Geopolitical uncertainty is reshaping the way businesses make decisions

Resumen detallado

Professor Albert Wöcke of the Gordon Institute of Business Science discusses the growing pressures on business leaders, from geopolitical risks and deglobalisation to emerging opportunities in technology and new markets.

JEREMY MAGGS: Running a business in today’s world means navigating geopolitical uncertainty, rapid technological change and increasingly unpredictable markets. But how do leaders make sound strategic decisions when the rules keep changing? And what new skills do they need to remain competitive?

In that respect, I’m going to talk to Professor Albert Wöcke from the Gordon Institute of Business Science [Gibs]. He joins me to explore the challenges facing business leaders and how they can respond.

Albert, welcome back to the programme, and maybe let’s start with this: What has fundamentally changed, do you think, about the environment in which business leaders are making decisions today?

ALBERT WÖCKE: Thanks for that. To understand what’s happening in the world, you’ve got to look at big trends.

Some trends are accelerating, some trends are ending, and then there’s a lot of noise in the trends.

What we’ve seen in, for example, the Covid era has accelerated the trend for technology, technology proliferation. We’ve seen the [US President Donald] Trump era has also accelerated the deglobalisation trend that we’ve been seeing, and the deglobalisation trend started probably two decades ago.

So one needs to be aware of the trends. One needs to see what’s accelerating it and what’s slowing down the trend and when is the next trend. And don’t mistake that for radical change and accelerated change.

So if you think about what’s going on in Iran in the Strait of Hormuz, you’d be derisking, and so you’d be looking at reducing your exposure to oil and looking at alternative energies.

On the other hand, if you’re looking at the big digitisation trend, you’d be looking at taking advantage of that.

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