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IBR

Women in business

Companies are increasingly focused on high-quality strategic transactions, with less time spent on investigating peripheral opportunities, according to our International Business Report (IBR), a survey of 5,400+ business leaders in 35 economies.

​The European economy, still continuing its economic recovery after the 2008 financial crisis, faces many potential risks. Though varied, they fall into two broad categories. Firstly, a band of social and political pressures which are driving media headlines: a potential ‘Brexit’, the migrant crisis and the continued rise of nationalist sentiment. Secondly, we have economic issues that have been present for a good few years: high unemployment, low inflation and persistently low economic growth.

The gender diversity issue has been on the business agenda for many years now, yet a third of businesses still have no women at a senior management level. Somewhere there is a disconnect.

Fifty years on from the world’s first personal computer going into mass production, the Grant Thornton International Business Report reveals the scale of technology’s influence on business with the majority of firms now planning to automate operations and practices, potentially resulting in job losses.

Our 2015 women in business report looks at how to facilitate the career paths of women into senior management and offers 12 recommendations to society, government, businesses and women themselves about how to better support female advancement.

With momentum building towards the UN Climate Change Conference in Peru, new figures from IBR reveal that businesses leaders in emerging markets are more focused on the sustainability of their operations compared with peers in developed markets.

The technology sector is riding the crest of a wave. We interview approximately 150 technology companies around the world every quarter through our International Business Report (IBR) and what’s struck me since the beginning of the year is how bullish the leaders of these companies are about their growth prospects.