Be the Business Productive Business Index – Edition Four Q1 2022

UK businesses – a new focus on productivity and performance management? This edition of the index reveals a number of encouraging trends. Business leaders indicate they are continuing to invest in building capabilities in several areas critical for productivity improvement.

The Be the Business Productive Business Index is comprised of four clearly defined elements: performance of business, expected performance of business, actions taken to drive sustainable growth and planned actions to drive sustainable growth. Read more about the origins of the index.

It is designed to track not just firm performance, but also recent investments and focus, as well as plans for investment the key areas of management and leadership tech adoption, HR, development and HR, operational efficiency and innovation and ideas.

The headline Productive Business Index has increased two points from 119.0 in Q3 2021 to 121.1 in Q1 2022.

• This increase in the PBI is the smallest level of growth recorded between editions of the index. The previously recorded increase between index one and two being 6.1 points, and between index two and three being 10.2 points

• This small increase visible in the current edition was driven less by business performance and more by businesses investing and planning to invest in capabilities. This is the first index where the growth level visible in business performance was less than the level of growth in business capabilities

• The Business Performance Index has moved from 111.3 to 112.3

• The Business Capabilities Index has increased 3.1 points from 126.8 to 129.9

A clear, rising trend in businesses taking action to improve productivity

• The number of businesses intending to spend management time on strategic planning has increased by ten points, from 43 per cent to 53 per cent, since wave one of the Productivity Business Index

• For the first time, more than half (53 per cent) of business respondents believe they can accurately measure their productivity and identify efficiencies, up from 46 per cent in wave one

• The number of businesses with plans to increase investment in technology is also increasing in areas such as ecommerce (from 33 per cent in wave two to 39 per cent in wave four) and operational software (27 per cent in wave two to 30 per cent in wave four)

Businesses are moving out of crisis mode and focusing on operational efficiency and the future

• A growing proportion of businesses are intending to take action to improve efficiency and productivity, with an increase of 22 per cent to 28 per cent from the previous edition

• There is a similar rise in businesses intending to use data to improve their operations (from 28 per cent to 35 per cent) and measure both staff and business performance (29 per cent to 33 per cent)

However, the overall current business situation remains very difficult, with little change in the numbers seeing improved revenues