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2026 Business outlook: What global leaders expect

Discover how international business leaders are responding to emerging risks, shifting priorities and new sources of resilience and what these trends mean for your organisation in 2026.

Perspective as intelligence

Every year, the ECN Business Outlook Survey serves as a mirror for leadership sentiment. Behind its aggregated results are hundreds of executives translating uncertainty into strategy. Their responses reveal how optimism is evolving, risk perceptions are shifting and investment intentions differ across regions.

The survey captures the lived experience of decision-makers managing volatility rather than commentary from the sidelines. Together, their perspectives create a collective intelligence network that can help leaders understand how their peers are approaching the year ahead.

Benchmarking the boardroom

In a fragmented business environment, benchmarking has become strategic currency. Understanding how peers view growth prospects, technology priorities and geopolitical threats allows leaders to assess their own assumptions and calibrate their plans.

The 2026 findings reveal both areas of alignment and important regional contrasts in confidence, investment and business priorities. Why are executives in some markets preparing to expand while others remain cautious? Where is enthusiasm for artificial intelligence accelerating, and where does uncertainty persist?

Examining these differences can turn aggregated executive sentiment into practical foresight.

From insight to influence

Over the past decade, ECN’s Business Outlook research has informed discussions within our network and among policymakers, investors and academics seeking to understand corporate sentiment.

The collective voice of business leaders helps define what confidence and resilience mean in practice – not as abstract statistics, but as factors shaping decisions about capital, talent, technology and operational strategy.

The 2026 results continue this tradition, providing a timely view of how international businesses are responding to uncertainty and where leaders see credible opportunities for growth.

Leadership through informed decision-making

In uncertain times, effective leadership depends not only on setting a clear strategy but also on understanding the wider environment in which that strategy will be executed.

The survey findings provide leaders with an opportunity to compare their expectations with those of their peers, challenge internal assumptions and identify developments that may require closer attention. This broader perspective can support strategic planning, scenario modelling and more informed conversations within leadership teams.

The power of collective insight

When hundreds of leaders share their outlooks, a richer and more nuanced picture of the global economy emerges – one that combines optimism with realism.

That collective perspective can help organisations navigate what no single forecast can fully predict: the human dimensions of confidence, caution and change.

In this on-demand webinar, our lead analysts explored the core findings of Corporate Network’s 2026 edition of the Business outlook survey. They examined how your peers are interpreting new risks and where they are identifying genuine resilience. This session moves beyond the data to offer a practical interpretation of executive sentiment and the real-world implications for operations in 2026.

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