The State of Local Businesses 2021
There are more than 400 million small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) worldwide. SMBs account for 95 percent of all businesses and 70 percent of employment, making them the largest source of job creation globally.
A 2020 survey published by Parks Associates reports as many as 29 percent of SMBs in the United States are at risk of going out of business due to COVID-19. The full impact on these firms is unclear – perhaps many SMBs may have simply shut their doors instead of filing for bankruptcy, as larger firms are forced to do.
Read The State of Local Businesses 2021 survey and report, which provides insights into how this shift has happened and offers SMBs the information they can use to help create strategic plans and ensure success.
A few highlights from the report include:
Local businesses’ digital adoption
Despite the business challenges of COVID-19, local businesses looked to transform by adopting digital technologies and finding new ways to reach and serve customers in their local communities.
This chart shows some of the most popular tools adopted by survey respondents.
Website Investments
Approximately 92 percent of the survey respondents report having a business website. Of those local business respondents with a website, 14 percent say they launched it since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, and 28 percent of those with a pre-existing website say they made “significant improvements” to their site in the last year. However, 58 percent of respondents report not making any changes to their site since the onset of the pandemic.