{"id":208044,"date":"2025-12-30T08:03:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-30T08:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/208044\/"},"modified":"2025-12-30T08:03:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-30T08:03:09","slug":"local-firms-eye-2026-growth-but-fear-rising-costs-and-inflation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/208044\/","title":{"rendered":"Local firms eye 2026 growth but fear rising costs and inflation"},"content":{"rendered":"\u201cAs local businesses prepare to put another challenging year behind them, it\u2019s encouraging to see optimism coming through around 2026,\u201d Chadwick said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs our insights show, there\u2019s greater confidence that the recent early signs of improving trading conditions could grow into something more sustained.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chadwick said even as high operating costs remained part of the backdrop, business owners were looking ahead with a stronger growth mindset.<\/p>\n
Focusing on performance, 47% of local operators highlighted revenue and sales growth as the leading business goal for the year ahead.<\/p>\n
Over one third (38%) will be focused on improving profitability and cash flow.<\/p>\n
But with higher production costs and supply charges still hampering output, 34% of respondents said they would look to reduce costs, and more than a fifth (22%) are planning to improve operational efficiency.<\/p>\n
Many of the concerns shared by SMEs from the past year remain top of mind for the year ahead.<\/p>\n
Chief among them is the cost of living, with 55% of respondents saying it is impacting both business costs and consumer spending.<\/p>\n
Other key concerns for the next 12 months include inflation levels (35%), the risk of falling back into a recession (26%), rising production and supply costs (25%) and the increasing cost of energy (25%).<\/p>\n
\u201cBalancing their growth ambitions with cost pressures is set to be a defining challenge of 2026 \u2013 particularly the early months.<\/p>\n
\u201cKey for business owners will be staying disciplined but adaptive in their approach to spending and investment, as they navigate the year ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n
To help manage concerns while still hitting their business goals, SMEs are focusing on their employees.<\/p>\n
Retaining their skilled employees is a top priority for 20% of respondents, with 77% of respondents surveyed believing their current team has the skills to achieve their 2026 objectives.<\/p>\n
The skills expected to be the most important to SME operators in 2026 include sales and customer relationship management (35%), financial management and business planning (32%), leadership and people management (27%), marketing and business promotion (26%), and problem solving and innovation (18%). <\/p>\n
Chadwick said that while labour market pressures had eased, capability building continued to be a focus as SME owners and operators aimed for growth.<\/p>\n
\u201cSMEs are strengthening customer-facing skills, improving strategic planning and financial management, and looking for ways to boost efficiency across their operations.<\/p>\n
\u201cReady to move from a mode of resilience to one of success and expansion, SMEs are sharpening their operations and positioning themselves to make the most of stabilising economic conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stay ahead with the latest market moves, corporate updates, and economic insights by subscribing to our Business newsletter<\/a> \u2013 your essential weekly round-up of all the business news you need.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cAs local businesses prepare to put another challenging year behind them, it\u2019s encouraging to see optimism coming through…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":208045,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[2246,1443,3225,3017,95,138,10166,3013,44999,10709,802,127,219,3029,2893,25337,3499,33443,1943,296,440,5922,126905,111,139,69,29432,801,4499,8822,102,379],"class_list":["post-208044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-2246","tag-about","tag-according","tag-ahead","tag-and","tag-business","tag-businesses","tag-but","tag-commissioned","tag-concerns","tag-costs","tag-despite","tag-economy","tag-eye","tag-fear","tag-firms","tag-growth","tag-heading","tag-inflation","tag-into","tag-local","tag-medium","tag-myob","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-optimism","tag-rising","tag-small","tag-survey","tag-with","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208044\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}