Most corporates to make financial resolutions as priorities change

Finding a new job, reducing debt and spending thereby building more investments, becoming more organised are few top goals executives at India Inc are likely to set to achieve in 2013, reveals a survey by industry body the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham).

More than half the corporate workforce is likely to make yearly pledges for the New Year and interestingly, job and finance rule the list of resolutions this year unlike the health related resolutions focused on weight loss together with eating better and following a workout regime and kicking the bad habits of smoking, drinking and others.

"Making a resolution on the New Year eve is a universal act reflecting upon the various changes people want to make in the forthcoming year," said DS Rawat, Assocham's secretary general.

"The whole idea is to reduce stress and frustrations of life thereby, focusing on improving relationships, health, career and other things. Considering that globally the economy has been in the doldrums for sometime now, people are retooling their yearly pledges thereby making more financial resolutions to fit the current times," he said.

Assocham representatives interacted with about 750 people (equal number of males and females) including chairmen, CEOs, directors and MDs of various organisations in the domains of pharma, banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), auto, hospitality, FMCG, manufacturing, energy and infrastructure sectors in about 15 cities – Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chandigarh, Chennai, Dehradun, Delhi, Gurgaon, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kochi, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai, Nagpur and Pune.

About 600 respondents (80%) in all the cities said they have plans to set New Year resolutions, while about 110 of the rest said they are not going to make any resolutions as they have not been able to achieve the ones they had set previously. The remaining said they are too busy with their lives and are content as they have nothing more to achieve.

Interestingly, women are ahead of their counterparts in making different resolutions as women constituted about 55% of those who acknowledged setting up goals for the New Year.

Of those who are likely to make a resolution around 65% (390 of 600) plan to make financial resolutions which included – reduced spending, paying off dues, expanding investment portfolio, building an emergency fund owing to a slump in the job market and others.

While about 60 of the remaining said they would like to make a shift in career by pursuing higher studies or changing their job for better growth. Around 150 of the remaining said they would be making health related New Year resolutions to become more physically fit, according to the survey.

Ninety per cent of the respondents who plan to make a resolution said they make resolutions each year. Majority of these said though they take yearly pledges but don’t even make it a month. Just about 2% said they stick with all the resolutions they make each year.