Read our insights

To succeed in the B2B sharing economy, businesses need to understand what drives customers who are willing to use crowdsourced and automated services LiquidSpace specialises in renting out spare office space in existing businesses by the hour, the month or longer. Users can hire space via the company’s app and be sitting in a business’s boardroom within minutes. They can add their own office space to the inventory too.

Exploring a region of diversity and opportunity Asia-Pacific is a region of huge diversity, not only culturally and geographically, but economically too. Japan is a member of the G7 and a world leader in automotive and technology. Singapore competes with London and New York as a global financial centre. Australia and New Zealand are sometimes treated as a region in their own right due to both geography and culture - it takes over 12 hours to fly from Delhi to Sydney and history ties them more to the UK and US - but they are increasingly connected to Asia through trade.

Jose Luis Sarrio (international business centre director and partner at Grant Thornton Peru) and Madeleine Blankenstein (international business centre director and partner at Grant Thornton Brazil) discuss the outlook for Latin America.

New research shows that rising optimism in Quebec is feeding into brighter business growth prospects but that bureaucracy is constraining those very same growth plans. The results from Grant Thornton’s International Business Report (IBR), a survey of 2,500 senior executives in 34 economies, reveals that despite the roadblocks, businesses in Quebec are focused on incentivising productivity improvement and enhancing sales force effectiveness in a bid to boost growth over the next 12 months.

Sustainability is a buzzword of the moment. Whether as business leaders or consumers, we cannot escape from being told to consider the long-term implications of our actions or spending decisions.

Nathan Goode welcome growth opportunities extra government scrutiny brings

It will not surprise an international audience that the build-up to the World Cup has been overwhelmingly negative in Brazil. Scenes of local protesting about the huge sums of money lavished on stadia in Manaus and Brasilia, which are likely to poorly used after the main event, have been broadcast around the world.

Dynamic businesses at the forefront of M&A activity highlights an increasing importance for M&A in driving growth. There is a clear acknowledgment from the 12,500 businesses surveyed that acquisitions will be needed to supplement existing operations.

Developers, property companies, investors and homeowners suffered disproportionately during the financial crisis. But now, finally, expectations for profitability, jobs and orders are all on the rise.

The lure of China’s less well-known cities and the opportunities they present has been picking up speed for years, along with their impressive growth. In fact, while they are often described as ‘second-tier’ cities, many are in fact now wealthier than their ‘first-tier’ counterparts.

Sweden is an open, trade-oriented economy with a strong emphasis on supporting enterprise. It is therefore perhaps unsurprising, if still pleasing, to find the economy ranked third for the dynamism of our business operating environment in the Grant Thornton Global Dynamism Index (GDI) 2013. We are behind only Ireland and Canada on this measure in the 60-economy study.

The Philippine economy is growing fast. GDP expanded by 6.8% in 2012 and, whilst remittances climbed to a record high of US$23.8 billion in 2012, their share of GDP actually dropped to 8.5%, down from 9% in 2011.

Business optimism in markets such as China, the UK and the US has risen markedly over recent months according to the Grant Thornton International Business Report (IBR)[1]. And the most interesting aspect for me is the contribution of the real estate and construction sector to the brightening economic outlook.

The Chinese economy is slowing. The days of rampant, double-digit expansion are in the past as we move away from massive investment and export dependency towards a more sustainable, consumption-driven model of growth. This rebalancing offers both challenges and opportunities for dynamic organisations. How these businesses adapt to the changing environment will be key to their growth prospects.

There was some great news for Chile in the latest edition of the Grant Thornton Global Dynamism Index (GDI): we ranked second out of 60 economies, behind only Australia.

According to our Global Dynamism Index (GDI) 2013, Australia is the economy businesses should be looking at. It climbed to the top of the ranking of 60 of the largest economies in the world this year, up from seventh place in 2012.