CM December 2023

CEO CHRISTMAS MESSAGE
Forward March
Insolvencies, Artificial Intelligence and the outlook for 2024
AUTHOR – Sue Chapple FCICM
WHILE the difficult days of the
pandemic are now thankfully
long behind us, the fall-out in
terms of a stuttering, stumbling
global economy perseveres
and has very much been
a theme of the last 12 months.
Uncertainty still appears to hang over businesses.
Every bright glimmer of hope or faltering green shoot
seems to be snuffed out before they can become a
full sunrise or more firmly take root, mainly as a
result of global challenges. As if the pandemic wasn’t
enough, we then had (and still have) the conflict in
Ukraine, and now the troubles in the Middle East,
none of which bode well for the future, unless you
happen to work in defence.
This uncertainty, of course, is manifesting
itself in the UK and globally in insolvencies
and business failures. Recent articles have
highlighted some disturbingly high volumes and
values, and as with 2008/9, certain big names have
either already gone to the wall or soon will. But like
the last grand economic downturn, many of those
that failed were already failing businesses and the
same is almost certainly the case today.
For the last three years we have spoken
about companies being artificially kept alive by
Government loans and subsidies and a reluctance
from high street lenders to pull the plug. It would be
interesting to analyse how many recent failures are
of businesses that were effectively in a Zombie state,
and their demise was always more a matter of ‘when’
and not ‘if’. It would be similarly interesting, and
perhaps more productive, to understand the volume
of businesses that are now becoming insolvent for
whom there has been no warning, and no previous
signs of trouble. That would give us a much clearer
view of whether the much talked about ‘Tsunami’
of insolvencies is truly a concern, or nature’s way of
flushing out the old to make way for the new.
Artificial Intelligence
I have been following closely the rise of another
potential threat, Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Now in fairness, AI is not universally seen as
a problem. Opinion seems to be fairly evenly
split down the middle, for there are as many
people out there talking about the opportunity it
presents, as there are the danger to future civilization
(as anyone who has read Louis de Berniere’s latest
book, Lights over Liskeard, will attest. Ed.).
Those for whom the glass is half empty, see only
how AI will ultimately take over our lives and our
livelihoods, doing in fractions of a second what it
Brave | Curious | Resilient / www.cicm.com / December 2023 / PAGE 12