When growth gives way to resilience: how energy shocks are reshaping Singaporean companies’ strategy, organization, and AI investment

When Growth Gives Way to Resilience: How Energy Shocks Are Reshaping the Strategy, Organization, and AI Investments of Singapore Enterprises

Over the past decade and more, the core question of global corporate governance has often revolved around “how to grow faster.” Today, however, more and more CEOs are answering a different question: in an environment of higher uncertainty, less predictable costs, and faster technological iteration, how can a company maintain sustainable profitability?

EY’s latest CEO survey offers a clear signal: geopolitical risks and energy price shocks are pushing corporate strategy from an expansion orientation toward one centered on profits and resilience. For Singapore enterprises, this shift is especially pronounced. The CEOs surveyed remain relatively optimistic about local growth prospects, but their management focus has already changed—financial flexibility, operational efficiency, productivity gains, and AI-driven organizational restructuring are becoming new priorities.

From “Scale Competition” to “Resilience Competition”

Changes in corporate strategy are often not triggered by a single event, but shaped by a combination of long-term pressures. Energy price volatility is one of the most典型 variables. For manufacturers, logistics companies, commercial real estate firms, energy-related service providers, and cross-border operators, energy is not just a cost item; it is a foundational constraint on profit volatility, supply chain planning, and capital allocation.

The survey shows that nearly half of the Singapore CEOs surveyed believe ongoing energy price shocks will create significant operating and financial headwinds, while 46% of the global sample share the same view. This means companies are no longer dealing merely with cyclical cost increases, but with a more difficult-to-manage systemic uncertainty.

Against this backdrop, 88% of Singapore CEOs surveyed place long-term growth and profitability above rapid expansion, significantly higher than the old “scale for market share” mindset. Companies are no longer treating growth itself as the strategic objective, but are re-examining growth within the framework of capital returns, cash flow stability, and operational controllability.

This shift is not limited to Asia. Whether it is European industrial groups dealing with the costs of the energy transition, or major U.S. technology companies scaling back non-core assets under interest rate and regulatory pressure, CEOs around the world are redefining “high-quality growth.” The difference is that economies like Singapore, deeply embedded in global trade networks, feel external transmission more directly and more quickly.

AI Is No Longer Just a Technology Budget Item, but Part of the Operating Structure

One of the most notable signals in the survey is that AI investment has moved from an IT department issue to a corporate management issue. Sixty-eight percent of Singapore CEOs surveyed plan to increase AI spending in 2026, while 59% are pursuing mergers, acquisitions, or divestitures to gain technology or AI capabilities.

This shows that companies’ understanding of AI is changing: AI is not just a cost-cutting tool, nor merely front-office customer service or back-office automation, but a comprehensive capability that affects customer value creation, strategic decision-making, financial management, risk control, and innovation processes.Among the companies surveyed, 45% said AI has already influenced customer value creation and strategy. This figure matters because it shows that AI is beginning to move upstream in the corporate value chain. In the past, digitalization often first improved process efficiency and only then gradually affected business models; today, AI may directly change how companies assess markets, allocate resources, design products, and organize the collaboration between people and machines.

However, AI expansion does not mean “the more technology, the better.” Twenty-seven percent of Singapore respondents believe AI regulatory frameworks are increasing compliance and operational complexity, while 38% point to regulatory fragmentation and evolving rules as obstacles to scaling. For multinational companies, this complexity is especially important. Requirements for data, models, liability boundaries, and industry applications vary across jurisdictions. If companies expand too quickly before their governance frameworks mature, they may instead increase legal, reputational, and operational risks.

This is also why more and more multinational companies are bringing AI governance onto the agendas of boards and senior executives. The real competitive advantage is no longer simply “whether you have AI,” but “whether you can embed AI into organizational processes in a governable, reproducible, and compliant way.”

Organizational Restructuring Is More Important Than Technology Procurement

Technological change often fails not because the technology itself is not advanced enough, but because organizations cannot absorb it.

EY’s survey shows that all Singapore CEOs expect AI to change workforce strategy over the next three years, but only 18% expect AI to directly lead to layoffs. Instead, 43% expect large-scale reskilling and upskilling, and 50% are redesigning roles to integrate human and AI capabilities.

