The vaccine rollout is bringing optimism to some quarters of the economy, but nearly three-quarters of middle-market manufacturers are either just getting by or struggling—and they expect their recovery to be slow, according to the latest results from a survey of chief financial officers.
Eight-three percent of respondents to BDO tax accounting and advisory firm’s 2021 Manufacturing CFO Outlook Survey say their business will take at least a year to recover from the pandemic.
But there are some bright spots on the horizon: just over half see consumer demand picking up by the third quarter of 2021.
The BDO survey polled 100 manufacturing industry CFOs with revenues ranging from $250 million to $3 billion in September 2020. The survey was conducted by Rabin Research Company, an independent marketing research firm, using Op4G’s panel of executives. Average tenure in current CFO role was 5.5 years.
Priorities
According to the survey, about a quarter of CFO’s rate technology and infrastructure investments as their top business priority for 2021. Cost-cutting, managing through the downturn, integrating mergers & acquisitions, outsourcing function and data privacy also ranked above 10% of respondents. Fewer respondents ranked recruiting and retaining talent as their top priority, at 6%.
Challenges
Cash flow topped the list of financial challenges, with 40% of respondents concerned about having insufficient cash on hand. Over half project their revenue in the next year to either stay the same (18% of respondents) or decrease (37%).
All charts from the BDO 2021 Manufacturing CFO Outlook Survey.
