New research explores the key strategies of high-performing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), offering insights into the characteristics that differentiate the strongest-growing companies.
The Growing Business Report gathered data from 800 senior SME1 decision-makers across the US and the UK and identified clear distinctions between ‘Growth Leaders’2, the strongest-growing companies, and ‘Followers’ – the rest of the field.
The report discovers key characteristics of Growth Leaders, including:
- Maximizing potential: More Growth Leaders (55%) highlight operational efficiency as a very big priority than Followers (45%). Leaders are also more likely to highly prioritize productivity (68%) than Followers (56%).
- Innovating: 96% of Leaders introduced new products or services in the past year, compared to 82% of Followers.
- Seeking expert support: 55% of Growth Leaders sought external specialist advice in the past year, ahead of 47% of followers. Leaders are more likely than followers to seek external expertise in areas including AI & automation, data security, trade & export, travel management, and market insights & research. It is a similar story with in-house specialist personnel: Leader companies are more likely to have roles in future growth-related areas including risk & compliance, data protection, international trade and market insights.
- Travel & exports: 66% of Growth Leaders and 52% of Followers sent employees on international business trips in 2024; 54% of Leaders exported goods or services, compared to 44% of Followers.
- Talent: Growth leaders prioritise talent development, with 64% focusing on attracting and retaining top talent compared to 48% of Follower firms. Leader companies travel more for internal team meetings and employee training & development while Followers travel more for client-facing meetings.
- Pragmatic optimism: 90% of Leaders believe their revenue will be higher by 2030, compared to 67% of Follower firms; 58% of Leaders have a ‘very optimistic’ 2030 outlook, shared by only 37% of Followers. But Leaders are more acutely aware of the competitive environment: 84% of Leaders vs 71% of Followers report strong competition in their sector.
Adopting new technology and AI, gaining greater spend control, improving employee wellbeing, having more face-to-face interaction, and reducing carbon emissions, were all noted as larger priorities for Leaders, both over the next 12 months and looking further ahead over the next five years.
Jason Geall, Executive Vice President for Global SME, Amex GBT, said: “SMEs are crucial to the global economy, supporting GDP and millions of jobs. Their success matters to everyone. This report finds those most likely to flourish having a strategic mindset, focused on the long-term and with a holistic approach to growth. By exploring how successful SMEs future-proof, work smarter and build resilience, the Growing Business Report offers valuable insights for companies of all sizes.”
Cliff Young, President of Polling and Societal Trends, Ipsos, added: “The past few years have been difficult for all businesses, and the signs are that the economic climate will continue to be challenging for some time to come. SMEs can be especially vulnerable to the vagaries of the marketplace so a report like this one, that identifies what helps some to succeed while others struggle, can offer vital lessons and strategies, helping more successful businesses to continue doing so and less successful businesses to see what they might need to do to turn things around.”
The Growing Business Report is available to download here.
1 - SMEs were defined as companies with 10-250 employees in the UK, and 20-500 in the US. Data was weighted to match the population within the UK and US by number of employees, company sector and region.
2 - Growth Leaders defined as reporting turnover/revenue for 2024 of 5% or more y-o-y and expecting 2025 turnover/revenue to be up 5% or more y-o-y. Follower firms defined as all companies not meeting both of these criteria.
