Growth, operations, and risk management top the list of many APAC CFOs’ priorities for 2025

But regional appetites vary. Among respondent organizations, Japanese firms have been the most active and this momentum continues: Seventy-six percent of respondents in Japan cite M&A as an organizational priority, and 48% expect to increase activity. Meanwhile, 54% of respondents from Chinese firms plan to increase deals, with 28% signaling significantly more activity. In Southeast Asia, where only 27% of organizations closed a deal in the last three years, now 43% of respondents expect to increase activity.

Notably, growth is the top M&A driver: Of those respondents planning to pursue M&A in 2025, 69% of CFOs say their organizations aim to improve competitive positioning or market leadership, 52% seek long-term business model transformation, and 45% look to strengthen the core business or raise capital through divestiture, while protection-minded M&A strategies rank lower (figure 3).

Chinese and Japanese respondents are nearly twice as likely to focus their M&A activity on market positioning and transformation, with Japanese CFOs also emphasizing acquiring talent (46%) and technology (32%). In Southeast Asia, strengthening core business is the second-most important goal of respondents’ M&A efforts, cited by 61% of respondents.

The vast majority of CFOs at the largest APAC companies we surveyed report that their M&A activity primarily is focused on achieving or maintaining market leadership, with 75% of CFOs at companies with revenues of US$1 billion or more and 81% of CFOs at companies with revenues of US$5 billion or more saying the same.

With the high stakes in closing deals, 41% of CFO respondents say they would explore all-cash financing for M&A transactions, especially in China (52%) and Southeast Asia (49%). A quarter of CFO respondents are considering alternative deal structures, green financing, and nonbank lending. Green financing is preferred in China (83%) and Japan (52%) but less so in Southeast Asia (10%) or across India, Bangladesh, Mauritius, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, and New Zealand (12%). It is also more common among larger corporations and in the energy and resources sector, according to our survey.

As M&A accelerates, CFOs can help their organizations mitigate risk and find opportunities by adopting an “always on” mindset for portfolio review—regularly assessing assets for strategic fit, cost and capital effectiveness, and contribution to organizational goals. And our survey shows that many APAC organizations are already moving toward more frequent reviews: Sixty-two percent of respondents across the region say their organization assesses portfolio performance at least twice a year, up from 46% in 2022 (figure 4).¹

Optimizing operations and talent

Organizations need to align capabilities and cost structures for strategic flexibility to prepare to seize growth opportunities and weather storms when they come, and this reality is reflected in our survey findings. As a Singapore-based CFO of a global technology company told us: “Our strategy emphasizes the importance of pursuing cost control alongside revenue growth. Cost control is necessary to ensure operational efficiency, while growth enables us to channel new investments back into the business. It is a very delicate balance.”

Most respondents say their organizations are focusing on integrating technologies to gain efficiencies this year: Seventy-eight percent plan to embed more automation and digital technologies into their operations (figure 5). The focus is highest in Japan (89%) and in the consumer (89%) and public (86%) sectors.

The emphasis on upskilling is most prominent in Japan (79%) and China (76%), especially among large firms (69%). Automation to free up capacity ranks higher in Japan (79%) but lower for Southeast Asia organizations (54%), although it’s still the region’s top talent priority.

According to our survey, Chinese and Japanese CFO respondents are more likely to identify human capital constraints as a key internal risk, which corresponds with the increased focus on talent actions in these markets.

Bolstering resilience to manage risk and uncertainty

The survey shows that 60% of CFO respondents are optimistic about their organizations’ prospects in 2025, and nearly half (49%) express confidence in the economic outlook. This marks a notable shift from 2024, when less than half of CFOs were optimistic about their own companies’ prospects and roughly one-third (36%) felt optimistic about economic conditions.

Still, respondents share a keen awareness that risks could derail better times ahead. Economic concerns dominate the CFO risk agenda. Inflation, interest rates, and liquidity; global economic slowdown; and local or regional slowdowns are the top three issues identified by respondents to our survey (figure 7). Market conditions, such as demand slowdown, and competition, pricing, and cost risks round out the top five, suggesting that the growth signals CFOs are seeing are fragile. Geopolitical tension ranks sixth, but it remains a concern for 54% of respondents, down from second place in the previous survey. 

Many CFO respondents recognize that geopolitics could introduce fresh uncertainty—even if challenges like trade disputes and tariffs are already flagged. “These survey results indicate a high risk of both recession and inflation, suggesting that CFOs are anticipating potential stagflation,” Xu Sitao, chief economist, Deloitte China, explains. “The most critical issue for CFOs and policymakers remains the uncertainty surrounding the tariff situation. This will also influence the policy responses of all regional economies, most of which are surplus economies.”

