Cost of doing business remains concern

Business owners have gained confidence about the economy and their companies, according to a new SunTrust Banks survey, but challenges still loom.

“Many businesses are expressing increased confidence with capital investment, hiring and expansion plans,” SunTrust commercial and business banking executive Tom Kuntz says in a release.

But those challenges, says SunTrust, are the fearsome foursome that scares nearly every entrepreneur: an increase in operating costs, which 52% of survey respondents consider a top challenge; new or evolving government regulation, which 38% worry about; delayed payments from customers, cited by 36% of business owners; and changes to benefits, cited by 35%.

About 1,675 small and mid-size business owners participated in the survey commissioned by Atlanta-based SunTrust. A key finding, past the challenges, was 65% of leaders at companies with annual revenues of $10 million to $100 million say they feel better about their company's financial well-being than last year. That's up from 38% who responded that way in the 2012 survey.

Those feel-good results, according to the survey, are duplicated for businesses with annual revenues of $1 million to $10 million. Nearly two-thirds of those respondents, 62%, say their company's financial well-being is better in 2013 than 2012, while 30% say it's the same year-over-year.