Recent Release | 26 Jul 2023

SMB Ambitions Barometer

Thought Leadership Team

Oxford Economics

Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) worldwide are optimistic about their future international endeavors, but have they taken the steps necessary to achieve their goals? What barriers do these businesses face in their efforts to grow?

To better understand SMBs’ ambitions and challenges, Payoneer commissioned Oxford Economics to survey 3,575 SMB entrepreneurs and business owners from 15 countries and a range of goods and services industries. Our research found that while SMBs agree that international development is key to growing their businesses and achieving their goals, many do not feel prepared to tackle the various challenges that come with expansion, from trade regulations and currency volatilities to language and cultural barriers. Still, SMBs remain optimistic: they expect increases in their revenue growth rates over the next two years through a combination of digitization, innovation, and continued support from their governments and business communities.

Edward Cone

Editorial Director, Thought Leadership

Sundus Alfi

Senior Research Manager, Thought Leadership

Kayla Luparello

Research Associate, Thought Leadership

You might be interested in

Champions needed: Building Digital trust in a dangerous world

Recent research from Oxford Economics in collaboration with SGTech shows that digital trust, once considered the purview of IT and cybersecurity, now stretches beyond those traditional roles to all parts of an organization, requiring a highly trained workforce that has both technical and more general digital business skills.

Find Out More

The Digital Trust Workforce: Global Edition

In collaboration with SGTech, The Digital Trust Workforce: Global Edition consolidates insights from our survey and expert conversations, providing actionable steps for organisations hoping to close the digital trust skills gap and leverage digital trust.

Find Out More

Impact AI: Enterprise AI Maturity Index 2024

Oxford Economics and ServiceNow fielded a global survey of 4,470 executives at organizations where artificial intelligence capabilities are in use.

Find Out More

The Hidden Costs of Downtime: The $400B problem facing the Global 2000

Downtime and service degradation create a cascade of consequences, costing Global 2000 companies $400B annually. But that figure doesn’t account for what’s below the surface. The actual cost is much larger when we consider downtime’s broader impacts.

Find Out More