New poll reveals overwhelming consensus on their own businesses' success — and not much else
Aside from massive optimism about their own business, it’s hard to say that the 2020 outlook among Canadian entrepreneurs and business owners is very clear.
In the newly released CIBC Business Optimism Survey, which gauged the confidence of 1,005 business owners across Canada on a variety of issues, nearly nine in 10 respondents (87%) said they were optimistic about the future success of their business.
“Canadian entrepreneurs are building financial security with 74 per cent telling us their current financial situation is much better than before forming their business," said Andrew Turnbull, Senior Vice-President, Business Banking, CIBC.
But when it comes to the broader economy, entrepreneurs were far less upbeat, with 44% listing it as a top concern for 2020.
The poll also showed a smattering of concern on various other issues for the new year, including:
- Sustaining and growing margins/profitability (38%)
- Business taxes and employees/staffing (33%)
- Administrative concerns (20%)
- Regulatory/trade obstacles (17%)
As for the top five ongoing challenges faced by their organization, entrepreneurs cited rising costs (59%), competition (43%), future growth prospects (40%), HR and talent (39%), and managing cash flow (32%).
But it appears they’re not taking those challenges sitting down: a full three quarters of business owners (75%) said they were “likely to invest in innovation for their company” in the next 12 months, contrary to a cautiousness on investment reported at the start of 2019.
“Every entrepreneur faces unique challenges for their particular business, but the commonality of rising costs and heightened competition necessitate innovation to stay ahead of their industries whether it is to elevate customer experience or to create business efficiencies," Turnbull said.
While innovation can mean any number of things, the top three definitions reportedly collected from entrepreneurs were “being able to evolve my business to meet my customers' changing needs” (26%), “new methods or technologies to achieve efficiencies” (23%), and “providing service in a better or more differentiated way” (14%).
Technology continues to be a top-of-mind recommendation for business owners in pursuit of improvement, but not everyone embraces it equally. When asked about adoption of digital tools and digitally enabled services in managing and growing their business, entrepreneurs’ answers included:
- Frequently use digital tools and embrace them (45%)
- Sometimes use digital tools, but only when they need to (32%)
- Use digital tools in almost every aspect of their life, and try new digital apps/digital ways of doing things (14%)
- Rarely use digital tools and avoid them whenever they can (9%)
