The business growth obstacle course
Today is Enterprise Day, a day to recognize the essential contribution of entrepreneurs to the economic and social progress of our country. Because behind every company there are people who take risks, drive projects, create opportunities, and generate employment.
However, if we observe the reality of our business fabric, we will see that many companies face their day-to-day as if they were participating in a permanent obstacle course.
The objective of this competition is clear: to grow, innovate, generate more added value, create quality employment, and contribute to collective well-being. But the journey is full of barriers that make it difficult to advance at the pace demanded by the current economic context.
One of the main obstacles in the race is the lack of business size. Catalonia has an extraordinarily dynamic productive fabric, but the size of its companies is a limitation when it comes to competing in global markets or facing transformation processes.
At Pimec, we have long warned that many companies want to participate in this race to grow, but too few achieve it. Not for lack of ambition, talent, or entrepreneurial capacity, but because the system continues to penalize growth. That is why we defend a law to boost business growth that eliminates barriers and favors companies gaining size and, therefore, competitiveness.
The other major factor determining the speed at which a company advances in this race is productivity. For too many years, we have focused the economic debate on costs or employment volume, when the real challenge is to generate more value with the available resources.
Improving productivity means incorporating innovation, training, digitalization, and new forms of work organization. It means creating more efficient, more competitive companies, and better prepared to face changes. And it also means having more room to better reward professionals and generate higher quality employment.
However, while SMEs try to move forward among these obstacles, new ones continue to appear that slow down their progress and distance them from the goal of business growth.
Bureaucracy is one of the most obvious. Thousands of SMEs dedicate a disproportionate amount of time and resources to complying with administrative obligations that often add little value. Every hour spent on procedures is an hour that is not spent on innovating, selling, exporting, or creating jobs.
Taxation is another of the major business challenges. We need a system that incentivizes investment, growth, and the generation of economic activity. Taxation should be a tool to boost competitiveness and not a factor that discourages entrepreneurial effort.
Nor can we ignore the growing impact of absenteeism due to temporary incapacities. This is a phenomenon that directly affects the productivity, planning, and competitiveness of companies, especially smaller ones, which often have less capacity to absorb these situations. This issue must be addressed with rigor, responsibility, and a willingness to find shared solutions.
The good news is that we know the way, that we know that companies need fewer obstacles and more impetus, and that the true goal of the race is to build a stronger, more prosperous, and more inclusive economy, capable of generating shared well-being through business activity.
On this Business Day, we claim the role of the businessman and businesswoman as a strategic piece of collective progress. Because facilitating companies to advance in this race by being able to avoid obstacles is not just an economic issue; it is a winning bet for the country.