During the past year and a half, Clear Seas has taken several steps to keep stakeholders apprised of the changing economic conditions. Through our Industry Perspective on the Challenges of Today surveys and reports, we continue to bring real time research access to thousands of B2B brands across the globe

Our economy has recently begun to show early warnings of a setback from the ongoing pandemic, particularly related to the growth of the “Delta” variant and its impact on various professions and B2B industries.  As always, the details uncover a more nuanced view of what is occurring on a granular level in each profession and industry.  Here are four main takeaways from our latest research on some of the discrepancies in the economic recovery and who is growing and who is not:

First, businesses with more than 2500 employees are hiring at an unbelievable pace, while smaller companies less than 10 employees are not. The larger companies are growing faster both in real numbers and in percentage as we come out of the recovery.

Second, smaller companies are far more interested in working with US based suppliers than larger companies. In fact, for larger companies it often doesn’t factor into the decision.

Third, for manufacturers, material availability continues to represent a significant issue when working with suppliers – so much so that purchasers rank inventory as their number one concern when selecting a vendor.  For professions, such as architecture, obviously inventory is not an issue, but capacity, availability, and technical capability are – meaning many architects continue to face backlog of work, and a difficulty in hiring new talent.

Fourth, millennial businesses are investing more in “business spending” than boomers. Millennials are more confident and are expressing more of a desire to capture the growing market opportunities than any other generation right now.

We see many opportunities and challenges ahead, and strongly encourage you to take a moment to download our most recent IPCT research. Take a look at the findings to better understand where the opportunities lie in your market, profession, or industry vertical today.