Generative AI emerges as a cross-cutting topic shaping CFOs’ priorities

Nearly 50% of the CFOs who responded to our survey expect generative artificial intelligence to substantially transform their industries, organizations, and finance functions within two years (figure 8). Twenty percent say their industries have already been substantially transformed. Fewer respondents have seen gen AI–led transformation thus far in their own organizations (14%) or finance functions (11%), but they expect their organizations to catch up within two years. Just 2% don’t foresee any gen AI–led transformation at all.

In terms of value creation, CFO respondents generally are looking for gen AI deployments to help mostly internally with issues such as workforce productivity and efficiency (79%) and cost savings or expense reduction (69%) (figure 9). Fewer respondents say they expect gen AI will contribute to revenue growth (37%), new insights (36%), or enhancing customer relationships (32%).

Looking more closely at the regional survey data, we see that CFO respondents in Japan (90%), China (89%), and Australia (85%) all prioritize gen AI’s impact on productivity. Australian CFO respondents are more focused on gen AI’s potential ability to help with cost savings (79%) than Japanese (55%) and Chinese (59%) respondents.

In keeping with respondents’ focus on gen AI’s potential operational gains, most respondents plan to measure gen AI’s impact on the workforce (65%) and cost savings (60%). While their organizations are actively pursuing gen AI deployment, CFO respondents are keenly aware of the challenges to adopting this new technology. Capability constraints are the greatest challenge for CFO respondents in our survey (figure 10), with 55% constrained by talent resources and capabilities, and 44% by data and technology resources. Talent concerns are highest among CFO respondents in Japan (83%) and Southeast Asia (74%) but lower in Australia (39%) and China (39%). Data and technology concerns are higher among respondents in Southeast Asia (67%) and are the No. 1 respondent-reported barrier in China (57%).

Risk and governance concerns are perceived as a barrier to generative AI adoption for 33% of CFOs in the region. While privacy, security, and legal risks don’t rate as highly as practical constraints for many CFO respondents, this likely reflects their organizations’ focus on proofs of concept and internal use cases, as concerns about implementation risks tend to grow as AI deployments scale.

It’s noteworthy that, even given the bullish outlook on gen AI’s potential impact and the breadth of activity across the region, roughly one-third of CFO respondents say that competing priorities (30%) and the cost of investment (33%) are significant barriers to their organizations’ gen AI adoption. This is slightly different in Australia, where CFO respondents say that the main challenge to their organizations’ gen AI adoption is competing priorities (45%), underscoring the trade-offs that firms face as they work to balance growth and transformation.

Sustainability’s position on APAC CFOs’ agendas varies

Across Asia Pacific, CFO respondents indicate that different markets and industries show varying levels of progress in embedding sustainability into their operating models and financial decision-making. Overall, 27% of CFO respondents in the region say their organizations are increasing investment in sustainability initiatives, with more respondents in Japan (55%) and Australia (33%) reporting increased sustainability investments than in other Asia-Pacific countries. Respondents from large companies (31%) and those with government (53%) or public (36%) ownership also report increasing sustainability investment.

Across all organizations surveyed, there has been a shift away from assigning sustainability responsibilities to a specific team. Forty percent of respondent organizations report that they’re incorporating sustainability processes into their operating models, but only 6% say it’s complete. Notably, 17% of CFO respondents say it’s too early to tell if sustainability considerations need to be embedded and 9% are waiting to see what competitors will do.

Among other sustainability actions respondent organizations are taking, 71% say they are adopting public policy positions that promote sustainability, 67% are encouraging suppliers and business partners to meet environmental standards, and 66% are using more sustainable materials.

Moreover, to help ensure sustainability is integrated into financial plans, 57% of all CFO respondents surveyed say they’re reporting on sustainability initiatives to stakeholders, 54% are establishing performance metrics, and 51% are conducting risk assessments (figure 11). These actions are most common among respondents working in countries with more mature reporting regimes, at larger companies, and in the financial services, life sciences and health care, and energy and resources sectors. It’s worth noting that almost half of respondents from small companies in the region say their organizations are also establishing sustainability reporting (47%) and metrics (46%), potentially demonstrating that this is a broad-based trend in Asia Pacific.

In addition to the cost of compliance—which isn’t cheap²—CFO respondents report facing significant barriers to embedding sustainability into their organizations. These include difficulty measuring impact (59%), talent and capabilities (46%), and data issues (22%), along with competing priorities (54%) and limited sustainability budgets (43%).

Balancing both complementary and competing priorities

Organizations across the Asia Pacific region are seeing unprecedented market changes, including rising performance pressures, potential business-model disruptions, changing regulator and stakeholder expectations, and tough capital decisions. As organizations adapt, the scope and complexity of the CFO role and finance functions are increasing. Our survey data indicates that many CFOs in Asia Pacific are laser focused on helping their organizations accelerate value creation and drive enterprise-wide operational excellence, while preparing for whatever comes next.

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