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Letter from Shift's CEO

A note from the Chief Executive

Jamie Osborn
Chief Executive Officer, Shift

Australia’s small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are central to the economy, and among the least well understood. There is no consistent, timely measure of how they are faring, and surprisingly little live data describing it. This report brings together a consistent definition with what most sources lack: aggregated, near real-time information from more than 6,000 Shift customers, weighted to reflect the mix of SMEs across the economy.

The Shift SME Economy Index tracks the performance of the SME economy.
The Index is built from what businesses do, not what they say. Sentiment surveys record owners’ expectations and feelings, so they are self-reported and arrive with a lag. The Shift SME Economy Index is drawn from data across Shift’s customer base, so it measures real activity rather than recalled impressions.

This data lets us ask not just how the SME sector is doing, but how unevenly SMEs are faring relative to one another, and the dispersion is what the headline figure alone cannot show. It also lets us see how that economy is financed, a market we know directly as Australia’s largest non-bank provider of unsecured SME lending. 

The SME Economy Index is published within the Shift SME Economy Report, which also looks at other parts of the SME economy. This first edition focuses on two of them: liquidity, and SME spending on AI tools.

Liquidity matters a great deal for SMEs. It is one of the most reliable signals of how resilient a business is, and it can move counter to revenue. Our report shows exactly that happening over the past three years.

AI spend is clearly topical. Beyond tool adoption, though, how much SMEs spend on AI shows where they sit on the innovation curve and how much they are investing in productivity.

This report is part of an ongoing series we will continue to publish. The analysis is our own, alongside an independent view from Warren Hogan of EQ Economics, and the full methodology is published.

SMEs are too important, and too poorly measured, to sit at the margins of the national conversation. We hope the Shift SME Economy Index and Report brings the sector into sharper focus and helps stimulate the dialogue and attention it deserves.