MANAGING THROUGH INFLATIONARY TIMES: Local PNC leader shares how digital innovations and other strategies are helping businesses manage through inflation.

• Date: 01 November 2022

This is the twenty-third in a series of informative monthly articles for North Carolina businesses from PNC in collaboration with BUSINESS NORTH CAROLINA magazine.

With inflation recently reaching a 40-year high and interest rates on the rise, business leaders in North Carolina and beyond continue to manage rising prices and confront the headwinds of supply chain challenges and labor shortages. For many c-suite executives, ongoing inflationary pressures are bringing into focus the countermeasure of digital deflation and the return on investment of digital solutions, as well as the business imperatives of other long-term strategies to combat inflation and market volatility.

Donna Perkins, who leads PNC Bank's Commercial Banking business for the Western Carolinas market, has helped local companies navigate the consequential market disruptions of the past two decades, from the burst of the dot-com bubble, to the Great Recession, to the COVID-19 pandemic and inflationary pressures of the present day. Two prime factors distinguish the current climate from previous periods of disruption, she says. First, the labor challenges that continue to persist in multiple industries. Second, the increased adoption of digital solutions, including those automating key finance...