NEWS: American Express Survey Shows U.S. Businesses Have Bullish Outlook on B2B Spending
Small-business spending in many sectors has been on pause for months. However, the world is indeed opening up and businesses are spending more, says a new American Express Survey.
- Survey indicates that U.S. spending is on the rise across nine key business-to-business (B2B) categories.
- U.S. survey respondents cited that raw or processed materials, such as lumber, metals, and chemicals, are outpacing all other B2B spending categories.
- Automation is anticipated to be the fastest-growing area in technology spending, with nearly half of U.S. survey respondents planning to automate or further automate their B2B payments over the next year1.
- Flexibility is key for the U.S. businesses surveyed, which are adapting their supply chains due to pandemic challenges.
American Express today launched the Global Business Spend Indicator (GBSI), a new survey of global businesses conducted with the Centre for Business and Economic Research (CEBR)². The survey reveals U.S. businesses are the most bullish and optimistic when it comes to B2B spending among the six countries covered in the survey, with 76% of U.S. businesses expressing optimism about their prospects over the next 12 months. Respondents predicted that B2B spending in the U.S. will be an average of 3.4% higher in the second quarter compared to the same period last year. Applying that projection from the survey respondents to broader U.S. macroeconomic data would equate to an estimated $140 billion in additional B2B spending from U.S. businesses³.
“B2B spending is an important bellwether for the overall health of the economy, and the GBSI study shows U.S. businesses are investing and spending more, whether to adopt to the new ways of operating during the pandemic, or to digitize and streamline their operations,” said Dean Henry, EVP, Global Commercial Services at American Express. “It also reveals that some of the trends that have emerged or accelerated during the pandemic, such as payments automation and new approaches to managing the supply chain, are likely here to stay.”
CEBR estimates that the value of B2B expenditures each year amounts to nearly half (48%) of gross output (the total value of sales or receipts) in the U.S. economy. This means that for each dollar spent in the U.S. economy, approximately 48 cents are B2B transactions.
The GBSI is designed to explore the importance of business spending in both the global and local economies based on a survey of more than 3,600 businesses of all sizes and across industries in the UK, Australia, Canada, Japan, Mexico, and the U.S. For this report, B2B spend is classified as goods and services that a business purchases from another business to keep their business running. The survey looked at nine B2B spending categories, and three additional categories of taxes, people / workforce, and travel, entertainment and expenses, for a robust look at the dynamics and impact of overall business spending.