The Hindu Business Line : Profit or loss, business owners feel the stress

OVER half of all business owners in India are more stressed now than they were just a year ago, according to Grant Thornton's 2005 International Business Owners Survey.

Research with more than 6,000 business owners in 24 countries shows that stress levels across the world have risen by more than a third, with 53 per cent of respondents from India saying their stress levels have increased within the year.

Top of the stress table are business owners in Taiwan, where a staggering 69 per cent — "more than two out of three" — of those questioned said their stress levels had increased or increased significantly in just a year. They were followed by Hong Kong (54 per cent), Turkey (54 per cent), Mexico (54 per cent), India (53 per cent), the Philippines (53 per cent), Japan (51 per cent), Russia (51 per cent) and South Africa (50 per cent), where half or more of those questioned said their stress levels had gone up.

However, those least affected were in Sweden, where only 23 per cent of business owners claimed their stress levels had gone up, the Netherlands (25 per cent) and Canada (26 per cent). Business owners in Mexico (30 per cent) are most likely to seek medical advice for stress while those in Sweden (4 per cent) are least likely.

Vishesh Chandiok, International Practice Partner, Grant Thornton, said, "Wherever you're doing business in the world, you are feeling the strain much more this year. Business is a big factor in how stressed people feel. But if we scratch beneath the surface, business owners can feel stressed by success as much as by failure."

Grant Thornton International has plotted the stress results against the growth in turnover experienced by these companies over the last three years. The results show five clear categories, where the degree of stress is caused for quite different reasons.

The `High Growth, High Stress Increase' countries are those whose businesses and economies have been booming. They have experienced higher-than-average increases in stress levels, but it is caused by positive trends and their ability to keep up. This group includes business owners in India, South Africa and Russia, all fast-expanding `emerging' economies. The survey found that 53 per cent of business owners in this category feel increased competition contributes to their stress and 48 per cent are stressed by increased customer expectations.

And despite the business differences, two things unite business owners all over the world as contributors to their stress levels: a third of respondents in every category claim they are stressed by not having enough leisure time and not having enough time to spend with friends and family.

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