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Sensis® Business Index

The quarterly Sensis® Business Index has been tracking SME confidence and behaviour since February 1995. It surveys 1,800 metropolitan and regional SMEs from areas such as manufacturing, wholesale and retail trade, hospitality, construction, communication, property, business services, health, community services, cultural and recreational industries.

Its primary objectives are to: 

  • track SME activity over the past quarter
  • track expectations over both the current three and 12-month periods, and
  • measure overall SME confidence.

Its secondary objective is providing an independent, objective assessment of the experiences and attitudes of SMEs on key issues.

Each report below will open as an Adobe Acrobat file in a new window.

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  • Yellow Pages® Business Index - November 1996

    November 1996

    Small business confidence remains low. Nationally, a net 43% of small business proprietors are confident about their own business prospects over the next 12 months — unchanged from the previous survey three months ago but well below the levels recorded immediately following the Federal election.

  • Yellow Pages® Business Index - August 1996

    August 1996

    Small business confidence has fallen sharply from the post election peak. Whereas a net 57% of properties had expressed confidence when surveyed in may, a net 43% only of proprietors are now confident about their prospects over the next 12 months.

    pdf icon YellowPages_BusinessIndex_Aug96.pdf (2.11MB)

  • Yellow Pages® Business Index - May 1996

    May 1996

    Small business confidence has fallen sharply from the post election peak. Whereas a net 57% of properties had expressed confidence when surveyed in may, a net 43% only of proprietors are now confident about their prospects over the next 12 months.

  • Yellow Pages® Business Index - February 1996

    February 1996

    Small business confidence increased significatly over the three months to February 1996. The rise in confidence nationally follows five consecutive quarters of falling confidence from the boom levels of 1994. A net 47% of proprietors surveyed in February expressed confidence in their own business prospects over th next 12 months compared with only 41% last November.

    pdf icon YellowPages_BusinessIndex_Feb96.pdf (1.91MB)

  • Yellow Pages® Business Index - November 1995

    November 1995

    Nationally, small business confidence remains strong and positive despite five consecutive quarters of decline from the peak of 1994. A net 41% of small business proprietors surveyed in November are confident about their business prospects in the 12 months ahead compared with 46% three months ago and the peak level of 65% in February, May and August 1994.

    pdf icon YellowPages_BusinessIndex_Nov95.pdf (113.50kB)

For more information on the Sensis® Business Index

For further information about commissioning Sensis to produce a report, please call:

Christena Singh, Report Author
Sensis Insights
03 8653 4896