Global expansion remains a top priority for 83% of U.S. and UK tech executives this year, according to Pebl's (previously Velocity Global) forthcoming 2020 State of Global Expansion™ Report: Technology Industry. The independently commissioned report reveals what fuels 1,000 leaders' global growth ambitions, challenges they face, and the markets they identified to realize their goals.
Discover Tech Leaders' Global Ambitions
Since 2019’s report, both U.S. and UK tech firms’ hunger for global expansion increased. In 2020, 43% of tech firms only operate in their home market. In five years’ time only 9% of tech firms will operate in only their home market.
While both U.S. and UK executives remain positive when it comes to global growth, UK firms' ambitions dropped significantly in the last year. Still, 75% of UK tech firms plan to expand overseas immediately. Despite the dip in overall global expansion ambition, 70% of U.S. and UK tech firms foresee operations in five or more global markets in the coming five years. To get there, over half of businesses that received outside investment in the previous year plan to use this essential injection of funding to push their global expansion ambitions.
The Top Global Expansion Drivers
The 2020 State of Global Expansion™ Report: Technology Industry identifies executives’ key motivators for going global. While the main drivers from 2019’s report remain (access to talent, developing greater scale and efficiencies, growing customer bases, operational complexities, and challenges in meeting foreign regulations), executives’ priorities shifted.
In 2019, executives on both sides of the Atlantic agreed that growing their customer base was the most critical driver of global expansion. This sentiment remains; the majority of executives value bigger customer bases above other factors.
What has changed, however, is firms’ view on accessing talent. Last year, decision-makers saw securing top talent as their second-most important driver. This year’s report shows that access to talent ranks third among executives.
The Global Expansion Tech Index™
Despite Brexit impacting UK tech firms' expansion ambitions, Europe remains the top region for firms building larger customer bases-with the UK jumping three places from last year's report, ranking as the ninth-most desired global market for decision-makers in 2020.
Europe is not the only region tech executives target. The report features the Global Expansion Tech Index™, which identifies decision-makers' top 50 most promising markets for global expansion. Factors used to compile the Index include the markets' availability of skills, complexity of regulatory landscapes, quality of connectivity and infrastructure, GDP growth, and inward investment. Singapore, Denmark, and Ireland top the 2020 index. View the complete index here.
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