accountable action and verified changes in business performance?
A practical 90-day executive agenda
Days 1–30: Establish shared priorities and credible baselines
Agree the organisation’s three to five most important outcomes. Review the initiative portfolio, establish performance baselines and identify the assumptions most exposed to change. Map critical dependencies and scarce capabilities.
The immediate deliverable should be a shared view of priorities and constraints, with explicit decisions about work to stop or defer. Each executive should understand how their responsibilities contribute to the agreed outcomes and where they depend on colleagues.
Days 31–60: Strengthen the conditions for delivery
Redesign a small number of important execution arrangements. Assign business owners to priority investments, agree benefit measures and identify information weaknesses.
Test one material disruption scenario. Review whether the people expected to deliver the plan have sufficient time, authority and support. Resolve conflicts between functional targets that obstruct enterprise outcomes. Confirm how productivity gains will translate into improved service, additional capacity, lower costs or growth investment.
Days 61–90: Review evidence and make consequential decisions
Run an integrated executive review using actual evidence. Examine benefits, costs, customer effects, risk exposure and workforce capacity together.
Decide which initiatives to scale, adapt or terminate. Record the rationale and update assumptions. The purpose is to establish a repeatable management rhythm that improves decisions as conditions evolve. Over time, the organisation should become better at identifying weak assumptions, resolving dependencies and moving resources towards the opportunities that offer the strongest value.
Emergent Africa’s perspective
Emergent Africa’s view is that sustainable performance depends on connecting strategic intent with the practical conditions for delivery. These include trusted information, clear accountability, appropriate risk decisions and people who can sustain the work. The five priorities in this paper provide a useful agenda for testing those connections across a leadership team.
Our work in strategy and strategy execution, master data management, ESG consulting and reporting, and employee wellbeing can support organisations addressing these challenges. These capabilities are connected by a common purpose: helping leadership teams make informed choices and translate them into sustained business performance.
The Meridian Strategy Execution Platform forms part of this approach. It supports the management discipline needed to connect strategic priorities with accountable ownership, performance measures and regular reviews.
The starting point remains the business outcome: what must improve, how value will be demonstrated and which organisational conditions must change to make that improvement achievable.
For senior executives, the opportunity is to turn awareness of global trends into a small number of consequential decisions. Stronger performance begins when those decisions are understood across the business, supported by credible information and followed through with consistency.
References
[1] PwC. 29th Global CEO Survey: Leading through uncertainty in the age of AI. 19 January 2026. Survey of 4,454 CEOs across 95 countries and territories.
https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/1/issues/c-suite-insights/ceo-survey.html
[2] EY-Parthenon. How can CEOs turn AI productivity gains into lasting value? CEO Outlook, 1 October 2026. Survey of 1,200 CEOs in 21 countries, fielded August–September 2026. South Africa is not among the listed survey countries.
https://www.ey.com/en_gl/ceo/ceo-outlook-global-report
[3] Boston Consulting Group. As AI Investments Surge, CEOs Take the Lead. AI Radar, 15 January 2026. Survey of 2,360 executives, including 640 CEOs, in 16 markets.
https://www.bcg.com/publications/2026/as-ai-investments-surge-ceos-take-the-lead
[4] Boston Consulting Group. CEOs and Boards Are Aligned on AI in Theory but Divided in Practice. May 2026. Survey of 625 CEOs and board members.
https://www.bcg.com/publications/2026/ceos-and-boards-are-aligned-on-ai-in-theory-but-divided-in-practice
[5] Deloitte. Fortune/Deloitte CEO Survey: Fall 2025. Fielded 3–16 October 2025.
https://www.deloitte.com/us/en/programs/chief-executive-officer/articles/ceo-survey.html
[6] McKinsey & Company. McKinsey Global Tech Agenda 2026. 9 February 2026. Survey of 632 C-level executives or IT professionals in 69 nations, fielded 29 September–10 November 2025.
https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/mckinsey-technology/our-insights/mckinsey-global-tech-agenda-2026
[7] McKinsey & Company. Economic conditions outlook, September 2026. 30 September 2026. Survey of 992 participants in 86 nations, fielded 31 August–9 September 2026. This is broader executive research, rather than an exclusively C-suite sample.
https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/economic-conditions-outlook
[8] Deloitte. CFO Signals: Q3 2026 findings. North American CFO survey. Dashboard accessed 20 October 2026.
https://www.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/topics/leadership/cfo-survey-data-dashboard.html
[9] Deloitte. 2026 Global Human Capital Trends. Research involving more than 9,000 business and human resources leaders across 89 countries, supplemented by additional surveys and interviews.
https://www.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/topics/talent/human-capital-trends.html