Alberta Small and Medium Business Owners Have Positive Outlook for 2014

March 1, 2014
By Cody Battershill

Alberta Small and Medium Businesses Owners Respond Positively to 2013 4th Quarter Survey

Small and medium sized business owners in our province are responding positively to ATB Financials latest Business Beat.

According to the quarterly survey done for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), owners had high optimism during the fourth quarter of 2014 with a score of 72.3.

The index also found that they had much faith in the future of Alberta’s economy with a score of 66.8.

Considering that small and medium sized enterprises are responsible for more than 99 percent of business in Alberta, this response reflects the overall feeling of SMEs and provides an encouraging outlook for entrepreneurial activities in the province for months to come.

Factors Considered

The scores in the report are calculated by subtracting how many participants think conditions will get worse from those who have more of a positive response and believe that things will only get better. Then, this data is converted into a score between 0 and 100.

A score larger than 50 basically means that a majority of these SMEs believe things will only get better in the months ahead and outnumber those who think the opposite.

More Facts

Data used in the report was collected from 300 randomly selected small and medium sized businesses in Alberta between December 10th and December 20th, 2013.

Businesses with a few to less than 50 employees fall into the small enterprise category, while those with anywhere from 50 to less than 500 are considered as medium.

Some other interesting statistics from ATB Business Beat follow in the form of a comparison between how SME owners feel today versus five years ago. They are:

28% of businesses feel it is harder to attract and keep good employees

13% feel there is more direct competition

11% suggest there are higher costs

33% say that technology today makes running a business easier

20% say the economy is doing much better now than before

13% feel that more consumers care about supporting local businesses

10% agree that they have easier access to capital