This result is important. It shows that companies are not mainly viewing AI as a tool to replace labor, but as a structural force reshaping how work is done. For management, the real challenge is not “how to reduce headcount,” but “how to redefine roles, processes, and responsibilities.”

This also explains why cultural resistance has become a key variable. Twenty-four percent of Singapore respondents see cultural resistance as a major obstacle to AI implementation, alongside skills gaps and leadership gaps. In other words, the bottleneck in AI transformation has shifted from computing power and models to organizational learning capability.

These issues are not unfamiliar to global companies. Whether it is a major financial institution deploying intelligent risk controls or an industrial group rolling out predictive maintenance, what ultimately determines success is often not tool purchase, but whether the organization is willing to change performance evaluation, collaboration boundaries, decision-making pace, and the distribution of authority and responsibility.

M&A Is Shifting from “Scale Expansion” to “Capability Assembly”

In a highly uncertain environment, the logic of M&A is also changing. EY data shows that although the macro environment remains unstable, among Singapore respondents planning M&A, deal intent is still expected to rise over the next 12 months; 70% are pursuing strategic alliances, 63% expect to engage in mergers and acquisitions, and 53% are exploring joint ventures.This suggests that deal activity has not receded; it has become more selective. At the core of transactions now are no longer just market share, revenue scale, or geographic expansion, but technological capability, strategic fit, and long-term synergies.

The relevant head at EY-Parthenon noted that deal decisions are increasingly driven by technological capabilities and strategic alignment. This differs from the “acquire for growth” logic of the past decade. Today, when companies pursue M&A, they are often seeking AI, data, software, automation, supply chain control, or the ability to enter regional markets.

From a global perspective, this trend is very common. Large companies are no longer pursuing borderless expansion, but instead using smaller, more precise acquisitions to fill capability gaps. For capital markets, this means that M&A valuation criteria are also changing: whether a deal can deliver real technology integration, controllable governance, and verifiable synergies matters more than the story.

Why Singapore is representative

The reason Singapore CEOs’ judgments are worth attention is not only because this market itself is highly internationalized, but also because it distills the multiple pressures global companies are facing today: energy prices, supply chain reconfiguration, regulatory evolution, AI implementation, and capital efficiency.

In the survey, Singapore respondents remained relatively confident about domestic growth, with the domestic growth confidence index at 81.0, ranking second globally. This shows that companies are not pessimistic; rather, they are adjusting their growth approach: shifting from simply expanding markets to improving organizational resilience and capital efficiency.

At the same time, Singapore remains the most important investment destination for local respondents, followed by China, Malaysia, Switzerland, and South Korea. This ranking shows that companies still emphasize diversification in regional布局, but will be more cautious in selecting markets that can simultaneously meet market, technology, and governance requirements.

For multinational companies, this means that global positioning strategies are evolving from “broad dispersion” to “capability focus.” Companies are paying more attention to nodes that can support R&D, capital allocation, supply chain resilience, and talent supply, rather than only regions with the fastest sales growth.

The real source of long-term competitiveness is shifting

What this survey reflects is not a short-term fluctuation in conditions, but a migration in the logic of corporate competition.

Under the old logic, companies emphasized scale expansion, market penetration, and capital expenditure. Today, long-term competitiveness increasingly depends on four capabilities:

1. Financial flexibility: whether cash flow and the balance sheet can remain stable when shocks arrive; 2. Operational efficiency: whether profit structure can be maintained amid cost volatility; 3. Organizational learning capability: whether AI, talent, and processes can be upgraded in sync; 4. Governance capability: whether compliance and controllability can be maintained amid fragmented regulation and rapid technological diffusion.

This is also why “growth” is no longer a standalone slogan, but a composite proposition tied to resilience, governance, and organizational capability.For corporate management, the real question to answer is not simply “how much growth next year,” but rather: when energy, technology, and regulation are all changing at the same time, does the organization have the ability to reallocate resources, redesign roles, rewrite processes, and reshape deal logic?

In this sense, EY’s survey is not merely describing changes in CEO sentiment, but pointing to a deeper reality: global companies are entering a new phase centered on profit discipline, AI governance, and organizational redesign. Companies that can adapt to this phase are more likely to maintain long-term advantages in the next round of global competition.