The majority of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Latin America are more optimisticabout their business growth in the next 12 months than a year ago, according to the sixth edition
of the UPS Business Monitor Latin America (BMLA).Commissioned by UPS and conducted by TNS Gallup between April and May 2013, the study surveyedmore than 800 top-level SME executives in seven Latin American and the Caribbean countries.
The results revealed that 70% of the regional executives surveyed expect their businesses togrow strongly over the coming year, compared to only 62% in 2011, with almost half of therespondents believing their business is better today than a year ago, especially in Chile (64%),Mexico (63%) and Colombia (51%).
“The results from the latest BMLA study demonstrate an increase in Latin American SMEs thatforesee growth in their businesses over the next 12 months compared to 2011,” Romaine Seguin,president of UPS Americas Region, said. “We are seeing businesses betting on their own countriesand region through their investments. Nearly half of Latin American executives surveyed do not feelthat the economic and financial context of developed countries will affect their businesses showingreal confidence.”
While looking positively into the future, SME executives continue to face the same issues theymentioned in the previous editions of the study, UPS said. For example, SMEs in Brazil areconcerned about finding and keeping qualified staff while Argentinian executives again mentionedlabour costs as their major issue. Colombians are mainly worried about the market slowdown thisyear.
In terms of investment, marketing and sales is considered top priority at a regional level.Although information technology was identified by 84% of the executives as a very important driverfor competitiveness, only 14% considered it an investment priority for their business over the next12 months.
With regard to what the countries identify as barriers preventing the expansion of theirbusiness, SMEs see the search for suppliers and customs duties as the two most significantchallenges. Executives considered fiscal constraints (46%) as their main challenge followed by theeconomy and inflation (41%).
“Latin America has come a long way over the last few years; they have a new sense of self, bothpolitically and economically, and you can see this in the optimism revealed by SMEs across theregion,” Eduardo Gamarra, professor of Latin American and Caribbean politics at FloridaInternational University, said. Gamarra serves as a key expert for the BMLA study.
