Zoho Canada SMB report shows that 62% of Canadian SMBs are optimistic about the future

Inflation continues to impact businesses with 49.8% of respondents saying they’ve been impacted and 19.2% indicating no changes.

CORNWALL — The newly released Zoho Canada SMB Outlook Report by Zoho Corporation, a global technology company, reveals that Canadian small and medium-sized business leaders are optimistic about their business prospects. According to the survey, 62.1% of respondents expect to grow between 1% and 20+%.

Surveying 1,016 Canadian business leaders (C-level to manager) in March about business performance, staffing, the economy, and tech usage, the Zoho Canada SMB Outlook Report additionally reveals that 64.6% of business respondents say their pricing has been impacted by inflation.

“Canadian SMBs continue to be confident about business growth, and indicate that employees are key in terms of lessons learned, business challenges, and tech priorities,” says Chandrashekar LSP, Managing Director of Zoho Canada.

Key Survey Findings:

• Respondents continue to be optimistic about their business, with 62.1% expecting to grow between 1% and 20+%.
• Ontario respondents are particularly optimistic, with 63.8% expecting to grow between 1-20+%.
• Employees are key in terms of lessons learned, business challenges, and tech priorities. However, businesses are holding steady with their staffing plans based on 70.1% indicating no change in their hiring plans, 25.8% hiring, and only 4.1% anticipating layoffs.
• Inflation is nearly twice the challenge as interest rates are for businesses.
• Respondents seem to be confident with how cybersecurity and customer privacy are handled but this confidence may be misplaced since one-third of people indicate that they don’t know about their business’s efforts in these areas.

Note that Ontario businesses are the most optimistic about the next six months, replacing Quebec respondents who were the most positive according to their responses in the previous two surveys.

Business Growth:

Respondents continue to feel good about their business prospects with 62.1% of respondents expecting to grow between 1% and 20+%. This optimism includes 38.2% expecting growth of 1-10%, and 15.4% expecting growth of 10-20%, and 8.5% expecting 20+% growth.

Conversely, 31.2% anticipate zero growth while only 7.8% expect declines.

Staffing:

Staffing plans indicate that respondents are holding steady with 70.1% projecting no change in their hiring plans, 25.8% hiring, and only 4.1% anticipating layoffs.

• Alberta – 41.8% hiring, 50.9% no change, 7.3% layoffs
• BC – 41.3% hiring, 53.3% no change, 5.4% layoffs
• ON – 43.6% hiring, 51.9% no change, 4.5% layoffs
• Quebec – 44.8% hiring, 48.7% no change, 6.5% layoffs

While respondents planning to hire have decreased 17.6% since the previous survey, fewer people currently anticipate layoffs. With nearly 20% more respondents indicating no change in hiring plans, it seems that they are optimistically holding steady with staffing plans.