International Business Report

2024 marks the 20th year of Grant Thornton’s work to monitor and measure the proportion of women occupying senior management roles in mid-market companies around the world.

Entrepreneurial spirit maintains optimism as firms look past slowdown and plan for growth

According to the latest data from the International Business Report (IBR), Grant Thornton’s global survey of mid-market companies, business leaders are cautious about their future investment intentions.

Over the last few years of market shocks and geopolitical tensions, mid-market businesses have grown accustomed to bracing and planning for the unexpected.

As they entered 2023, most business leaders in the mid-market kept had their focus on three top-of-mind threats: inflation, cyber-attack and the economic slowdown.

Mid-market firms using international supply chains have faced significant disruption and headwinds as a consequence of the war in Ukraine, the long tail of COVID disruption and wider geo-political tensions. However, despite ongoing economic uncertainty, many international business leaders continue to see international trade, and particularly exports, as a key driver for growth. According to data from the IBR, Grant Thornton’s global survey of mid-market companies, 45% of mid-market firms expect to increase their volume of exports over the course of 2023. This represents a slight increase from the first half of 2022 (+1%) and continues the trend that expectations have been rebounding strongly from the lows of the pandemic.