Introduction to the Grant Thornton International Business Report (IBR)

What is the International Business Report?
The Grant Thornton International Business Report (IBR), now in its 8th year, is an international survey of the opinions of medium to large privately held businesses. The survey covers over 7,400 respondents in 36 economies.

What is the balance percentage?
A balance statistic reports the percentage of respondents who reported a figure rising less than the percentage who reported it falling. It not only provides a useful summary statistic, but numerous studies have shown it is well correlated with economic time series data and that it performs as well as highly complex methods of analysing survey data to predicting economic outcomes.

What is a PHB?
A privately held business includes businesses such as entrepreneurs, family businesses and non-listed entities which account for over 98% of businesses worldwide.

How is the data collected?
The research is carried out primarily by telephone interview lasting approximately 15 minutes with the exception of Japan (postal), Philippines and Armenia (face to face), China and India (mixture of face-to-face and telephone), where cultural differences dictate a tailored approach.

Who do we survey?
IBR is conducted among medium to large privately held businesses, surveying over 7,400 chief executive officers, managing directors, chairmen or other senior executives from 36 economies primarily across ten industry sectors (cleantech, food & beverage, construction & real estate, hospitality, transport, manufacturing, retail, financial services, healthcare and technology).

When was fieldwork conducted?
October/November 2009.

Corporate Social Responsibility
Grant Thornton cares about the communities they operate within. As in 2009, this year’s survey has a Corporate Social Responsibility element to it. For each respondent surveyed, Grant Thornton International donates $5 USD to the UNICEF Children’s Fund, who will use these funds to uplift the lives of vulnerable children across the world. In 2009, US$39 980 (R335 000) was donated to the organisation.