Surveys Show It’s A Good Time To Be A (US) Small Business Owner

Small businesses (SMBs) in the U.S. are increasingly optimistic. Expectations about economic growth, and increases in their own revenues, make for a good time to be a small business owner in the country. In the U.K. and Australia, though, small business sentiments look a bit different. This week’s B2B Data Digest looks at the numbers behind small businesses’ optimism (or pessimism), as well as new stats about adoption of technology like payment services and machine learning (ML). Seventy-three percent of small business owners want only one payment service provider, according to Mercator Advisory Group research. However, 25 percent of those companies are working with more than one payment service vendor, which introduces complexity to managing suppliers and integrating processes and data, analysts said. In its report, Mercator spoke with BlueSnap CEO Ralph Dangelmaier, who noted that business customers often vocalize their need for streamlined, integrated processes, which calls for the need to work with a single payment service provider that can support multiple platforms and channels.